Home

History of Career Clusters

History of Career Clusters

 

 

History of Career Clusters

The History of Career Clusters by Katherine Ruffing

Introduction:  As the nation has shifted and adjusted to an economy that has evolved beyond mass production toward the information age, the workplace and its demands have similarly evolved.  These evolutions have created a new role for education, especially career technical education (CTE).  The National Association of State Directors for Career Technical Education Consortium (NASDCTEc) has supported and contributed to the development of a new vision for CTE.  This vision embraces several principles, including ensuring that CTE maintains a high level of excellence supported by the identification of academic and workplace standards, measurement of performance/accountability, and high expectations for participant success.  This paper will provide a history of career clusters and a rationale for why they were developed, how Career Clusters support NASDCTEc’s new vision for CTE and what Career Clusters promise for CTE’s future.

Perkins Implications:Recent federal legislation reflects the current shifts in workplace priorities.  Since 1917, with the Smith Hughes Act, the federal government has invested in CTE. The Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Technical Education Act, initially passed in 1984, expanded upon earlier legislation and has responded to changes in workplace and employers’ demands.  Perkins II, reauthorized in 1990, first began to integrate academic and vocational skills attainment and shifted the emphasis from students who were non-college bound to the career development of all students.  Additionally, this law created Tech Prep, which emphasized the role of industrial and educational advisory groups. Perkins III, authorized in 1998, took the vision further by placing a much stronger emphasis on academic preparation and integration.   CTE students were expected to achieve the same academic standards as other students, as well as attain the vocational and technical skills to transition to either employment or postsecondary education.   Although these ideas had been implied in earlier Perkins legislation, Perkins III and the pending Perkins reauthorization enforce these explicit goals.  Perkins III set the stage to eliminate the stigma that CTE was for ‘other people’s children’ and began to put in place measures to ensure both academic and technical rigor, as well as preparation for careers not just jobs.

Other Legislative Implications: Other documents and pieces of legislation in the 1980s and 1990s also had an impact on the development of career clusters.  In particular, the Department of Labor released the Secretary’s Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills (SCANS).  This document identified the skills and competencies needed for success in a modern workplace.  It defined foundation skills, which include basic, interpersonal, and ‘soft’ or employability skills, as well as workplace competencies, such as an individual’s ability to use resources. 

In 1994, Goals 2000: Educate America Act created the National Skills Standards Board (NSSB).  This board was charged with identifying broad occupational clusters and creating a system of standards, assessments and certifications for each cluster.  In that same year, the National School-to-Work Opportunities Act (STWOA) created the National School to Work Office (NSTWO).  NSTWO required states to develop portable credentials based on industry recognized skill standards, preferably standards that were also recognized by NSSB.   The move toward standards-driven systems was strengthening.

Building Linkages Project:  During this time, the NSSB, the NSTWO and OVAE began to recognize the commonality of their goals, which led to teaming together in 1996 to create the Building Linkages project.  This was an attempt to create a voluntary skills standard system.  The intention was to develop curricular frameworks in broad career cluster areas that would allow for successful transitions from school to work.  NSSB took responsibility as the lead contractor, the NSTWO was in charge of communicating with employees, and OVAE provided support for the evaluation of the effort.  Funding came from both the U.S. Departments of Labor and Education.  Building Linkages strived for three goals.  1) How to create national skill standards’ materials that were efficient, effective and easy to integrate into an academic curricula and instruction throughout the U.S.; 2) How industry-endorsed portable certificates could be promoted within education and training; and 3) How to develop buy-in from consumers, such as state and local policy makers, teachers and employers.

The Building Linkages project was based off the skill standards that had been previously developed in 21 of the 22 pilot skill standard projects (see Appendix A), which were also funded by the Departments of Education (16 projects) and Labor (6 projects).  These earlier projects required the pilots to identify core academic knowledge and skill requirements and SCANS type skills or workplace basics, but did not require the pilots to identify standards based on progressive career paths that spanned from entry through upwardly mobile positions within the industry.  Although Building Linkages was not concerned with developing standards, it did take the existing federal and state industrial, technical and academic standards and try to develop an integration model.

