Counseling for Careers
2015 Collaborative Conference for
Student Achievement
Greensboro, North Carolina
March 30, 2015
Lois J. Barnes
Lois.barnes@sreb.org
Southern Regional
Education Board
Session Objectives
Participants will:
 Explore the changing nature of the
workforce and the implications on
academic and career counseling
 Examine various Counseling for Careers
components
Southern Regional
Education Board
What is SREB?
Southern Regional
Education Board
The Southern Regional
Education Board (SREB)
 Founded in 1948 to improve higher
education; expanded to include K-12 in
1980
 Nonprofit, nonpartisan organization
 Work with state educational and policy
leaders in member states
 Work with district and school leaders in
middle grades, high schools and
technology centers to improve student
achievement and completion rates
Southern Regional
Education Board
SREB School and Leadership
Initiatives
 High Schools That Work (HSTW) - 1987:
 28 sites; 2013 – 1,000+ sites in 30+ states
 Making Middle Grades Work (MMGW) - 1998
 1998 – 25 pilot sites; 2013 – 450+ sites in
21 states
 Learning Centered Leadership Program
(LCLP) - 2000
 Technology Centers That Work (TCTW) –
2007
 180 sites in 2013
 Advanced Careers (AC)
 12 High-skill, High-wage fields in 2014
Southern Regional
Education Board
HSTW Priorities for
Improvement
1. Challenging Career Pathways
o Advanced Career
o Enhanced CTE
o Expand school- and work-based
learning
2. Robust assignments in academic studies
3. Literacy in all classrooms with focus on
grades nine and 10
4. Balanced Approach to Teaching Math
with focus on grades nine and 10
Southern Regional
Education Board
HSTW Priorities
5. Counseling for Careers
 Career Exploration
 Plan to achieve goal
 Advisement Program
6. Extra help to meet raised expectations
7. Senior Transition Courses
8. Organizational structure for teams of
teachers to work together
9. Leadership for continuous improvement
and to support teacher development
Southern Regional
Education Board
Counseling for Careers
Southern Regional
Education Board
Why Counseling for Careers
A career focus:
 Provides students with a vision for the
future
 Motivates students by correlating their
goals and dreams with an investment in
education
 Exposes students and teachers to the
necessary tools for education, careers,
life success
 Helps students make meaningful and
quantitative postsecondary plans
Southern Regional
Education Board
HSTW 2014 Assessment
Counseling for Careers Indicators
Student Survey
• I set and pursue goals.
• I have defined what a successful life would look like for
me.
• I have a dream or passion for what I want to become.
• I have spent time researching possible careers.
• I know what jobs and careers will be in high demand.
• A counselor or adult has helped me understand my
strengths, skills, aptitudes and abilities.
• A counselor or adult has helped me think about
potential career goals.
Southern Regional
Education Board
Percentage of Students Meeting Readiness
Goals by Level of Emphasis in
Counseling for Careers
68%
67%
64%
58%
57%
56%
39%
34%
34%
Reading
Mathematics
Low
Southern Regional
Education Board
Moderate
Science
Intensive
Counseling for Careers provides the
mechanism for ensuring that students
know what is needed to be successful, that
they are taking the appropriate coursework,
and engaging in the necessary activities in
order to achieve their goals for the future.
Southern Regional
Education Board
Educating About Changes
in the Workforce
“Failure to Launch”
Delayed
career launch
Declining
employment
Stagnant
earnings
Educational
Deficits
Source: Failure to Launch; Anthony P. Carnevale, Andrew R. Hanson,
Artem Gulish, Georgetown Public Policy Institute, Georgetown
Southern Regional
University, 2013
Education Board
Occupations of Young Men
(18-29)
STEM
6%
8%
10%
16%
6%
8%
18%
23%
Managerial/professio
nal office
Food/personal
service
Sales/office support
Blue-collar
54%
36%
1980
Southern Regional
Education Board
2010
Source: Failure to Launch;
Anthony P. Carnevale, Andrew R.
