ON THE JOURNEY WITH CLUSTER LEADERS

1. ON THE JOURNEY WITH CLUSTER LEADERS

2. The Journey Begins. . . • U.S. Department Of Education Identification of Career Clusters • 1996: Linkages Projects • 1998: 2nd Group Linkages Projects • 2000: States’ Career Clusters Initiative • 2002: Charleston, SC

3. The Journey Continues. . . • 2002: NASDCTEc/NCTEF and their partners said “The Career Clusters framework provides a career-focused strategy for Career Technical Education that supports: • Workforce Preparation • Economic Development • Educational Reform

4. The Journey Needs a Road. . . • NASDCTEc Board • Vision and Policy: Business Plan • Career Clusters Task Force • Career Clusters Committee • NCTEF Board • Strategies to carry out the work of the Business Plan • Career Cluster Leadership Committee

5. The Journey Needs a Map. . . • Mission, Goals, Criteria • Business Plan • Endorsed Products/Services/Resources • Licensing of the Knowledge and Skills AND. . .(Drum Roll)

6. The Journey Needs Drivers. . . • Cluster Leader: the national, visible champion for a Career Cluster who is a “convener” for the entire Cluster community.

7. NATIONAL COUNCIL FOR AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION The National Council for Agricultural Education (The Council) strives to stimulate positive growth in agricultural education.  Since its beginning in December 1983, The Council has provided leadership for stakeholders in agriculture, food, fiber and natural resources systems education. It strives to surface issues important to agricultural education and stimulate actions to support those issues. The Council serves as a common meeting ground for agricultural education and represents organizations and entities representing students, teachers, teacher educators, state leaders, alumni, industry, and government.The Council promotes success for students and teachers who participate in the formal agricultural education instructional programs offered in grades seven through adult throughout the 50 states and three U.S. territories.

8. HOME BUILDERS INSTITUTE The Home Builders Institute (HBI), the workforce development arm of the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB), has a 40-year history in education and training in residential construction. Dedicated to promoting the industry and its many career opportunities, HBI works to provide the membership with an adequate supply of professional, technical and skilled trades personnel — a workforce to build and maintain our nation’s homes.  

9. VOCATIONAL-TECHNICAL EDUCATION CONSORTIUM OF STATES (VTECS) VTECS is a state led research and development organization that has been committed to the improvement of career and technical education instructional content and assessment strategies since 1973. This organization has a long history of working with a variety of state and federal agencies to promote the systematic research, development, and implementation of competency-based vocational-technical education and training. This effort is accomplished by actively involving public and private agencies in the analysis of occupations and the organization of occupational- based information using representatives of business, industry, and labor as the primary sources for identification and verification of the information. VTECS has been directly involved in Career Clusters since its inception in 1994, and they continue to work with NASDCTEc and NCTEC to carry out the annual Career Clusters Institutes and to revalidate the Career Clusters information.

10. Cluster Co-Leader CAREER COMMUNICATIONS, INC Career Communications, Inc. is a leading educational publisher based in Overland Park, Kansas. Since 1990, CCI has published standards-based American Careers academic and career development programs. These programs for high school, middle school and elementary classrooms include student publications and teaching guides that integrate career content with true-to-life lessons in math, science, social studies, language arts and more. This organization is also recognized as “strong supporters of CTE at the state and national levels through active participation on boards and committees of NASDCTEc, the Association for Career and Technical Education, the National Technical Honor Society and career-technical student organizations. CCI has been a long time advocate of the States’ Career Clusters Initiative and won a Business/Industry/Labor award from NASDCTEc’s Stars of Education in 2004.

11. Cluster Co-Leader THE MICHIGAN DEPARTMENT OF LABOR & ECONOMIC GROWTH (DLEG) The Michigan Department of Labor & Economic Growth promotes job creation and economic growth in Michigan by centralizing and streamlining the state's job, workforce, and economic development and career training functions under one department. This organization strives to enrich the lives of its residents by using the creativity and commitment of their staff and partners to develop the tools needed to inspire innovation, attract the best and brightest, grow entrepreneurs, gain and retain business, protect core industries, enhance our urban and rural communities, nurture diversity, foster inclusion, promote excellence in education, strengthen the workforce and encourage new technology. The Office of Career and Technical Preparation in DLEG served as cluster leader for the Education & Training cluster during 2000-2002 under the U.S. Department of Education federal project for Career Clusters. They have continued to be involved in the Education and Training Cluster since 2002.