The Building Linkages project consisted of three pilot projects: retail and banking; health; and manufacturing.  Each industry was required to be led by a state.  Oregon undertook the retail and banking project, in conjunction with California and Washington. Health was led by Utah through the National Consortium on Health, Science and Technology and included seventeen other states.  This consortium drew directly from one of the 22 skill standard projects.  Manufacturing was led by the state of Indiana through V-TECS and built on earlier work already accomplished by Indiana.   The membership of each consortia consisted primarily of K-12 vocational educators and school-to-work counselors, although there was an emphasis on involving employers, unions, academic K-12 educators, postsecondary educational representatives and representatives of alternative education.  Overall, two of the three pilot projects enjoyed success and became the foundation for the future Health and Manufacturing career clusters. 

Retail and banking was terminated during its second year because it was determined to be “too narrow,”   and many of the identified occupations were low-wage, entry level positions.  Yet, this project made significant contributions.  Components of it eventually evolved into the finance and marketing, sales, and service clusters. 

One difficulty that all three consortia experienced was how to arrange the K-12 system around an important part of schooling – preparing students for work.  Although most were in agreement that a strong academic base was necessary, there was disagreement regarding how to organize curricula and instruction and then how to assess.  For example, everyone agreed on the need for skill standards, but there was considerable disagreement over their role.  Should skill standards be used as a base for developing CTE courses and assessments or should they be integrated into academic courses and used for contextual learning?  This tension encouraged projects to focus on career pathways. 

The concept of career pathways originally emerged from the original 22 pilots in a simpler form.  The pilots were intended to use existing skill standards to connect career pathways more clearly, but not to create skills for new occupations.  Building Linkages used career pathways not only as an organizational tool to connect skill standards but also as an educational tool; a vehicle to transfer the 22 pilots into the education world and connect them to state standards.  Career pathways were used to increase the integration of standards – both academic and industry – and provide a base to organize curricula, instruction and assessments. The hope was that higher levels of skills and knowledge would hopefully emerge as pathways moved toward higher level positions.    Unlike the 22 pilots, Building Linkages did want to create skill standards for new occupations.

In addition to the expansion of career pathways, Building Linkages was able to make several other recommendations. 

  1. There was a need for the Department of Education and others to establish a “voice” as to the role of skill standards in education reform. 
  2. The volunteer partners needed to provide states effective plans to demonstrate how they would develop working relationships with representatives of state education and the training system.
  3. NSSB needed to develop a common nomenclature so that there would be a universal definition for words like academic, concentration and core.  Additionally, the volunteer partners needed more direction from NSSB as they cross-referenced skill standards to academics to grade levels.
  4. Finally, the project needed to research the best way to put skill standards into education frameworks, graduation requirements and assessments.

 

OVAE’s Role:  NSSB was only responsible for Building Linkages for one year.  Eventually, the funding and oversight fell solely upon the Department of Education.  They continued to build upon Building Linkages, which, as previously mentioned, had successfully created standards and pathways for Manufacturing and Health.  Next, OVAE selected three clusters and targeted grant money toward the development of the Information Technology, Transportation/Distribution and Logistics, and Arts/Audio Video Technology and Communication career clusters.  They selected a company out of Boston, Education Development Center (EDC) to lead the IT Cluster; V-TECS worked with International Communication Industries Association, now known as INFOCOM on the Arts/AV Cluster; and the state of Illinois oversaw the Transportation Cluster.  This second group of grants was not given as much freedom, in an effort to curtail variation; they were awarded grant money in the form of a contract that stated 14 specific tasks for each group to achieve.

Meanwhile, most states at this time had developed their own set of skill standards systems based on SCANS, alternative national models and/or industrial advisory groups, and had integrated these skills into the CTE curriculum.   Although it was a big step that states were developing these sets of skills, there were many variations among the identified skills and how they were defined.  In addition, each state varied in the level of performance expected to achieve workplace skills, some expected students to achieve basic levels of writing and problem-solving, while other states required levels at or above state academic levels.   In many states third-party industry driven assessments had emerged at the job specific level.  Even within the current three Building Linkages groups, variations were still presenting problems, despite changes to the grant.