Hanson, Artem Gulish, Georgetown
Public Policy Institute, Georgetown
University, 2013
Educating About Changes
in the Workforce
Mini- Jigsaw Reading
Southern Regional
Education Board
High-Skill, High-Wage,
High-Demand Jobs
Southern Regional
Education Board
What Are High Skill/High Demand
Careers?
 Need in economy
 More openings than prepared workers
(may be relative)
 Requires credentials or degrees and at least
some postsecondary education
 defined as those whose median wage is
greater than the median for all occupations
(annual mean wage is $45,790)
Southern Regional
Education Board
U.S. Labor Market
Talent Shortages 2010-2020
Category
Shortfall
All Jobs
3M – 6.1M
Nurses
340K – 1M
Doctors
55K-200K
Health Technicians
200K – 400K
Information Technology
500K – 1M
Engineers
50K – 250K
Teachers
500K – 1M
Scientists
100K – 200K
Southern Regional
Education Board
Getting Serious About Preparing
Students for Middle-Skill Jobs
 47% of all new job openings from 2010
to 2020 will fall into the middle-skill
range
Source: Harvard Business Review, 2012/12, Who Can Fix the
“Middle Skills” Gap?
Southern Regional
Education Board
Getting Serious About Preparing
Students for Middle-Skill Jobs
 There are 29 million “middle jobs” in the
United States that pay $35,000 or more on
average and don’t require a Bachelor’s
degree.
Career and Technical Education: Five Ways that Pay on the Way to
the B.A., Anthony P. Carneval ,Tamara Jayasundera, and Andrew R.
Hanson, Georgetown University, Center on Education and the Workfoce
Southern Regional
Education Board
Getting Serious About Preparing
Students for Middle-Skill Jobs
A large percentage of the workforce in industries
and occupations that rely on STEM knowledge
and skills are technicians, including others who
enter and advance in their field through subbaccalaureate degrees and certificates or
through workplace training.”
U.S. Department of Labor
Southern Regional
Education Board
How many of your students know?
 One-half of new jobs in the next decade will require
some education beyond high school but less than a
college degree — passing employer certification
exams, earning certificates or associate’s degrees.
 40 percent of mid-skill jobs will earn more than the
average salary of those with bachelor’s degrees.
How many of their parents know?
Are we introducing our students to these careers?
How do we introduce our students to these careers?
Southern Regional
Education Board
Seven Essential Strategies
for Connecting Students to a Goal Beyond
High School: Counseling for Careers
1. Assignments/lessons where students discover the
connection between the classroom and their future
2. An evidence- and standards-based
academic/personal/career advisement system
3. A transition/exploratory initiative (eighth grade and
freshmen)
4. A Pathway of Study/Career Cluster Concentration area
5. Individual, personalized education and career plans for all
students
6. Education and career awareness and exploration
opportunities
7. Increased parent and community partnerships
Southern Regional
Education Board
Strategy #1 – Reality-Based
Assignments
 Find your responses to the Do Now and
share them with a “shoulder partner.”
What does it mean to be successful?
 How do you think your students would
define “being successful”?
 How can an English/Language Arts
assignment be connected to counseling
for careers?
Southern Regional
Education Board
Strategy #2: A Structured, StandardsBased Academic/Personal/Career
Advisement
 Counselor-led collaborative effort
 Structured education/career/life activities
 Small groups of students (less than 20)
 Looping (staying with the same advisor)
 Meets at least once a week for 35-35
minutes
 Advisement must be sacred time!
 All advisors must receive appropriate PD
Southern Regional
Education Board
Advisement is NOT…
 Homeroom
 A homework time
 A study hall
 A replacement for the guidance
department
It IS our job!
Southern Regional
Education Board
What Is The Counselor’s Role?
 Coordinating sources of information for
students and advisors
 Academic and career advisement
 Leading development of the cluster-based
ILP
 Intervention for troubled students
 Support for advisor/advisee system
 Training of advisors
 Coordination of content
Southern Regional
Education Board
Counselor’s Role—cont.
 Assure students know:
 how to prepare for high skill/high demand careers
 options for educational preparation
 what is required for certificates, licenses and
degrees
 Where to find additional labor market information
Southern Regional
Education Board
Has Your
School Created a
Vision for Advisement?
