Middle Grades Career and Technical Education

In March 2020, Advance CTE and the Association for Career and Technical Education (ACTE) released a report entitled Broadening the Path: Design Principles for Middle Grades CTE. While March was a tough time to release a new report, many factors make this information important to hear about and act upon. There is an increasing consensus that CTE programs should start in the middle grades and the Strengthening Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century Act (Perkins V) allows funds to be spent on students as early as the fifth grade. However, there is not consensus on what constitutes a quality CTE program that will drive equitable outcomes for these younger students.

The resource defines student learning outcomes, 10 design principles, and the core programmatic elements for developing and expanding CTE into middle grades. Couragion is an impact-first organization and the student learning outcomes section is highly aligned with our career literacy platform. Here's a quick glance at the student outcomes outlined in the report that so strongly speak to our mission:

• Gain awareness of and exposure to a wide variety of possibilities across all the career clusters.

• Increase personal self-awareness in order to form potential occupational identities.

• Develop employability skills as building blocks to success in future education and work.

• Develop foundational technical skills such as understanding terminology or demonstrating use of industry-specific tools, equipment, or software.

• Be positioned to make more informed decisions about educational and workforce opportunities.

If you are a state or local leader working to build or enhance middle school CTE programs and practices, be sure to check out the full report. There's also a design principles self-assessment to help evaluate your current programs and policies. Happy reading! And thank you @CTEWorks and @ACTEcareertech for the report!