These variations and a desire to update the vision of CTE led OVAE to eventually adopt the 16 Career Clusters in 1999.  The goal was to continue developing the education pipeline, so that students would learn the academic and technical skills within an integrated curriculum that would prepare them for the workforce.  As we have seen, the theories that support career clusters were not new within the workforce development or the education worlds.  In addition to the Building Linkages project, several countries such as Canada, Germany, Great Britain and Denmark had already established career cluster frameworks.  Even within the United States, several states had also independently created frameworks. 

To begin, OVAE reviewed international, national and state efforts to define clusters.  Additionally, they looked at the cluster models that had already been developed by organizations such as V-TECS’s fourteen industrial/occupational “families” with levels within each family (see appendix B), Building Linkages and its four recommendations, NOICC, and the models developed by states.  What OVAE found was that all models approached clusters in one of the following four ways.

  1. Career interest – defines career clusters based on career interest.  They allow students to explore a wide range of areas based on an analysis of a student’s interests and value systems
  2. Educational approach – creates clusters from vocational and academic programs and disciplines that are defined in the Classification of Instructional programs (CIP/OES). It defines clusters the way the education community defines majors and departments.
  3. Occupational approach – based on Standard Occupational Classification System (SOC) and usually builds from the NOICC units of analysis, which were historically used to for occupational systems.
  4. Industrial approach –organizes cluster around broad industry areas or economic sectors.  It is typically based on the Standard industrial Classification System (SIC) and the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) codes – used to define economic sectors. 

 

OVAE chose to organize their career clusters using the industrial and occupational approach.  They felt it provided the best context for all aspects of industry and allowed students to pursue a full range of careers with vertical and lateral mobility.  Yet, there were a few professions that were not industry specific and had to be grouped by occupation, such as legal and protective services, administration, and business.  In November 1999, OVAE released the following Sixteen Clusters.


    • Agriculture and Natural Resources
    • Architecture and Construction
    • Arts/Audio Video Technology and Communications
    • Business and Administration
    • Education and Training
    • Finance
    • Government and Public Administration
    • Health Sciences
    • Hospitality and Tourism
    • Human Services
    • Information Technology
    • Law and Public Safety
    • Manufacturing
    • Retail/Wholesales and Services
    • Scientific Research and Engineering
    • Transportation/Distribution and Logistics

The clusters were viewed as “a whole new approach to what for years was known as vocational education,” according to U.S. Secretary of Education, Richard Riley, “With this new structure schools can better assure that each student has the opportunity to explore options, set goals and prepare for meaningful work in the new century.”  Clusters were designed to encompass three levels of knowledge and skills: the foundation, pathway and specialty level.  At the foundation level, knowledge and skills cut across all pathways encompassed in the cluster.  Similarly, at the pathway level, the knowledge and skill statements cover all of the specific occupations contained within the pathway.  OVAE also hoped to utilize Career Clusters to organize the new curriculum around, which would focus on higher order workplace skills; integrated career development; occupational training that emphasized both breadth and depth; and integrated academics.  In order for the career clusters component to be successful, OVAE recognized the need to:

  1. Develop the new vision and sell it to the public.
  2. Establish career clusters based on the new economy.
  3. Provide students the ability to develop and manage their career goals.
  4. Use technology to connect students and teachers to learning resources.
  5. Establish and support national, state and local accountability systems to look for and manage continuous improvement.
  6. Use the National Centers and other partners to look for and manage continuous improvement.
  7. Establish a national professional development network for the future generation of CTE educators.
  8. Identify, promote and coordinate secondary and postsecondary models that support the new vision of CTE.

