Giving Compass' Take:

• The Johns Hopkins Institute for Education Policy shares five recommendations for producing inclusive and thoughtful career and technical education programs. 

• How will these programs help drive progress in career readiness for students? What are the key benefits of career and technical education paths? 

•  Read about the importance of career and technical education. 

Research suggests that simply taking a course or two in career and technical education for a few hours a week won’t do much for either job preparedness or academic achievement. Rather, the focus should be on ensuring that these programs are tightly integrated with real-world, commercial standards and generate job-ready or baseline skills upon which post-high-school work can build for all students.

The Johns Hopkins Institute for Education Policy provides five key recommendations for building more meaningful, and more inclusive, programs in career and technical education:

  1. Provide districts with incentives to exceed minimum standards.
  2. Ensure a seamless transition to post-secondary education.
  3. Intensive teacher training for instructors specific to career and technical education. 
  4. Provide fee waivers for low-income students to take state certification exams. 
  5. Reduce gender disparities in higher-wage pathways.

Taken together, these five recommendations can enhance the quality of programming in career and technical education, while also improving career and industry readiness for all students.

Read the full article about more inclusive programs in career education by Al Passarella at The Hechinger Report.