More than eight million high school students are enrolled in career and technical education (CTE) courses nationwide—and interest continues to grow. In fact, according to a recent EdWeek poll, 71 percent of educators report that student demand for CTE programs has increased over the past five years. Career-connected learning like CTE plays a significant role in giving students access to work-based learning, trusted relationships, and guidance alongside the chance to build skills, credentials, and social capital so they can develop the capability to navigate career pathways. TNTP’s Paths of Opportunity identified career-connected learning as a key contributor to greater economic and social mobility.
But as districts work to expand high-quality CTE programs, they are running into a recurring barrier: finding and keeping effective instructors.
Several systemic factors contribute to this challenge. To staff these courses, schools need professionals with experience in their fields—nurses to teach health sciences, electricians to teach electrical trades, programmers to teach computer science. But when CTE programs are aligned with high-wage, in-demand local careers, those same professionals are also highly sought after in the labor market. And those industry jobs often pay salaries that schools simply cannot match.
In addition, licensure systems in many states aren’t well equipped to support industry professionals moving into CTE classrooms. Inadequate alternative pathways to certification, inconsistent recognition of industry credentials, burdensome testing requirements, and a lack of formal support for new teachers all pose barriers that make this transition difficult. These barriers often leave potential teachers on their own to navigate a maze of testing and certification requirements.
The result is a growing mismatch between rising student demand for CTE programs and the limited supply of educators available to teach them. We regularly hear from district leaders who are forced to delay or scale back new pathways because they cannot find enough qualified instructors. Ensuring students can access career-connected learning is the first step in preparing them for the workforce.
If your district is facing these structural challenges, we offer several practical solutions you can employ at the district or school level without waiting for policies to change. With creativity and the capacity to build partnerships in and outside the school building, district and school leaders can take three important steps now to strengthen career pathways and expand opportunities for students.
1. Start With the Talent You Already Have
Start by taking a fresh look at the expertise already inside the school building. Many CTE teachers have broader industry experience beyond the specific courses they currently teach. For example, a teacher leading a business course may also have experience in entrepreneurship, digital marketing, or project management. A computer programming instructor might have skills that could support cybersecurity or data analytics courses.
In addition, districts should ensure that teachers with specialized certifications are able to spend as much of their teaching time as possible with sections of students they alone are prepared to teach. For example, teachers certified to teach CTE courses in information technology are often assigned to teach introductory programming and computer science. Districts could expand specialized CTE offerings by finding different teachers for these introductory courses.
By optimizing the expertise of CTE instructors across multiple courses, districts can strengthen career pathways aligned to high-wage, high-demand industries without dramatically expanding their staffing footprint.
2. Redesign Courses to Include and Support Career-Connected Learning
Another way to strengthen CTE programs is to rethink course sequences and even embed work-based learning opportunities into the school day. Alton Community School District in Illinois, for example, partnered with TNTP to renovate and fortify five pathways in the diverse fields of engineering, cyber security, biomedicine, automotive technology, and architectural design.
When leaders at Alton High School began working to strengthen their career pathways, they examined the courses they already offered and explored how those courses could connect to workplace experiences. Rather than launching entirely new programs—which would have required recruiting additional specialized instructors—they hired a single community leader who coordinated efforts of the business community to support field-based internship experiences for existing CTE pathways. In their Bio-Medical CTE Pathway, for example, Alton students could gain 60 hours of work experience during their senior year in a Certified Nursing Assistant Internship offered during the school day.
In East Tennessee, TNTP partnered with the Niswonger Foundation to help districts build BioSTEM courses that could be taught by an existing science teacher. By designing a course that taught standards across multiple content areas, districts not only promoted interdisciplinary learning but were also able to find teachers that were certified in any of the related content areas to teach the course. TNTP and the Niswonger Foundation then designed training that could help these teachers learn content new to them. This approach has led to over 1,400 students getting courses that will prepare them for high-wage, high-demand careers after high school.
3. Leverage Community Colleges to Expand Capacity
Finally, district and school leaders can look for ways to expand partnerships with postsecondary institutions to provide additional career-connected learning opportunities without hiring new staff. This could include setting up dual-enrollment offerings that expose students to career pathways and earn them college-level credit to prepare them for postsecondary success. By exploring partnerships with neighboring institutions, districts can expand meaningful career-connected learning opportunities without needing to recruit, train, and certify new instructors.
While scaling strong CTE pathways may ultimately require policy changes at the state level that make it easier to bring industry expertise into schools, creative approaches like these can help districts bridge education to career opportunities in the short term.
CTE programs have enormous potential to connect students with meaningful careers, improve their long-term prospects, and strengthen local economies. But meeting the growing demand for these opportunities will require a shift in how we think about talent—not just who can teach, but how schools identify, support, and deploy that talent. Expanding students’ access to high-quality career pathways—and the capabilities they need to navigate them—depends on it.
