It’s easy to become so focused on how Career and Technical Education can prepare students for the workforce of the future while fulfilling the labor needs of construction trades and other industries that some of the broader benefits of CTE get lost in the details.
A recent piece by Bruno V. Manno, published under the American Enterprise Institute’s “Sketching a New Conservative Education Agenda” brand does an excellent job of highlighting those benefits. I’d argue that this piece by Manno, a senior adviser for the Walton Family Foundation K–12 Education Program, puts forth ideas that aren’t philosophically conservative as much as they are sensible and compelling. I worry a bit that putting the ‘conservative’ label on ideas during this overheated political season will cause some people to discount them. That would be unfortunate.
Manno’s piece runs just 2-½ pages, so I urge you to read the entire thing. But here is my quick summary of the key point he makes in the document.
One of the primary purposes of high school over the past century has been to help young people build relationships that help accumulate social capital. On one level, schools have done this well. But on another, they have failed too many of their students. “Relationships are resources that can lead to developing and accumulating human capital and opportunity networks that are key to unlocking social mobility and opportunity,” he says.
Manno distinguishes between two types of social capital.
Schools have proven adept at building what he calls bonding social capital: “Creating group networks that not only satisfy the need to be with others like ourselves but also provide personal emotional support, companionship, and validation.”
Where they have been less successful is in helping students develop bridging social capital: “Connections with individuals different than ourselves that expand knowledge, social circles, and resources across race, class, and religion.”
In other words, schools have struggled to help kids burst out of their bubbles and into a broader world, and this failure has constrained the upward mobility of too many of our young people, particularly those of color.
Manno posits that an expansion of “community career pathways partnership models” would lead to an expansion of bridging social capital. Such models should develop a sequenced academic curriculum, expose students to work and careers by middle school, include “employers, industries, and other mediating institutions” in the programs, and push for policies that facilitate expansion of CTE programs.
I find the distinction between bonding and bridging social capital to be extremely useful as I think about designing the first Untapped Potential Project high school. Give Bruno’s piece a read and let me know what you think.