New Mexico Educators Visit Oklahoma’s Model CareerTech System

“You’ve got to see how Oklahoma does it.” That message repeated loud and clear from across the country convinced a New Mexico delegation of State Education Program Administrators to take a three-day road trip.

Charged with the task of planning the creation of career-technical education centers in New Mexico, a delegation from the New Mexico Public Education Department (NMPED) came to Oklahoma to see first hand how the state’s storied CareerTech system is structured.

“When we (the public education department) were legislatively charged to implement the planning for the design, construction and equipping of career technical-vocational education centers, we wanted to see a system that had been proven effective over the years,” said Eric Spencer. Spencer is state director for Business and Marketing Education and staff manager for NMPED. “Oklahoma kept coming up in conversations all across the country, so we decided to come here and see what everyone was talking about.”

Those visiting from New Mexico were Georgetta Cummings, state director for Health Education; Frank Fort, state director for Family and Consumer Sciences Education; Sandra Castillo, state director for Agricultural Education; and Spencer.

To learn how the Oklahoma system works, the New Mexico delegation received an overview of the state agency and organization of the Oklahoma CareerTech system from the state administrators. They also visited five of the 29 technology centers including Francis Tuttle, Oklahoma City; Mid-Del, Midwest City; Canadian Valley, El Reno; Eastern Oklahoma County, Choctaw, and Central Tech, Drumright. Each campus is representative of urban, rural or metropolitan areas of the state.

They also visited the state agency testing and curriculum development divisions and the print plant, and the new pre-engineering academy for sophomores located on Francis Tuttle’s Bruce Gray campus.

“We receive groups several times each year from across the United States and other countries. They have come from as far away as Brazil, China and Germany,” said Phil Berkenbile. Berkenbile is the CareerTech state director. “They come because our system’s structure is diverse, effective and unique from other delivery systems for CareerTech education.”

The New Mexico public education system currently has seven occupational CareerTech program areas in comprehensive high schools found in the state’s 89 school districts. Each district has some form of CareerTech education, according to Spencer. Post-secondary adult programs are found in community colleges.

In Oklahoma, junior and senior high school students are enrolled in the seven CareerTech occupational programs on 565 school campuses across the state. Adults, who are re-careering or learning new skills, attend their local technology center campus with high school students, as well. Many of these students take advantage of programs that also earn college credit through more than 350 cooperative agreements between technology centers and higher educational institutions across the state.

In addition, hundreds of business and industry partners also receive customized training at the local tech center or on-site at the workplace. CareerTech Skills Centers located in 25 Oklahoma prisons train inmates with skills to help them land jobs that will help keep them from reentering the correctional system once released.

If a bond issue passes in New Mexico next fall, career-technical education centers will begin to be deployed, perhaps incorporating some of Oklahoma’s processes and structure.

“The Governor supported a legislative bill that was passed which allowed $225,000 to plan for the development of CareerTech education centers,” Spencer said. “Then in the fall, voters will be asked to approve a bond for $10 million to fund model CareerTech centers. If the bond passes, according to NM HB 293, each center will include a state-of-the-art program that prepares eligible charter and other high school juniors and seniors as they transition into college career programs and technical centers.”

The New Mexico legislation driving the changes is to prepare high school juniors and seniors for successful high school completion, transitioning into either college career programs or entry into technical careers – with elements similar to Oklahoma’s unique system, Spencer said.

“We want to know how Oklahoma rolls out programs in urban, rural, comprehensive senior high schools and for post-secondary adults,” Spencer said. “We also want to find out about student interaction between the high school and adult students.”

By visiting some of Oklahoma’s technology centers, the New Mexico educators observed post-secondary programs working in concert with secondary programs, as well as the local connections with economic development in Oklahoma, according to Spencer.

“Elements from the Oklahoma system will be benchmarks as the New Mexico delegation returns home and begins to compare the existing career-technical education structure to that of Oklahoma’s,” he said.

 

On a three-day-tour of Oklahoma’s CareerTech system, the delegation of educational administrators from New Mexico Public Education Department winds up the tour at the CareerTech Curriculum and Instructional Materials Center (CIMC) in Stillwater. Shown from the left are, Belinda McCharen, associate state director at the state CareerTech agency; Sandra Castillo NM state director for Agricultural Education; Frank Fort, NM state director for Family and Consumer Sciences Education; Georgetta Cummings, NM state director for Health Education; Eric Spencer, NM state director for Business and Marketing Education and staff manager for NMPED; and Kimberly Sadler, coordinator of Instructional Systems at the state CareerTech agency.

 

posted June 7, 2004