Career & Technical Education

Displaying 1-30 of 84 results
Students working on machine
Commentary
7.24.2026
Evidence-Based Learning, School Finance, Career & Technical Education, Charter Schools, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance

Good programs aren’t enough: States need a work-based learning strategy

Rachel Canter, Bruno V. Manno

In Philadelphia, a young person leaving Launchpad Philly’s post-high school graduate training track is on pace to earn nearly $30,000 within nine months and $50,000 within one year. That far outpaces the roughly $12,500 a young Philadelphian with only a high school diploma typically earns.

Students working on machine
Harvard College entrance
Commentary
6.30.2026
Career & Technical Education, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

Honest talk about who should go to college

Michael J. Petrilli

Editor’s note: This was first published as part of a newsletter for Mike’s Substack, SCHOOLED.

Harvard College entrance
Path with sun and shade
Commentary
6.18.2026
Evidence-Based Learning, Career & Technical Education, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Creating more pathways isn’t enough. They need to work, too.

Bruno V. Manno

For several decades, K–12 ed-reformers and policy leaders have pushed to expand public school options and pathways.

Path with sun and shade
Apprentice
Commentary
5.14.2026
Evidence-Based Learning, Career & Technical Education, Governance

What do we know about the value of CTE credentials?

Shaun M. Dougherty

A new Fordham report estimates the value of earning industry-recognized credentials and certificates as part of high school CTE pathways. The study provides some of the best evidence to date on the economic value of technical education that students can earn during high school. Now, Shaun Dougherty, one of the nation’s leading CTE scholars, puts the Plasman study in the context of the larger research literature.

Apprentice
Apprenticeship
Commentary
5.8.2026
Evidence-Based Learning, Career & Technical Education, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance

Unraveling the case for credentials in high school

Lindsey Phillips

Students can earn more than 1.8 million credentials in the United States today. We know education pays—particularly for those with a bachelor’s degree.

Apprenticeship
Apprenticeship
Commentary
4.27.2026
Career & Technical Education, Governance

Workforce Pell and the path from high school to work: Marking National Apprenticeship Week 2026

Bruno V. Manno

For all the talk about preparing students for college and career, American education still struggles with one of its most important jobs: helping young people make a confident first move into adult life. We ask students to make big decisions about college, work, and training, but give them weak maps for what comes next.

Apprenticeship
Path arrows
Commentary
4.9.2026
Career & Technical Education, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

The high school pathways that boost adult earnings

Aaron Churchill

It’s not often that a conservative education secretary and a progressive teachers union boss see eye to eye.

Path arrows
Apprenticeship
Commentary
3.26.2026
Career & Technical Education, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

The never-ending buzz around apprenticeships

Dale Chu

At this year’s SXSW EDU conference, the startup Apprentos stole the show, winning the “Launch Competition” with a slick pitch promising to “de-risk” apprenticeships for employers.

Apprenticeship
Truck driver
Commentary
12.11.2025
Accountability & Testing, Career & Technical Education

Do short-term noncredit programs boost earnings?

Preston Cooper

Students in short-term workforce education programs will soon get some help covering tuition costs. The recently-passed One Big Beautiful Bill Act expands Pell Grants to workforce programs as short as eight weeks or 150 clock hours in duration.

Truck driver
Student at school
Commentary
11.6.2025
Evidence-Based Learning, Career & Technical Education, Teachers & School Leaders

CRPE on special education: Great diagnosis, wrong prescription

Chester E. Finn, Jr.

A remarkable new data engine and provocative policy paper from the Center on Reinventing Public Education should serve to refocus the attention of policymakers and ed-reformers on the many shortcomings of special education as it has evolved over the past half-century.

Student at school
Military personnel writing
Commentary
10.23.2025
Career & Technical Education, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

What the military taught me about the education system

Thibaut Delloue

During my second tour as a U.S. Navy officer, I served as a navigator aboard a test warship in San Diego. In port, navigators often have little to do other than prepare for the next deployment. But not every military job is created equal.

