Gov. Pat McCrory on Monday signed into law Senate Bill 14, a fast-moving piece of legislation that will add career and college endorsements to high school diplomas and make other major improvements to Career and Technical Education (CTE).
Less than three weeks after the NC General Assembly convened its long session on Jan. 30, the bill became law. The Carolinas AGC helped put together a presentation with CTE supporters, including two students and former CAGC Board Chair Bill Downey, in testifying at a CTE legislative committee meeting on the merits of expanding CTE throughout the state’s public high schools. Approval of the legislation, a top priority that CAGC has been working on for a decade in touting the merits of vocational education, will bring much more focus on CTE by directing the State Board of Education to, among other things:
- Add career and college endorsements to high school diplomas, beginning with the 2014-15 school year. The bill directs schools to develop curriculums that focus more on career and technical education and would provide an endorsement with a high school diploma as “college ready,” “career ready,” or both.
- Coordinate NC Teacher Corp member placement in schools needing CTE teachers. The corp was established in 2012 to recruit and place recent graduates of colleges/universities and mid-career professionals as teachers in high-needs public schools.
- Revise CTE licensure requirements and improve alternative professional development models for CTE teachers who may not have extensive teaching or classroom management experience.
- Work with the State Board of Community Colleges to develop ways to increase the number of CTE students in engineering and industrial technologies as well as other occupations with high numbers of employment opportunities.
- Report on the progress of these directives to the Joint Legislative Education Oversight Committee in 2014. Read More.