 

Despite the good intentions, change is difficult.  When the Department of Education initially announced the Career Clusters in September, 1997, in Whitefish, Montana, many of the state directors and leaders within CTE were not enthusiastic.  They felt that career clusters would water down the vocational curriculum because they are broad, especially at the foundation level, and focused on career development.  In fact, at this time, many state directors saw career clusters as a form of high school reform that should be applied to general education, as opposed to vocational.  Also at this conference, the state directors for CTE came together and began to compose their vision paper that described the future role of CTE.  As this paper developed – over the course of a year – a new vision for CTE began to develop and within that vision, the directors saw a new role evolve.  The final version of this vision is still used to drive the activities of NASDCTEc.  The remaining question became how to move the current state of CTE toward this new vision.  Many realized that career clusters provided the vehicle.    About this time, OVAE offered a grant to develop the remaining eleven clusters.

NASDCTEc’s Role:  As OVAE offered this grant, they were in the midst of change.  In 2001, OVAE required states to use Career Clusters as one way to report student enrollment for the Perkins accountability requirements.  This meant OVAE wanted to ensure that each cluster was clearly defined and cross walked with CIP codes to ensure state agencies were counting enrollees in the same way.   Additionally, they were still concerned with the lack of uniformity across the clusters.  Meanwhile, NASDCTEc had just completed its vision paper and was ready to move in the direction of clusters.  Additionally, the states were eager to take control of CTE’s fate.  For these reasons, each of the states agreed not to apply individually, but to unite and apply as one group through NASDCTEc. 
Through the Oklahoma Department of Career and Technology Education (ODCTE), NASDCTEc applied for the grant to develop the remaining eleven clusters in 2000 and was awarded in 2001. 

In the grant application NASDCTEc stated their goals.  The group hoped to establish the uniformity that OVAE desired.  Additionally, they sought to take control of vocational education’s future, their future, while making use of the opportunity to build new partnerships with business and industry.  The group recognized some the lessons that had been learned and focused on the need for more consistency in the “look and feel” ; providing the opportunity for all states to contribute to any cluster at any time; and the ability to put all the pieces together and create resources in a very limited time for the remaining eleven clusters.

When OVAE awarded the grant in 2000, ODCTE volunteered to be the headquarters, they would be fiscally responsible for the grant and the Cluster coordinators/leaders would be based out of ODCTE.   States then volunteered to serve as lead states responsible for working with a cluster coordinator to achieve the development work required under the grant.



  • Agriculture and Natural Resources – Idaho and Iowa         
  • Business and Administration – South Carolina
  • Construction – Pennsylvania
  • Education and Training – Michigan
  • Finance – North Dakota
  • Government and Public Administration - Oklahoma
  • Human Services – Kentucky
  • Hospitality – West Virginia
  • Law and Public Safety – Arkansas
  • Scientific Research – North Carolina
  • Wholesale/Retail - Ohio

 

Through the grant, each state was expected to achieve several tasks: convene a national advisory committee; define their cluster and its goals; define the necessary skills and knowledge for success; create pathways; and validate the cluster.  In the second year of the grant, the states were slated to focus on developing an assessment system, certifications and curriculum but the grant was canceled before this could be accomplished.   In order to ensure that the states were working toward achieving their goals, the Project Director, Charles Losh with the help of four Cluster Coordinators were responsible for the eleven cluster projects.   These five individuals were responsible to the funding source, ODCTE State Board, the National Executive Committee, which consisted of NASDCTEc’s Board of Directors, and the National Advisory Consortium.  The National Advisory Consortium consisted of 41 people with a variety of backgrounds, including specific cluster representatives, one person from each of the five Building Linkages projects, one NASDCTEc director, and a representative for each primary partner.

At the start of the project, NASDCTEc took advantage of the groundwork that the first five clusters had already established, which allowed the organization to move forward much more efficiently and effectively.  After a year and a half, they had developed knowledge and skill statements for the eleven clusters and reached consensus for consistency of the developed resources, including the knowledge and skills statements.  This was the common “look and feel” that OVAE had hoped for.  By August, 2002, the knowledge and skill statements had been validated by 1000 individuals from all 50 states.  Finally, in September 2002, NASDCTEc held a kick off event in Charleston, South Carolina to unveil the resources for all 16 Career Clusters.

