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Monday December 16, 2024 3:44 pm

Gov. Newsom previews the master plan for career education

Gov. Gavin Newsom announced on Tuesday the framework for what he is calling the master plan for career education.

The framework recommends creating a new statewide planning body for career education, promoting a “career passport,” developing career pathways for high school and college, strengthening workforce training and making both higher education and workforce training affordable.

Many of these efforts are already in the works, but the idea for a master plan for career education is to knit all these efforts together in a coherent way, Newsom said. There are $100 million in state funds supporting this effort that spans from K-12 to higher education to workforce development.

Newsom said local communities’ input and regional agencies are key to realizing this state vision. He made his announcement flanked by local leaders who discussed the importance of their regional collaborative North State Together — one of 13 in the state receiving state funding that improve the pathways between education and career.

Newsom emphasized that this plan is for everyone, including Californians without a college degree or even a high school diploma.

“We need to create a framework for a life well lived that doesn’t include some fancy degree,” said Newsom, during a news conference in Shasta County.

An eight-page master plan framework released Tuesday outlines specific groups that could greatly benefit from improved career education: disabled adults, young people who are neither in school nor employed and people involved with the justice system, English learners and first-generation students. The goal is to create a career education system without a “wrong door” but many entry points, such as libraries, jails and prisons, community colleges, adult schools and community organizations.

Scaling up credit for prior learning — the practice of awarding college credit for learning conducted outside the classroom —  for veterans and non-veterans alike is a key part of the master plan, Newsom said.

He also revisited the concept of a “career passport,” which means that more than grades would appear on a student’s transcript. It would include marketable work skills and experience developed through classes as well as apprenticeships, internships or other outside-the-classroom experiences.

Newsom also trumpeted the work that the state government has done to rewrite certain job descriptions that would open them up to candidates who don’t have a college degree.

Improved databases, such as the cradle-to-career system, are key to this effort as well, Newsom said.