To:
 Generate community buy-in
 Form a team of champions to present to
civic groups, parent groups, etc.
 Celebrate its importance with a positive
exciting kick-off!
 Change attitudes – change lives!
Southern Regional
Education Board
Turn and Talk Revitalize! Customize your advisement
efforts!
 What is your school mascot?
 Are there special songs, anthems, or mottos?
 Turn and talk to your shoulder partner and toss
around some ideas!
Southern Regional
Education Board
Skills for a Lifetime:
Teaching Students the Habits of Success
Another framework and resource for teaching 21st
Century skills
1. Building Positive
Relationships
2. Study, Organizational and
Time Management Skills
3. Literacy Skills
4. Mathematical Skills
5. Goal Setting
6. Accessing Resources
Southern Regional
Education Board
31
Strategy #3: A Transition/Exploratory
Initiative (8th and 9th Grades)
Can today’s students envision a future that
is economically self-sufficient?
Are they able to articulate a plan that will
help them achieve their goals and dreams?
Do they understand the consequences to
the many aspects of their life if they don’t
follow through with their plans?
From The George Washington University Transition
Initiative www.freshmantransition.org
Southern Regional
Education Board
GWU Standards for
Middle School Transition
1. Develop a strong, positive, self concept.
2. Develop positive, meaningful relationships.
3. Demonstrate effective communication.
4. Learn the benefits of having a cooperative spirit.
5. Work well in teams.
6. Value diversity.
7. Develop coping skills.
8. Develop organizational skills.
9. Discover how best to learn.
10. Apply learning skills to academic tasks.
11. Explore skills and aptitudes.
12. Learn to solve problems and make decisions.
13. Set
goals, make a plan, and carry out the plan.
Southern Regional
Education Board
A Standards-Based Comprehensive
Guidance and Career Exploration Course
 Course Goals:
 Reduce the dropout rates because students learn the value of
education and what a diploma means to the future life and
career satisfaction.
 Increase matriculation rates for college and post-secondary
programs because students understand the quantitative
differences (e.g., financial, personal satisfaction, career
options) various kinds of post-secondary training and
education provide.
 Help students acquire the skills necessary to successfully
navigate their life/work transitions.
University
Southern Regional
Education Board
From The George Washington
Transition Initiative
www.freshmantransition.org
Strategy #4: Career Clusters and
Pathways
Strategy #5 Individual/Personalized
education and career plans for all
students
Southern Regional
Education Board
Career Clusters®
Southern Regional
Education Board
Why Career Pathways?
 It provides students a clear format to show:
 qualifications for college and career
 relevance of academic coursework
 Connections between student interest and high
skill/high wage career options
 options for range of postsecondary education
opportunities
• Licenses, certificates, apprenticeships and
degrees
Southern Regional
Education Board
Turn and Talk
 How will we educate staff about our
current career pathways?
 What type of faculty activities can we
designate to enhance teachers’
knowledge of the technology and skills
used in career fields that are related to
our career pathways?
 How will we educate students and their
parents about the workforce and our
career pathways?
Southern Regional
Education Board
38
Strategy # 6: Education and career
awareness and exploration
opportunities
Example of Career Exploration Web Quest!
 www.bls.gov/ooh
 Click on drop down filters for careers requiring
Associate’s Degree or Some College, No
Degree, and Post-Secondary Non-Degree
Program.
Southern Regional
Education Board
Strategy #7: Increased parent and
community partnerships
 What research says…
 Epstein’s framework of six types of
parental involvement
 PTA National Standards for Parent/Family
Involvement are based on Epstein’s
framework
Southern Regional
Education Board
Closure – Partners Interview
Ask Each Other:
1. Which Counseling for Careers strategies
are strengths at your school? What
makes them so good?
2. Which strategies are only superficially
implemented or not implemented at all at
your school? Why?
3. What information from this session do
you especially want to take back to
others at your school, and why?
Southern Regional
Education Board
For more information and professional
development on counseling for
careers, contact:
Lynn Anderson
Lynn.anderson@sreb.org
Southern Regional
Education Board