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A welcome from Rob Franks
(January 31, 2005)
Welcome to the new state portal for all things Tech-Prep. We have been at Tech-Prep for a long time in Texas and I thought that I would reflect a bit on our history before I turn this over to the new state director, Linda McDonough.
We started with an idea that Tech-Prep looked like such a good idea that we should try to make it available to every student in Texas. To that end, there were created 24 regional Tech-Prep consortia to match the Governor’s Economic Planning Regions. Since then we have created two more consortia to bring that total up to 26. You can go elsewhere on this site and by clicking on the state map you can access regionally specific information.
The concept was to provide an educational pathway composed of four years of high school linked to two years of an Associates Degree program in a formal six-year plan. This six-year plan is the heart of Texas Tech-Prep programs and encourages students to think beyond high school graduation. As part of this six-year plan Texas consortia, from the very beginning, made sure that there were courses available that could count for college credit in the high school program. There is a PDF file of a brochure in the publications part of this site that details those types of courses and how they work. We also created a series of courses called Advanced Technical Credit (ATC) that can be taken in high school and transferred to almost any two-year college in the state similar to Advanced Placement courses (AP).
In 2001 Tech-Prep was codified into the Texas Education Code and was institutionalized at the state level to not only be based on the Recommended High School Graduation Plan (college prep) but it could be used by students to qualify for the Distinguished Student recognition.
There have been many success stories related to a student’s participation in Tech-Prep. The road has not always been easy but it has been well worth the challenge. In the spring of 2004 Texas graduated over 48,000 high school students from Tech-Prep programs. Tech-Prep students have a higher graduation rate and a higher college matriculation rate than their peers and if these 48,000 enter college and take advantage of their college credit earned in high school that will be equivalent to over $26,000,000 in scholarships.
There has been a national study that says that there is no proof that career and technology education or Tech-Prep specifically have any effect on a student’s educational career or earnings. I personally feel that the last 13 years I have been working with Tech-Prep have been well worth the effort and that $26,000,000 seems to support that belief.
To all of you who believe in Tech-Prep and career and technology education, keep dreaming the dream and fighting the fight because we dream for our children.
Rob Franks
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