As the Career Clusters prepared for the second phase of the grant, the new Administration established different priorities for the agency and chose to invest the funds in the creation of the College and Careers Transition Initiative.  In September 2002, OVAE notified Oklahoma that it would not renew funding under the original cooperative agreement.  By then, clusters had identified 110 pilot sites and developed assessment and certifications.  For this reason, NASDCTEc took ownership of both managing and funding the “States’ Career Clusters Initiative.”  The funding for this project came from NASDCTEc’s reserve funds, voluntary state assessments, the annual Career Cluster Institute revenue, and the sale of products.  Recently, this successful program has become self-sustaining.  In 2006, NASDCTEc was again awarded a grant from OVAE to continue improving upon and expanding career clusters and its products.  These funds will be used to create the 81 plans for each pathway within the 16 Clusters, and to strengthen the National Advisory Committees, which are described above.  

Over the past 20 years, skill standards have evolved into the Breaking Linkages Project, which then evolved into the current career cluster models.  As the vision for CTE becomes more career focused and intent upon combining academics/employability skills with occupational knowledge and skills, career clusters are becoming the answer. They organize both academic and occupational knowledge skills into a coherent course sequence.  Although career clusters have expanded and strengthened over the past few years, there are still developments in store.  The ‘States’ Career Clusters Initiatives continue to develop new products, techniques, and methods to aid the implementation and development of career clusters within states.


Interview.  April 2006.  Ron McCage, Executive Director.  VTECS.

Schray and Sheets.  2001.  Background Paper for Career Cluster Initiative. 16

Ibid.  17

North Central Regional Laboratories.  2004.  Summary of Goals 2000:Educate America Act.  Naperville, IL. http://www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/issues/envrnmnt/stw/sw0goals.htm.  Bottom.

Wills, Joan L.  Building Linkages: Lessons Learned.  Washington, DC: Center for Workforce Development Institute for Educational Leadership for The National Skill Standards Board.  2.

Interview.  April 26.  Ron McCage, Executive Director.  VTECS

Ibid.

Wills, Joan L.  Building Linkages: Lessons Learned.  Washington, DC: Center for Workforce Development Institute for Educational Leadership for The National Skill Standards Board.  5-6

United States Department of Education Press Release.  March 16, 2000.

Interview.  March 2006.  Kimberly Green, Executive Director.  NASDCTEc

  Interview.  April 2006.  Pam Kirk, Career Clusters Director.  Oklahoma Department of Career Tech.  

Presentation.  Jan. 2001.  Career Clusters.  Mobile, AL

Interview.  March 2006.  Kimberly Green, Executive Director.  NASDCTEc

NASDCTEc.  Abstract for grant application.  1

Ibid, 61

Interview.  April 2006.  Pam Kirk Career Clusters Director.  Oklahoma Department of Career Tech.

 

 

 

 

 

Source: http://occrl.illinois.edu/docs/librariesprovider4/pos/careerclusterhistory.doc?sfvrsn=4

Web site to visit: http://occrl.illinois.edu

Author of the text: indicated on the source document of the above text

If you are the author of the text above and you not agree to share your knowledge for teaching, research, scholarship (for fair use as indicated in the United States copyrigh low) please send us an e-mail and we will remove your text quickly. Fair use is a limitation and exception to the exclusive right granted by copyright law to the author of a creative work. In United States copyright law, fair use is a doctrine that permits limited use of copyrighted material without acquiring permission from the rights holders. Examples of fair use include commentary, search engines, criticism, news reporting, research, teaching, library archiving and scholarship. It provides for the legal, unlicensed citation or incorporation of copyrighted material in another author's work under a four-factor balancing test. (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use)

The information of medicine and health contained in the site are of a general nature and purpose which is purely informative and for this reason may not replace in any case, the council of a doctor or a qualified entity legally to the profession.

 

History of Career Clusters

 

The texts are the property of their respective authors and we thank them for giving us the opportunity to share for free to students, teachers and users of the Web their texts will used only for illustrative educational and scientific purposes only.

All the information in our site are given for nonprofit educational purposes

 

History of Career Clusters

 

 

Topics and Home
Contacts
Term of use, cookies e privacy

 

History of Career Clusters