Congratulations ACTEAZ!
Congratulations to all who contribute in making ACTEAZ the association it is today and helping it grow for tomorrow. We have been awarded the Quality Association Award by ACTE National again this year. The award was presented to ACTEAZ at the ACTE Annual Convention on November 18th, 2011 in St. Louis, MO.
The purpose of the Quality Association Standards (QAS) is to provide benchmarks for state associations to determine levels of performance and satisfactory service to their members and prospective members. QAS should be useful to states in evaluating their basic organization and whether their leadership is providing minimum, average or superior programs for the membership.
This award also signifies a high level of service that the state association delivers to its members as well as the way in which the President and Board advocates for career and technical education in Arizona. This award shows that the association continues to strive for excellence and provides the best leadership for the state association and its members.
Exciting Times for
Career Technical Education
It is easy to look at the loss of ninth grade funding and conclude that CTE is in decline, passé, yesterday’s news or worse. Nothing could be further from the truth. While the loss of funding was a significant setback, the fundamentals are strong and getting stronger. We truly are entering our best days. The research is telling us that CTE truly is the model for educational reform and suggests that all of education would do well to emulate our delivery system.
Delivery system? Hmmm….CTE is a “delivery system”? Indeed it is! CTE is not just what we teach, it is how we teach. We teach using rigorous instruction in the classroom, application in the shop or lab, motivation through student organizations, and extended educational experiences through work-based learning. Add to that the real-world application of math, English, and science and you’ve got a system of delivering instruction that is unparalleled. Remember, it is relevance that makes rigor possible!
We were honored to have Dr. Willard Daggett as the Keynote speaker for the ACTE Summer Conference. He challenged us by asking why we think that “doing a better job of what we’ve always done” is a worthy goal. While much of what we’ve “always done” is excellent and will serve us well in the future, much needs to change. We need to reach a new generation of learners. This transformation will require more than just embracing the newest technology. It will ask us to be creative with scheduling classes. It may demand a new definition for what a “class” is. It may require fundamental changes to our system of compensating teachers. It will likely involve business and industry at a level we are not used to. It will require a “turn-on-a-dime” responsiveness to the needs of the workforce that the educational bureaucracy has heretofore been unable to provide. Are we up to the challenge? We teach our students to be 21st century learners. We have an opportunity to model for them what that looks like. We are up to the challenge.
Have a wonderful year!
Curt Bertelsen,
ACTEAZ 2011-2012 President