Florida is using high school and middle school IT career academies, industry certifications and local business involvement to build a statewide IT skills pipeline to extend into college and the workplace.
The pioneering effort comes at a time when companies across the United States are reporting a shortage of qualified IT professionals to fill jobs. Nearly 300,000 IT jobs nationwide remain unfilled as of November 2012, according to Indeed.com. Florida reports it had more than 65,000 online job openings in the sciences, technology, engineering and math fields in November 2012—up 14 percent over the prior year. To meet this increasing demand, the state is making STEM education a priority for its children.
Career academies—standalone and school-within-a-school programs —are small learning communities that integrate academic and technical courses around career themes. Florida's career academy system educated more than 32,000 students in 274 IT-themed high school career academies during the 2011-2012 school year. Also this school year, Florida became the first state in the nation to offer the Microsoft IT Academy to middle school students.
Overall, the system's goals are to:
- Improve middle and high school academic performance by providing education programming that is challenging and relevant
- Equip students with technology, academic and business skills that they can use wherever their career or higher-education interests take them
- Strengthen Florida's workforce with highly-skilled employees that the state's industries so desperately needs
"I just love working with technology," says Hunter Iemmolo, a Martin County High School junior who joined his IT Career Academy "by accident" when the school, a CompTIA Academy partner, assigned him to an "Intro to IT" course to fill his freshman year first semester schedule. CompTIA provides academy partners with resources to plan and implement an effective IT curriculum.
During the past two years, Iemmolo earned his CompTIA A+, CompTIA Network+ and Microsoft Certified Master Application Specialist certifications. Now he studies Windows 7 configuration and Windows Enterprise Desktop support at school and also works part-time as a technical support engineer for C&W Computers.
"It's what I love doing," he says, adding that he plans to earn his Microsoft Certified IT Professional and CompTIA Security+ credentials, go to college for computer science "and see where my skills take me."
"It's a great learning opportunity, not only for life but also for college. It will look good on my resume," says sixth grader Sam Crombie about his participation in the new Microsoft IT Career Academy at Hidden Oaks Middle School in Palm City, Fla. (IT is Crombie's back-up plan to his main goal of becoming a lawyer.)
>RELATED: Non-Profit Finds Career Academies Make a Big Difference
CAPE Act Impact
Career academies have operated nationally for about 40 years, and Florida has regularly invested in developing and improving its career academies since the 1990s. However, Florida's career academies did not see rapid growth until after state legislators passed the 2007 Career and Professional Education (CAPE) Act.
Sponsored by state Sen. Don Gaetz, a former school superintendent, the 2007 CAPE Act requires each Florida school district to:
- Establish at least one career academy, and
- Partner with local employers, chambers of commerce, economic development groups and post-secondary institutions to develop a strategic 3-year plan to address and meet local and regional workforce demands.
These planning partnerships are crucial, says Kathleen Taylor, bureau chief for standards, benchmarks and frameworks at the Florida Department of Education's Division of Career and Adult Education.
"They work together to examine 'What are the employers' needs? How can we provide that in middle school and high school?' " Taylor said. "It's a win-win for students and employers in the area."
Florida's CAPE Act also changed the funding for career and technical programming to pay additional funding to school districts when its students earn an industry certification on the state's list of approved credentials and graduates with a standard high school diploma. This bonus can range from $200 to $800 per certification, depending on a certification's degree of rigor and employment value.
This funding was initially open only to high schools, but last year was extended to middle schools. Next year, the state will open the industry certification incentives to its network of community colleges, according to Frank Fuller, policy advisor for the Florida Senate President's Office.
The goal is for Florida's career academies to be a "stronger feeder system for the universities and the work force," Fuller says.
IT is Florida's most frequent academy career "cluster," followed by Health Sciences and Hospitality & Tourism. State and local officials promote the universal usefulness of IT skills and programming. "Technology usage is no longer something that only specialists do," says Fuller. "It's a basic work skill set for all employees."
Certification-Centric Curriculum
They work together to examine 'What are the employers' needs? How can we provide that in middle school and high school?' It's a win-win for students and employers in the area.
Before the CAPE Act, Florida career academies varied greatly in size, structure, and organization because there were no formal state-sanctioned criteria for career academies. Now Florida uses industry certification attainment as one measure of success for academies.
