College & Workforce Readiness Series

Career and Technical Education at a Crossroads

As they attract a new wave of attention and support in schools across the country, career-and-technical-education programs grapple with new challenges: How should they maintain program quality and weed out career paths that lead students to dead-end jobs? As high-flying programs become popular and more academically rigorous, how can educators ensure that they remain demographically diverse? And how can schools do a better job of getting the word out to all students about all of these new college and career options? Three states—Tennessee, New Jersey, and Arkansas—take on these challenges in this three-part series.

Eighth grader Erika Faircloth watches veterinarian Julie Boone perform an operation in Wynne, Ark. Erika’s job-shadowing experience at the veterinary clinic grew out of a push by the state to provide better career advice to students headed into the workforce as well as to college.
Eighth grader Erika Faircloth watches veterinarian Julie Boone perform an operation in Wynne, Ark. Erika’s job-shadowing experience at the veterinary clinic grew out of a push by the state to provide better career advice to students headed into the workforce as well as to college.
Andrea Morales for Education Week
College & Workforce Readiness Ark. Students Get Early Start on Career Planning
The state hopes to put students on more promising pathways by dispatching college and career coaches to middle and high schools in 34 counties.
Catherine Gewertz, May 30, 2017
10 min read
High school freshman Ivan Szasz pilots a boat during a field trip for marine biology students from the Marine Academy of Science and Technology in Highlands, N.J. Seats in the academically rigorous, career-technical-education program are highly coveted and filled mostly by white students.
High school freshman Ivan Szasz pilots a boat during a field trip for marine biology students from the Marine Academy of Science and Technology in Highlands, N.J. Seats in the academically rigorous, career-technical-education program are highly coveted and filled mostly by white students.
Mark Abramson for Education Week
College & Workforce Readiness Can a Career Tech Ed. School Be Too Popular?
Schools like the Marine Academy of Science and Technology worry that their enrollments are becoming less diverse as their academics become more rigorous.
Catherine Gewertz, May 16, 2017
8 min read
Warren County High School seniors Alex Yates, left, and David Romero work on an assembly line machine in a mechatronics class in McMinnville, Tenn. The technology skills they learn in the class help prepare them for jobs in the area’s booming automotive industry.
Warren County High School seniors Alex Yates, left, and David Romero work on an assembly line machine in a mechatronics class in McMinnville, Tenn. The technology skills they learn in the class help prepare them for jobs in the area’s booming automotive industry.
Joe Buglewicz for Education Week
College & Workforce Readiness Pruning Dead-End Pathways in Career and Technical Ed.
Tennessee wants to ensure that its career-technical education programs propel students toward college and good-paying jobs.
Catherine Gewertz, May 9, 2017
9 min read

Coverage of learning through integrated designs for school innovation is supported in part by a grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York at www.carnegie.org. Education Week retains sole editorial control over the content of this coverage.