If we want true future-ready graduates, state and curriculum policymakers should start looking at the Career Technical Education (CTE) playbook.
High schools have worked hard to broaden and diversify students’ perspectives. Walk through any building and you’ll find a wealth of rewarding experiences: students earning college credits, mastering technical skills, and exploring careers.
But these programs generally offer limited opportunities to integrate essential skills: too often, children who enroll in them are classified into two categories: “college” or “career.”
Culturally, education has been focused on academic pathways for decades; However, in recent years in the United States, more and more schools have added career-oriented courses. But academic knowledge and technical skills are not mutually exclusive; they are complementary basic elements. Preparing for both is crucial.
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When these categories are treated as separate destinations, the opportunity to gain essential skills and experiences in both is lost. Students are not taking advantage of the power of combining the conceptual depth of advanced academics with the practical applications of CTE.
The systems surrounding these paths make it even more difficult to merge the principles they espouse. In many states, “academic” and “professional” courses are in separate directories, rely on different funding sources, and are measured by different accountability indicators.
This only accentuates the polarization which leads to a narrowing of horizons. Even when courses overlap, some students earn college credit while others gain technical skills and industry credentials — when in reality, it should be “both/and” instead of “either.”
The idea of merging college and career preparation is not yet new a recent survey shows that only about 1 in 6 educators are connected to CTE notice that they are perfectly integrated into their school. Indeed, the status quo has sent a quiet but powerful message that academic achievement and technical skills are not equal.
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I’ve been in the CTE space long enough to know that career and college readiness requires both skills and in-depth knowledge built through critical thinking, project-based learning, and authentic performance-based assessment. While the education sector has focused on creating CTE momentum to benefit career-oriented learners, advanced students have just as much to gain when learning is anchored in real-world problems.
A persistent stigma around CTE courses disappears most students don’t know this of their options or worried about taking them. We need to stop forcing students to follow separate paths and instead harness the strengths that both paths offer.
In the early 1990s in Tennessee, I was considered an advanced high school senior and placed on a college track with a small, promising cohort of honors peers. I remember very well our last physics project, in which we had to build a real catapult capable of launching a projectile across the room.
I was baffled by the project; most of us were. We were a group of brilliant students who could talk endlessly about theory but couldn’t put the concepts into practice.
The only successful project belonged to a girl outside of our cohort, a general education student whose catapult launched projectiles not only across the gymnasium, but ultimately above the school.
Being “book smart,” I learned that day, is not the same as being prepared.
Although education has evolved enormously since then, some advanced university programs remain stuck in the same traditional practices, lacking contextualized knowledge. Assessments based on timed tests, essays, and multiple-choice questions can examine students’ discipline-specific knowledge, but authentic reviews that challenge students to show what they know and apply their skills to real-world scenarios make education relevant.
At Cambridge International Education, where I work, we know that it is entirely possible to create assessments that combine the theoretical knowledge focus of traditional tests with the practical application of CTE. And we know that this improves student learning, autonomy and motivation. Contextualizing content beyond the classroom requires higher-level thinking, problem-solving, and decision-making: skills known to boost engagement and career success, whether students head straight into the workforce or enter college first.
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In a rapidly changing world in which technological advances and job market demands are outpacing higher education trends, having real-world experience, adaptability, and essential skills such as communication, judgment, and critical thinking promote early career success.
There is no better time to instill these skills than during the crucial developmental years of high school.
CTE courses do this by nature. Increasingly, national conversations – including those of global opinion leaders Advancing CTE – push more schools toward models that integrate academic and career-focused learning rather than treating them as separate tracks. And schools and states across the country are see success in this approach.
Those of us who work in education and policymaking need to actively recognize and reflect on the fact that preparedness is not one thing or another. It’s a mix of curiosity, skills and adaptability.
Bringing this type of learning to life requires courage, a willingness to make bold changes in our perspective, and a determination to take policy actions that enable forward-looking integration.
State policymakers can start by recognizing rigorous dual-focus courses for academic and CTE credit and removing the barriers that keep these programs siled.
School administrators must be willing to rethink course codes and champion local examples of how integrated learning drives engagement and achievement.
When we teach students how to think and how to act, we prepare them not only for their first job, but also for a lifetime of learning, opportunity, and growth. This is what real preparation looks like.
And that’s what every student deserves.
Chantel Reynolds is Head of Product Strategy for North America for Cambridge International Education, part of the University of Cambridge. She works with schools and states to create integrated pathways that prepare students for success in college, career, and life.
Contact the opinion editor at opinion@hechingerreport.org.
This career and technical education story was produced by The Hechinger reportan independent, nonprofit news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Register with Hechinger weekly newsletter.
The article OPINION: Don’t force students to choose between college or career: Preparing for both is crucial appeared first in the Hechinger Report.
