Educators talk tactics at summit

Technological tools, high but realistic standards and continued collaboration will ensure that the Culpeper region is a good place for students to learn, grow and contribute to the community.

About 60 people representing K-12, higher education and the business community gathered at Germanna Community College’s Daniel Technology Center Friday to discuss and debate trends in education that impact local communities.

Glenn DuBois, chancellor of the Virginia Community College System, was the featured speaker.

“I never thought in my lifetime that we — America — would (drop) from first place in the number of adults holding post-secondary credentials,” DuBois told the group.

In attempting to climb back to the top, DuBois said, he and other higher-education leaders have had to rethink everything they do, sometimes bucking established trends in place for decades.

DuBois said the first problem is that up to 70 percent of new college students enter school without having a career goal. To overcome that obstacle, DuBois introduced a soon-to-launch website, the Virginia Wizard, that’s geared toward middle and high school students and their parents.

Taking a cue from travel websites, the wizard is intended to be an interactive and comprehensive resource for young people and their parents.

It will feature career assessment tools, information on what the day-to-day reality of working in a particular career is like and the education necessary to enter that field. Parents can find tips on how to go about applying for financial incentives and paying for it all.

Another change, DuBois said, has been recognizing that the level of competence and expertise in core subjects like math and language vary substantially depending on what career path someone chooses.

Before, students might struggle for months or years trying to get to a level of proficiency that simply isn’t necessary to meet their career plans. Frustrated, many students would simply give up and drop out of school.

Now, DuBois said, students will have more intensive guidance and a plan to help them focus on the specific areas they need to improve on. In other words, they’ll know what’s coming academically and they’ll be able appreciate how it fits into their career choice.

“It bucks the trend over the last 40 years,” DuBois said.

When he entered community college in 1971, “No one in my family had ever been to college,” DuBois said. “It was, ‘Get a job or go into the service.’”

But today, with American students competing against a global audience, that’s not the case.

“Twelfth grade is no longer the finish line,” he said.

The group spent the afternoon discussing issues like what types of jobs the community will need in the next decade and how the public can be engaged in the success of educational institutions.

Citing statistics that show the U.S. has slipped from first place in higher education — being supplanted by various Asian countries, among others — Wayne Duncan, who helped organize Friday’s program, reminded the group that no one should discount his or her role in shaping the future.

“Each of you has a call to improve education,” he said. “May we all leave this place today with the knowledge that we all have a responsibility.”