KNOXVILLE, Tenn. - Dec. 16, 2020 - A five-year federal grant, Expanding Access to Well-Rounded Courses Demonstration, worth nearly $12 million, was awarded to the New Mexico Public Education Department this past September. The grant, named New Mexico Ready and Equitable Career and Technical Education (RECTE), will fund the creation of courses that help further students' career awareness, exploration or preparedness and help them become ready for college. These courses support academic learning through a career connected math curricula and expand access to Career and Technical Education (CTE) courses. The RECTE program will develop an online platform available to any high-school student in the state. RECTE will also offer customized CTE courses that expand career exploration, employability skills that provide the opportunity for students to connect to essential workplace competencies. The program will be measured by an increase in the enrollment in CTE courses and improved math performance across the state. An underlying goal of the RECTE model is to address Equity. The RECTE model hopes to ensure every student has a clear pathway and access to high wage / high growth jobs by the end of the grant term.

NS4ed, LLC will be providing the math curricula that will be developed in consultation and collaboration with New Mexico educators. The curricula, Pathway 2 Algebra and Pathway 2 Geometry, is an innovative approach to academic learning that presents mathematics's core skills through the lens of high value careers. Each lesson is designed to provide a real-world application of core math concepts, engaging demonstrations of how each concept is used in authentic on-the-job examples, and video showcases that introduce New Mexicans who work in that career. Designed to be a supplement to existing Algebra and Geometry courses, NS4ed answers the age-old student question of, "Why do I need to know this, and when am I ever going to use this?" Pathway 2 Algebra and Pathway 2 Geometry has over 100 different high wage-high growth occupations embedded throughout the lessons. Students will be exposed to all sixteen career clusters and see each occupation pathway as they learn math standards in a contextual setting. "We are excited about the opportunity to change attitudes toward math while providing exposure to high value career opportunities. We believe that once we develop a student's purpose for learning, we can have a big impact on performance," said NS4ed CEO, Dr. Joseph Goins.

About us:

NS4ed/Pathway2Careers relies on robust labor market data tools and educational research to guide our development efforts. We encourage the use of informed career readiness practices in educational settings. Nationwide, NS4ed provides state and local education and careers a unique perspective on gathering market-based information. Pathway2Careers, seen at http://pathway2careers.com/, continues to build on and scale up the next generation of research, policy, and practice deliverables that yield high value and actionable results.