What is The Value of Offering CTE?

The past two decades have seen a greater emphasis on college preparation, but as educators know, college isn’t the goal for every student. And in recent years, industry leaders, educators, and policymakers started seeing deficits in the workforce, which has led to a renewed focus on career and technical education (CTE).

The Value of Offering CTE

Many of today’s hard-to-fill jobs are both high-paying and require specialized training and skills that don’t always require a four-year degree. Offering CTE expands the opportunities available to students as well as interaction with the local (and national) workforce. In addition to gaining practical career skills, part of the value of offering CTE is that it can spark a love of learning that translates to both academic and career success. Not to mention research has shown that taking CTE courses increases the probability of graduating and enrolling in college.

Engage and Prepare Students for Rewarding Careers

Schools across the country are finding that partnering with local industries offers students invaluable career experience as well as an enriching and well-rounded education. And adding high-quality and engaging CTE courses gives middle- and high-school students the opportunity to explore their career interests and prepare and plan for their futures.

Within CTE courses, students can apply the content they learn in core subjects to real-world situations by doing things like creating a computer program, developing a web page, and designing a mobile app. Career exploration courses can also help students build foundational skills and pursue specializations in a variety of high-demand, high-wage careers such as STEM, Information Technology, and Health Sciences.

Rigorous, Relevant, Hands-On Learning

To meet the growing need for career and technical education, Edgenuity^® is expanding our CTE offerings to include over 100 courses across 16 different career clusters so students get a deeper understanding of their career interests, and schools and districts can use one provider for all their online learning needs.

Edgenuity’s career and technical education for middle- and high-school students:

• Combines high-quality instruction with hands-on learning to support foundational knowledge
• Engages students with real-world activities and problem-solving in career-related topics
• Provides students with both skill development and career exploration
• Is customizable so you can support students in preparing for internships and high-paying jobs

The full list of electives available nationally can be found here, and courses available in each state are available here.