PLSO May June 2019

13 Professional Land Surveyors of Oregon | www.plso.org Featured Article C areer and Technical Education (CTE) is not something new. In fact, vocational training became official when the Federal Government passed the Smith-Hughes National Vocational Act of 1917. Thirteen years ago, “CTE” was coined with passage of the Carl D. Perkins Career and Techni- cal Education Act of 2006. Semantics notwithstanding, CTE has been around in one way or another for the past 100 years and long before that on a less formal basis. The vocational training I knew in high school consisted of classes geared towards students who struggled with core curriculum or otherwise were not college-bound. Classrooms were always dingy and on the other side of campus from normal classes, which is a far cry from the CTE I’ve seen over the last three years. State of the art facilities and students who are smart, curious, and driven make me think CTE is an un- tapped resource for developing the next generation of land surveyors. What exactly is CTE? According to careertech.org, CTE “provides students of all ages with the academic and technical skills, knowledge, and training necessary to succeed in future careers and to be- come lifelong learners.” CTE is typically delivered through high schools, acad- emies, and career centers and weaves technical education in with core curric- ulum. For example, at the Career and Technical Education Center (CTEC) in Salem, Oregon, students in the Drone & Robotics program learn how to build and program a drone in their technical class, study the math behind its design and operation in math class, and write a technical report or instruction manu- al in English class. Instructors teach soft skills both large and small that will serve them throughout their lives such as pro- fessionalism, the value of a hand shake, communication, and curiosity. All the meanwhile professionals from industry come in to give the students real-world perspective on the skills they are learning and work with CTE instructors to mix the- ory, application, experience, and real life. CTE has a successful record of gradua- tion rates. The Association for Career and Technical Education (ACTE) states, “The average high school graduation rate for students concentrating in CTE programs is 93 percent, compared to an average national freshman graduation rate of 80 percent, and 91 percent of high school graduates who earned 2–3 CTE credits en- rolled in college. ”We are often skeptical of such statistics, but in my experience CTE changes students’ lives. It takes students from wavering around in high school to being focused, motivated, and looking toward the future with purpose, which is why reaching out and working with a local CTE educator can help grow our profession. I learned about CTE in 2017 when Salem’s CTEC campus asked the PLSOWillamette ODOT’s Brett Murphy describing GNSS RTK – photo courtesy of the Oregon Department of Transportation continues T