The American Enterprise Institute (AEI) found a positive relationship between recent CTE coursetaking and labor market characteristics in their latest report, “An Examination of Career and Technical Education Course Taking and Labor Markets Across Two High School Cohorts.” The researchers used national data from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) and the Bureau of Labor Statistics to complete the study, including longitudinal studies following high school graduates from 2004 and 2012.
The researchers looked at several different questions to determine the relationship between high school CTE coursetaking and the needs of the labor market, as well as whether students with baccalaureate-degree aspirations engage in CTE coursetaking differently than those without baccalaureate-degree aspirations.
Specifically, the study showed that for the high school students that graduated in 2004, CTE course taking in specific Career Clusters was for the most part not correlated with the number of people employed in industries within those Clusters in the state economy. However, for the high school students who graduated in 2012, the relationship between employment rates in state industry sectors and CTE course enrollment in those Career Clusters was stronger overall, with significant correlation particularly in Business, Health, Finance, IT, STEM and Human Services. This could suggest that the changes made in CTE programs over the last two decades have created better alignment between courses available and labor market needs.
Researchers also found that there was no significant difference in the amount of CTE courses taken, or for the most part the type of CTE courses taken, between students with baccalaureate aspirations and students without those aspirations. The only two exceptions were students planning on attending a four-year university earned more credits in IT, and those students in the 2004 cohort earned fewer CTE credits in Agriculture (although this finding was not replicated in the 2012 cohort), and those in the 2012 cohort earned more credits in STEM.
Because Perkins V emphasizes the use of labor market information through Comprehensive Local Needs Assessments (CLNAs) and in the creation of recognized postsecondary credentials, we expect that the positive trend between CTE course taking and local labor market needs will continue to grow. For more information about how to better align CTE course taking and local economic needs through the CLNA, read more here.
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