New Draft Career Clusters Available for Public Comment

Update 2/25: Please read about Advance CTE's decision to suspend their update to the National Career Clusters Framework on their website at https://careertech.org/the-framework. 

Update 2/23: Comments on this blog post are closed so that ACTE can compile member input to share with Advance CTE. To share your feedback going forward, please do one of the following: 1) Submit comments to Advance CTE through their feedback form at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe1N-kRjpPcw2ohx0JAggRGB5_JLzMSr1941JSLY4RxdFHL9g/viewform by February 25; 2) Share your thoughts with ACTE by emailing [email protected]. 

Last week, Advance CTE released a proposed draft for updates to the National Career Clusters® Framework, which is used for a variety of purposes around the country, including describing CTE, organizing CTE programs, reporting federal CTE data and helping students explore career areas.

Advance CTE has been working on an update to the current Framework for the last year, through an initiative called "Advancing the National Career Clusters Framework," and now has a proposal for feedback and refinement. The impetus to revise the Framework came from a call to action from the CTE community
and its stakeholders to update the current 16 National Career Clusters Framework because they felt it was no longer reflective of the current or future world of work.

The proposal is based on the purpose of providing "structural alignment and a common language to bridge education and work, empowering each learner to explore, decide and prepare for dynamic and evolving careers." It is important to note that the proposed Framework is a draft and may not reflect all feedback gathered to date. For the most updated version of this proposed Framework and additional information, please visit the Advancing the Framework page of the Advance CTE website. The draft Framework reduces the number of national Career Clusters from 16 to 12 and includes the following:

• Business, Management and Public Administration
• Construction & Built Environment
• Education
• Energy
• Food, Living Systems & Natural Resources
• Health, Wellbeing & Community Services
• Information Technology
• Manufacturing and Operations
• Media, Entertainment & Experiences
• Research & Analytics
• Security & Justice
• Transportation & Mobility

It is important that all CTE stakeholders review the draft updates and think critically about how they would impact your programs and students. You can view a presentation on the rationale behind the updates at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxGN90e4yH8&feature=youtu.be and then, once you have viewed the webinar, submit comments to Advance CTE through their feedback form at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe1N-kRjpPcw2ohx0JAggRGB5_JLzMSr1941JSLY4RxdFHL9g/viewform. Comments must be submitted through the form by February 25. Questions and comments in this form will be attended to through a Frequently Asked Questions document to be shared widely in March by Advance CTE. They hope to have a new Clusters Framework approved by their board of directors later this spring.  

ACTE is also interested in hearing your feedback as we work to represent our members during the process. If you would like to share your thoughts with us, please email [email protected].

Comments

[April C. Murelio]

Great job on the career cluster update effort! I encourage the taskforce to make certain they are using the language of employers and not educators when finalizing the names for these clusters. Employers need to be able to readily identify that we are indeed training their future workforce and we understand the skills needed and the positions available.

[Jonathan Walker]

I don't think public administration should be grouped with Business. Business, Management, and Marketing go well together.

[Chris Titus]

I don't understand why people within CTE seem to feel the obsessive need to change the categorization of things. Just pick something and stop changing it !!!

[Melissa Hanrahan]

Please add to the Business, Management and Public Administration - MARKETING!

It should read: Business, Marketing, Management and Public Administration

Thanks for adding Marketing into the Career Cluster.

[Nancy Pfeiffer]

I don't agree with not having Marketing listed under the Business, Management and Public Administration career cluster. Marketing is vital to each of these areas and is equally important. Business, management and Public administration can not exist without Marketing. Marketing is everywhere and how consumers become aware of of the other areas of concentration. Marketing should be listed as: Business, Marketing, Management and Public administration.

[Vincent Wray]

This land was and is still and will always be built in, created for, and all about Agriculture. Everything we see as important has it's basis in Agriculture. All career and technical education has it's beginning in The Agricultural Classroom both in high school and in post secondary education. Agriculture should never leave the side of CTE.

[sally Nelson]

Marketing needs to be included with Business Management

[Iron Heart Pinkney]

I don't see engineering on the list. There are many fields of engineering that students can look into. We need to offer them the chance to make informed choices.

[Marie Collins]

On behalf of the Career & Technical Education Team at Badger High School in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, we implore you to keep the existing names of the clusters the same. The constant changing of terminology is confusing to students, staff members, counselors, and the community. In addition, we have branded our Academies and spent money on marketing them. Changing names midstream means we need to reprint all of our materials and our website.

