Information on this page is provided by the Office of Career & Technical Education.

Staff Contacts

Data Snapshot
The Data Snapshot for Government & Public Administration (PDF) helps educators, students and parents see connections between the Plans of Study and career opportunities in high-skill, high wage, in-demand fields.

Carrie Guerin

Research Analyst, FBI, Winchester, Virginia

• Midlothian High School/Chesterfield County Technical Center, Chesterfield County Public Schools
• CTE studies: Legal Systems
• Additional studies: B.A. in History, James Madison University

Digging a little deeper

As a research analyst for the FBI, Carrie Guerin is exactly where she wants to be.
“I’m always so proud to say it,” Carrie, who graduated from James Madison University in 2011, says about her new title.

Carrie says joining the FBI seemed attainable when she took a legal systems class at the Chesterfield Technical Center during high school. Carrie’s mother, Carol, taught the class and helped her realize joining the FBI was a possibility.

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“She told us, ‘You can study whatever you want in college, and you can have a job with the bureau.’”

Carrie, who runs background checks on people who want to work for the federal government, was a history major in college and says she regularly uses the research and writing skills she learned from her major.

The high school legal systems class also taught her how to act in a professional setting, says Carrie, who interned at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., and was a resident assistant during college.

Carrie’s immediate career goals are getting to the FBI Academy in Quantico, a place she visited for the first time in high school during her legal systems class. She’s not sure what her long term plans are with the FBI, but says she’s definitely sticking around.

“There’s no other agency I’d rather work for, there’s no other place I’d rather be,” Carrie says.

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Emily Taylor Special Agent, Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation

• Forest Park High School, Prince William County Public Schools
• CTE studies: Accounting
• Additional studies: Dual bachelor’s degrees in Accounting and Business Management with a minor in Criminal Justice, George Mason University

Investigating tax evasion and money laundering
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Investigating tax evasion and money laundering

For Emily Taylor, numbers are anything but boring. Emily, a special agent with the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation division, investigates cases dealing with tax evasion, money laundering, and other financial-related crimes for the U.S. Department of Treasury.

“It’s not a cookie-cutter job,” says Emily. “It’s different every single day. It’s not like the typical daily grind.”

Emily’s father, also a special agent, recommended that she try out accounting to see if she was interested in the field. She took accounting, advanced accounting, marketing, and finance in high school, which solidified her interest in the subject. Emily earned degrees in accounting and business management at George Mason University.

For extra credit in a criminal justice class, Emily shadowed a special agent with the IRS who recognized Emily’s interest in the career. The agent recommended that Emily apply for an internship, which turned into a full-time job after graduation.

“You live in an agent’s shadow,” Emily says of the internship. “I got a really good hands-on feel for what I was getting into between interview memos and watching how they work and seeing the different resources they were able to use.”

Emily says working for the government provides her a stable job with good pay and benefits. She plans on staying in this career until retirement. “There are a lot of perks,” she adds.

The Government and Public Administration cluster is about executing governmental functions to include Governance; National Security; Foreign Service; Planning; Revenue and Taxation; Regulation; and Management and Administration at the local, state, and federal levels. Since government is so large, nearly every career can fall into this cluster.  Employment varies for many of the careers within this field because laws limit the length and number of terms a person can stay in office. Important issues change with every new administration causing the number of jobs in any given area to fluctuate as well.

PLAY VIDEO Produced by: Booker T. Washington High School, Norfolk City Public Schools

Employment Projections: 2010-2020

Government and Public Administration is the smallest career cluster. Only 18 of the occupations tracked by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) are included in this cluster; thus, the total employment is only about 1.8 million workers. Cluster employment is projected to decline through 2020 with the loss of about 22,000 jobs.

The only occupations matched to this cluster are those that appear exclusively in government service (occupations such as Legislators, Postmasters, and Tax Examiners), but the vast majority of those employed in public service work in occupations that are not exclusive to this industry. Second, the list of government service occupations that the BLS tracks is small, and many government specialties are not included.

The occupations crosswalked to this cluster employed about 1.8 million workers in 2010. BLS industry data tells us that the entire Government sector employed about 22.5 million workers in 2010. But it is impossible to tell how many of those 22.5 million work in occupations that the designers of the career cluster system intended to include in Government and Public Administration.

The report Employment Projections for Government and Public Administration 2010-2020 includes data on occupations growing faster that the nation average, pathways employment overview, occupations with the most job openings, and employment projections.

** |  HS: High school  |  CC: Community college  |  4C: Four-year college  |  MD: Master’s degree  |  DP: Doctoral or Professional degree  |

Career Cluster Planning

A resource for counselors, administrators, and educators
CTE Administrative Planning Guide (APG) – includes information to help local school divisions plan and schedule instructional programs. The APG is organized by career clusters, with a complete listing of courses, concentration sequences, and credentials available to students as they plan for career entry and continuing education. Users may access course information by cluster or by searching for specific courses or certifications.

Academic and Career Plans of Study

Development Information

Information and tips for instructional leaders, administrators, counselors and teachers/faculty for creating a career pathway academic and career plan of study.

• Government & Public Administration Cluster Information
• Checklist for Developing Career Clusters Plans of Study (Word)

Sample Academic and Career Plans of Study

School divisions are asked to develop sample plans of study based on the courses offered within their schools, the employment needs of the region, and the post-high school educational opportunities needed for these careers. Once these sample plans are developed, they can be customized to the needs of individual students so that all students have the opportunity to have an individualized academic and career plan of study.

Sample Pathway Plans of Study for Government & Public Administration:

• Foreign Service (Word)
• Governance (Word)
• National Security (Word)
• Planning (Word)
• Public Management & Administration (Word)
• Regulation (Word)
• Revenue & Taxation (Word)
• Blank Plan of Study (with fields) (Word)

Also see Sample Plans of Study for all clusters and pathways.

Resources

• The Council of State Governments
• Federal Government Job Site
• Commonwealth of Virginia
• National League of Cities

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