12. THE NATIONAL CONSORTIUM ON HEALTH SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY EDUCATION The National Consortium on Health Science and Technology Education is a national partnership of individuals and organizations with a vested interest in health science and technology education. Organized in 1991, its purpose is to stimulate creative and innovative leadership for ensuring a well prepared health care workforce. Primary strategies include fostering collaboration among educational agencies, the health care community, policy-making bodies, and labor.NCHSTE also supports research on critical healthcare workforce issues and works to influence the design and delivery of health science education programs.

13. COMPTIA CompTIA is the leading association representing the international technology community. Its goal is to provide a unified voice, global advocacy and leadership, and to advance IT industry growth through standards, professional competence, education and business solutions. CompTIA also serves the IT industry as the world's largest developer of vendor-neutral IT certification exams. Experts and industry leaders from the public and private sectors, including training, academia and government work with CompTIA to develop broad-based, foundational exams that validate an individual's IT skill set. This group of experts provides the resources and subject matter expertise necessary to build regularly updated vendor-neutral industry-defined exams for many technology areas including PC and server technology and support, networking, information security and project management.

14. NATIONAL PARTNERSHIP FOR CAREERS IN LAW, PUBLIC SAFETY, CORRECTIONS AND SECURITY Mission: To build and support career development programs and systems that ensure seamless transitions by linking and integrating secondary and post secondary education, professional certifications, and organizational recruitment, employment, training and retention systems In 2004, the National Partnership for Careers in Law, Public Safety, Corrections and Security was created through the merger of two national organizations. As a result the National Partnership is the only organization with its sole mission to support secondary and post secondary career programs in law, law enforcement, fire services, corrections, security, emergency services and homeland security.

15. MarkED/Career Paths Established in 1971, MarkED/Career Paths is a not-for-profit curriculum research center specializing in business careers, work-based learning, and employability skills.  The organization is operated by a 40-state consortium of state education departments.  MarkED’s goals focus on curriculum research,  instructional tools, professional development, and advocacy.  Recent key initiatives include support of four Career Clusters (including three as Cluster Leader for the States’ Career Clusters Initiative), development of national curriculum standards for Marketing, Management, Entrepreneurship, and Business Administration, and establishment of the National Institute for Assessment of Skills and Knowledge of Business.

16. NATIONAL COUNCIL FOR ADVANCED MANUFACTURING (NACFAM) The National Council for Advanced Manufacturing (NACFAM) is an industry-led, policy research organization, working collaboratively since 1989 with key leaders from industry, education, and government, to shape public policies and programs to make U.S. manufacturing globally competitive.  It convenes its members and other key stakeholders to identify, research, formulate, and communicate proposals in a non-partisan, non-lobbying environment.  Participants include small, medium and large manufacturing firms, associations, universities and community colleges, members of Congress and their staffs, federal agencies, and other organizations. NACFAM believes that manufacturing stakeholders can collaborate to create a more “pull-based” workforce system.  Furthermore, emphasis must be placed on the increasingly important role of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education, reflecting the dynamic needs of the economy, while allowing students and workers – including at risk workers – to continuously upgrade their skills.

17. . PROJECT LEAD THE WAY, INC. We will create dynamic partnerships with our nation’s schools to prepare an increasing and more diverse group of students to be successful in science, engineering and engineering technology programs. With this mission, Project Lead The Way, Inc. was created in 1997 to address the projected shortage of engineers and engineering technologists in the United States. The program started with 11 pilot sites in 1997 in upstate New York. The PLTW pre-engineering curriculum will be taught in over 1600 high schools and middle schools in September 2005. A 501 (c)(3), not-for-profit organization, Project Lead The Way offers five 9 week integrated units of study at the middle school level called Gateway To Technology. Its Pathway To Engineering high school program consists of eight full year courses. More information on PLTW is available at http://www.pltw.org

18. To obtain more information about the Cluster Leaders, please visit our Web site at: www.careerclusters.org

19. Don’t Leave Home Without… Career Clusters!