Military personnel writing
Electrician apprenticeship
Commentary
8.21.2025
Evidence-Based Learning, Career & Technical Education, Teachers & School Leaders

Tracing the CTE teacher pipeline from industry to classroom

Jill Hoppe

Student participation in career and technical education (CTE) has grown significantly in recent years, backed by bipartisan support and

Electrician apprenticeship
Teenager working in a grocery store
Commentary
7.31.2025
Career & Technical Education, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Teachers & School Leaders

Why high schools should help students land summer jobs

Michael J. Petrilli

Much of the education world is obsessed these days (and rightly so) with preparing students for the world of work.

Teenager working in a grocery store
Career-technical education classroom
Commentary
10.10.2024
Evidence-Based Learning, Career & Technical Education, Curriculum & Instruction

Many CTE teachers are leaving the classroom. But is that necessarily a bad thing?

Amber M. Northern, Ph.D., Jeff Murray

The growing popularity of career and technical education (CTE) at the high school level creates an ongoing need for more teachers with industry experience to provide hands-on instruction in a diverse variety of fields.

Career-technical education classroom
School robotics class
Commentary
8.15.2024
Evidence-Based Learning, Career & Technical Education, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Advanced Education, Teachers & School Leaders

Threading the needle on selective enrollment public schools

Michael J. Petrilli

A recent article in the Boston Globe dug into a controversy that is dogging Massachusetts’s highly-regarded system of regional career and technical education (CTE) high schools.

School robotics class
Commentary
1.16.2024
Career & Technical Education, Governance

Congress’s bipartisan progress on strengthening America’s workforce

Bruno V. Manno

The U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Education and the Workforce ended 2023 with some tidings of potential joy for America’s workforce by approving two proposed bills on a strong bipartisan basis. Committee approval in one chamber is just a start, of course, but bipartisanship in the current House is a good sign.

Commentary
11.15.2023
School Finance, Career & Technical Education, Governance

Apprenticeships are the new learning campus

Bruno V. Manno

College for all has been the goal of K–12 schools for at least twenty-five years. This has meant that America’s schools typically do not provide young people with work experience. This experience gap has young people leaving high school with little understanding of work and practical pathways to jobs and careers.

Commentary
10.5.2023
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Career & Technical Education, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

Can a licensure test accurately assess CTE teacher competency?

Amber M. Northern, Ph.D.

There is plentiful research suggesting that, among in-school factors, teachers consistently matter the most when it comes to student testing outcomes.

Commentary
7.27.2023
Evidence-Based Learning, Career & Technical Education, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance

The college-going rate is down. Here’s hoping it falls even further.

Michael J. Petrilli

One of the biggest shifts in education in recent years has been a gradual move away from the “college for all” mantra, and hard numbers show a concurrent decline in the proportion of high school students matriculating directly to college. Far from something to deplore, this trend is a positive development—but only so long as the right teenagers are choosing to enter the labor market rather than pursue college.

Commentary
7.20.2023
Career & Technical Education, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance

The path to four million apprentices

Jeff Murray

For folks who question the value of a traditional four-year college degree—whether they have done so for ages or have only recently lost faith—apprenticeships seem like a promising alternative for young people leaving

Commentary
4.13.2023
Accountability & Testing, Career & Technical Education, Charter Schools, Governance, Private School Choice, Standards

Lessons for ed reform from the Tennessee Three

Dale Chu

When Tennessee House Republicans expelled, albeit briefly, two young, Black Democratic lawmakers late last week, it raised a number of unsettling questions—not only about the contours of our politics, but also about the future of educat

Commentary
2.17.2023
Evidence-Based Learning, Career & Technical Education, Curriculum & Instruction, Teachers & School Leaders

Preparing young people for success at work is about knowledge and relationships

Bruno V. Manno

What does it mean to “prepare young people for adult work,” an oft-used saying to describe one of schooling’s primary goals? Though it surely means that we prepare them to earn a living and move up the income ladder, work is more than a financial way to provide for ourselves and those we love.

Commentary
1.26.2023
Evidence-Based Learning, Career & Technical Education, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance

Getting ready for future employment opportunity: Evidence from Pittsburgh

Jeff Murray

Reversing decades of economic struggle in America’s former manufacturing centers is a high priority for leaders in cities and regions across the nation. Many would like to see technology-focused industries lead such a resurgence, but do they have enough qualified workers? And if not, how can they increase those numbers?