PROJECT CAREER AWARE

|| Citizens In Public Schools || Career Pathways || Teacher Training || Real World-Real Lives || Helping Out! ||

"Connecting local businesses with public education for the benefit of all."

Project CareerAware

Project CareerAware promotes education-business partnerships to increase the relevancy of public education to our children's futures

We must reform our schools if our nation is to continue to prosper. As the power to reform education returns to local communities, business and community involvement will become increasingly important. Whether you believe in a "thousands points of light" or that "it takes a village to raise a child," your participation and support are needed.

Components of Project CareerAware:

Citizens In Public Schools

"Citizens in Public Schools" permits employees of local businesses to serve as substitute teachers.

Don't worry, you won't be teaching physics or Latin! Instead, you will connect with students on a personal basis, telling them about yourself, your job, and the importance of education.

Teacher Training

Project CareerAware provides training and professional development for teachers.

Regardless of their potential value, all reforms will fail if they do not reach the classroom teacher. To help teachers integrate "real world" examples into their classrooms, and better prepare their students for life after academics, teachers need continuing professional development and training.

Career Pathways

Career Pathways connect academic preparation with a child's vision of his or her future.

Each student selects a career pathway from among clusters of related careers. Students are asked, perhaps for the first time, to seriously consider their futures, and the impact of their educational and personal decisions on those futures.

Real World, Real Lives

"Real World-Real Lives" biographical sketches profile employees of local businesses for use in the classroom.

For students, these sketches represent an array of possible futures, graphically demonstrated by community members not so different by community members not so different from themselves. For some students, "Real World-Real Lives" sketches may be the ONLY contact they have with adults who have successfully mad the transition from our educational system to the workforce.

Helping Out!

How can businesses help? Your employees understand the skills and knowledge required in today's rapidly changing workplace. They can thus bring "real world" applications into the classroom, and can serve as role models for students, showing the way to the future. And this is not a one-way street, businesses gain by having a presence in schools, and because newly hired workers will perform at a higher level, and with less remedial training. Project CareerAware helps facilitate these exchanges.