In addition to the confusion, there are omissions in the new pathways. Here are supporting examples - there is nothing that represents Marketing and the elimination of the words Agriculture and Hospitality. The new names given to the clusters are nothing less than confusing.

We have put great effort into the alignment of our programs and the education of our students and community about the existing pathways. Changing what is already working is a mistake.

As we are all asked to do more, we are asking you to do less...less changing of things that are working and are understood.

[Kristal Swopes]

I truly believe that Marketing should be listed in the Career Cluster name; Business, Management, and Public Administration. We know that marketing is a prevalent part of our society. It is everywhere. Please consider renaming Business, Marketing, Management, and Public Relations.

[Emilee Black]

Where is Agriculture in all this? Do not understand the constant need to change everything every other year. We as teachers constantly preach to our students about being consistent. This is hard to do when the government doesn't allow us to be consistent teachers!!

[Kerry Henley]

I believe that Marketing should be listed in the career cluster name: Business, Management, and Public Administration. Marketing is a huge industry and should not be left out within this career cluster name. It may be confusing for those going into marketing to find the career cluster quickly and efficiently.

[Betsy Avellaneda]

I personally think Transportation is a bit misleading to our students that are looking for the automotive pathway. Most never think that is where they will find the information.

[J W Hill]

What about agricultural education???

[Katie Laurentius]

Marketing should be listed in the career cluster name. It is a huge part of business and CTE!

[Cayse Overstreet]

As someone who has worked in the field of business AND marketing as well as an educator in both business and marketing for 10 years, I strongly feel that "MARKETING" should be part of the career cluster name rather than listed only as a topic covered. The importance of marketing to this career field has only increased substantially over the decade and will continue to be more and more prevalent in the future. Please consider renaming it to Business, Marketing, Management and Public Administration. Thank you for your consideration!

[Paul Tick]

I see this as just another example of the disconnect between those on the front lines and bean counting pencil pushers. Is this really the type of work that makes an impact or should there be more focus on the simple terms of the Federal Perkins Grant? I think an emphasis on supporting our teachers and students success in CTE programs of study is the responsible decision no matter what they call the cluster.

[Jill]

Marketing needs to be included with Business Management.

[Leslie Crider]

Marketing affects every single one of the other career clusters. It is very important in the day-to-day lives of everyone. I understand the reasoning of why we would put the business and marketing together. However, in the title of the new career cluster Marketing needs to be listed. Marketing is what grows businesses and allows for new products and inventions to hit the market and sold. Marketing is important. It needs to read Business, Marketing, Finance, and Management.

[Michael McGreal]

The Culinary and Hospitality sector is the second largest employer in the world, only second to the federal government. Leaving both of these career titles off the cluster list of titles is a terrible mistake.

If you have been to a restaurant recently, you will see that no restaurants have enough staff in the kitchen or front of house, and are not able to find nearly enough employees. Watch the news any night and you will see that the Culinary and Hospitality career pathways are struggling to fill labor shortages, more than almost any other industry. Survey students in these programs in secondary or post-secondary institutions and you will find they feel they have found their passion and excited to pursue this academic pathway towards their future career.

These titles represent two very different segments of the industry, so it is imperative to have both titles represented in the title of a cluster. Culinary and Hospitality operations represent the largest number of small/independent businesses in the United States too. We should be promoting these as much as possible, not hiding them within some vague or confusing titled cluster. Please do not make this mistake.

I am happy to help or provide any info needed.

[Jodi koterba]

I have been involved in Agriculture Education all my life. I feel we will be missing a lot of supporters and careers by removing the word agriculture. It is one of the few industries with it's own office in the government. We still strongly rely on the department of agriculture to provide the world's safest food supply. The career cluster should remain as Agriculture, Food & Natural resources.

[M. Wright]

The idea that removing the word Agriculture from the career pathway you now would like to call “Food, Living Systems and Natural resources” is EXTREMELY misleading. Students, administrators, community members and all those not reading the exact definition will believe that to have nothing at all to do with true agriculture. Yes, food is a part of agriculture but in this setting can be misconstrued to be more along the lines of family consumer science. This is in no way an adequate change to represent what the industry associated with agriculture OR food understand.

[Mike]

You cannot remove or try to generalize agriculture. It is more than food and natural resources. Agriculture is also one of the original CTE programs and need to be listed out right. We alone at one point had 8 career pathways to our program alone.

[Lori A Dyer]

Please keep agriculture in the cluster name. It is descriptive and forthright.

[Kathryn]

Agriculture is missing from the list