Editor's note: This is the first installment of Christian Patterson's new series, "California Policies."

The Career Pathways debate is jump starting an important discussion. (Didi Beck)

Senate Bill 594 (S.B. 594) is the brainchild of State Senate Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento). So impressed was he by the success of career training programs used by Long Beach Schools, he dragged the entire state senate to Southern California to check out its viability as a model for the state.

S.B. 594 is Steinberg’s attempt at spreading that model. Dubbed “Linked Learning” by those who know much more about educational practices than yours truly, it brings real-world applicability to the classroom.

As a political science and print & digital journalism major, I can tell you first-hand that all those classes I spent learning the Pythagorean Theorem and the nuances of chemical reactions probably won’t help me too much in my next job interview. S.B. 594 takes that wisdom and applies it to students gifted in a wide range of other fields, including manufacturing, agricultural technology, environmental sciences and more.

Rick Santorum may have taken his criticism a step too far when he called the president a snob for pushing for all Americans to earn a college degree, but his sentiment was not totally off-base. Not every student aspires to earn a college degree. That doesn’t mean we should give up on them and force them into an educational model that doesn’t prepare them for the real world. We should equip them with the skills necessary to enter the workforce job-ready upon graduation.

However, Steinberg’s bill is not just the product of disconnected politicians dreaming up policies without outside input. It also includes a concept called “career pathways,” which aims to ensure that the jobs that students are trained for are actually what industries are looking for. A fact that probably accounts for the backing his career training ideas have earned him from some of the California manufacturing and technology alliances (though they haven’t exactly signed off on his funding mechanism).

California’s unemployment rate is dreadfully high (9.4 percent). So, naturally, our lawmakers should put job creation at the top of their list of priorities. It would be a mistake, though, to attribute all our unemployment woes to the great recession that gripped the entire country. The truth is that California’s economy has changed, and many of the jobs that existed before our state's financial woes began are not coming back anytime soon. I see no reason why allowing schools and businesses to determine what avenues we take is a bad idea.

Steinberg's career pathways bill may not be perfect and it may face tough sledding in the legislature, but at least it has begun a conversation on how to guarantee that California schools are preparing our students for the real world. 

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