Two Rochester schools, both based out of the Edison Technical Education Center, have been named “unsatisfactory” by the Career and Technical Education Technical Assistance Center of New York, a state agency.
The group, known as CTE, evaluated the two schools after being commissioned by Bolgen Vargas, the superintendent of the Rochester City School District. The CTE found that they were not adequately preparing their students for successful integration into the modern workforce.
When it comes to job growth in 2014, studies show that high schoolers can greatly benefit from becoming marketable to small businesses specifically. After all, small businesses comprise over 99% of all employers in the nation, according to the U.S. Small Business Administration. Since 1965, about 65% of all jobs created in the United States have come from small businesses alone.
The news about Rochester’s tech schools is made even more disheartening when considering that nearly half of all small companies have plans to expand their staff in 2014, The Huffington Post reports. Additionally, plenty of businesses will be turning their sights to Millennials and Generation Xers as new hires in order to inject youth and vigor into their operations. But if schools aren’t preparing students to land these kinds of jobs, they’ll likely go to others who are most qualified — even if they’re coming in from other cities.
At this point, small business owners are burned out. Chances are, they’ve been handling the operations themselves for at least a decade now, and they need to bring new life into the company in order to find a more comfortable balance between home life and the stresses of the office. The numbers back this up, as 43% of company owners and entrepreneurs listed “exercising more” as their top New Year’s Resolution.
That’s why younger students are being sought out for hire by small companies across the nation. But what about that entrepreneurial spirit? Can innovation be taught inside a classroom to inspire an entirely new generation of future business leaders to get out and create their own companies?
A November 2013 article in Bloomberg Businessweek supports the idea. According to entrepreneur researcher Norris Krueger, all a person needs to find his or her creative impulses to begin a business is enough support, the right mentors and plenty of time for personal growth and development. At this rate, Edison Tech’s chances of churning out leaders like that aren’t looking exceptionally promising.
However, the CTE’s report offered five recommendations for steps the Board of Education can take to help boost the school’s poor ranking. Improving the school’s leadership, merging the different schools into one and handing over control to the BOCES educational services were both suggested as viable options.
As of right now, Vargas says he has changes he’ll looking to make during the district’s current budget season. No matter what, it appears like Edison Tech has a long road to recovery in front of it.