"The CAPE Act legislation really opened the eyes of a lot of people to the importance of industry certifications and just how valued they are," says Dr. Connie Collins, principal of the highly regarded Crooms Academy of Information Technology (Crooms AOIT), a magnet high school and CompTIA Academy partner in Sanford, Fla., that has offered certification training since 2000.
State education officials now work with the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity and the statewide, business-led workforce policy board Workforce Florida Inc. to annually identify industry certifications that are valuable to Florida's economy. IT industry certifications approved for funding bonuses include credentials from CompTIA, Microsoft, Adobe, AutoDesk, Apple, Cisco, Certification Partners/CIW and Oracle.
Florida legislators continue to tweak the state's career academy system. A new law now permits Florida students to pursue industry certifications on an accelerated schedule starting in middle school. In addition, the state Department of Education negotiated statewide agreements by which students can receive credit at local community colleges for the industry certifications they earned in high school. For example, the CompTIA A+ certification earned in a high school IT academy could be applied as a minimum of three credit hours towards an associate degree in computer information technology at one of Florida's community colleges.
"Sixty-five percent of the industry certifications are articulated directly to college credit in the Florida college system," says Fuller.
Career-Oriented College Prep
Florida's IT career academy programming features college prep curriculum on a career theme. Lessons about job search, workplace and business skills are frequently combined with technical courses.
For example, Crooms AOIT students work a four-year program that offers tracks in business computer programming, web development, digital design, new media technology, PC support services, along with game/simulation/animation programming and visual design.
Their curriculum includes not only AP and Honors classes in English, biology, physics, chemistry and calculus, but also a four-year career plan: a Junior Achievement's Success Skills program in ninth grade, a Chamber of Commerce Success at Work program in tenth, job shadowing in eleventh, and internships in twelfth grade.
"Our students leave here with a strong enough background to enter any college or university," says Collins. "They also have vital technology skills to gain access to jobs even as they work their way through college."
Building Ties to Business, Higher Education
The CAPE Act made Florida's career academies the "pivot point" for academics, industry and links to higher education, says Duane Hume, supervisor of IT/engineering and technology education for Florida's Department of Education. "Students benefit, schools benefit, teachers benefit, industry benefits—everybody wins. There's no loser in this scheme."
For example, Martin County School District recently embarked on a strategic planning process that involved 30 business partners, 30 career and technical education teachers, and 30 students. "You need your partnerships with everybody working together as one team, with one shared vision, one goal," says Martin County CTE Program Administrator Constance Scotchel-Gross.
At Crooms AOIT, Symantec Corp. started out as a sponsor, buying an exhibit table at Crooms AOIT TechFest fundraiser seven years ago. Now about 20 Symantec employees from the company's Heathrow, Fla., offices volunteer at Crooms AOIT, serving on advisory committees, mentoring students and giving feedback on projects.
Kim Madler, senior development manager in Symantec's Engineering Information Management Group, is a member of the Crooms' Business Advisory Council. She reports that she and other Symantec employees gain deep personal satisfaction in helping the school and its students.
"The school is amazing," she says. "The students are there to learn, and their passion for learning just radiates."
The CAPE Act mandated structures that have made it easy for Symantec to contribute to Crooms AOIT. "It's a fantastic partnership," Madler says. "Everyone knows their place on the business advisory council. Everyone participates fully and wholeheartedly to make the school better."
Each year Symantec hires a handful of interns from Crooms AOIT. "They are invaluable to us," says Madler. "They come to us highly trained, and we put them to work right then and there." At least one Crooms AOIT graduate now works for Symantec as a full-time employee.
Companies like Symantec need IT career academies "to stay on the cutting edge in technology," says Madler. "The curriculum needs to be fresh and reflect the technology of today along with core concepts, creating that foundation, as well as soft skills."
Fuller is pleased with the progress of the state's career academy system but projects that the IT career academy network alone needs to be three to five times larger.
"Since 2007, we've had a steady stream (of CAPE IT Academy graduates) moving into post secondary and into the work force," Fuller says. "We're still not meeting demand in Florida in terms of training folks in IT, but we're getting there."
