Leadership matters. Whether you are a veteran administrator, experienced journeyman or emerging leader in your organization, your staff, colleagues and stakeholders count on your vision, commitment, instructional leadership, flexibility and versatility to help make your school or district a more engaging and effective learning environment for your students.
The 21st Century Leadership Institute, a joint project of ACTE and Meeder Consulting, will provide current and emerging leaders the tools they will need to develop fully integrated learning environments in which students are equipped with the skills and knowledge needed in the 21st century.
The Institute seeks to develop a new vision of schools guided by leaders that embrace the realities of today's globally competitive and technologically driven world, with an understanding of the convergence of core academics and career and technical education that is rigorous and relevant.
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The Need for 21st Century Leadership
Today's leaders in career and technical education, career clusters and career pathways face an unprecedented array of opportunities and challenges.
Opportunities
- The nation's leaders are focused on job creation and building a competitive workforce, realizing that a traditional "college for all" approach doesn't address our workforce needs. CTE leaders can demonstrate how career-themed programs are directly linked to workforce competitiveness.
- General education reform strategies show little progress in engaging and motivating learning. CTE leaders can lead the way in bulding a rigorous and relevant learning experience for students.
Challenges
- "College and career readiness" is an agreed-upon objective, but there is almost no consensus about what that really means and how education programs should be configured appropriately. CTE leaders need to help define college and career readiness.
- National, state and local budget pressures and cutbacks will threaten programs that are seen as non-essential. CTE leaders need to effectively explain the critical role of career-themed programs.
- Teacher effectiveness will increasingly be judged on student performance on standardized assessments. CTE leaders need to apply meaningful teach evaluation for career-themed programs.
- Policymakers and general education leaders often do not understand the full range of technical training and postsecondary CTE options that lead to solid employment options. CTE leaders need to build strong secondary-postsecondary connections and help explain them to their stakeholders.