The Front End of the CTE Teacher Pipeline: A working paper from the Center for the Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research (CALDER) examines the earnings of CTE teachers who enter the profession with prior industry experience.

After analyzing employment data from Washington state, the researchers found that, on average, CTE teachers with prior industry experience make $13,000 more in their first year of teaching than in their prior industry jobs. Apart from Advanced Manufacturing and Digital Technology, CTE teachers in most Career Clusters experience first-year salary increases. 

When comparing the salaries of traditionally and alternatively certified CTE teachers with prior industry experience, the researchers found that although alternatively certified teachers have higher industry salaries, both groups experience salary increases when they transition to teaching. While traditionally certified CTE teachers across all Clusters experience a first-year salary increase, alternatively certified teachers in the Advanced Manufacturing and Digital Technology Clusters earn more in industry than teaching. 

Career Education Recruitment and Communication Toolbox: A new toolkit from Advance CTE provides practitioners with resources to effectively recruit and support students in CTE programs: 

• A guide on recruiting and supporting students with disabilities in CTE programs, including strategies and case studies.  
• A resource outlining how two pilot programs in Colorado and Louisiana worked to better engage with CTE students to inform their recruitment and communication practices.  
• A guide on conducting focus groups as well as customizable CTE program recruitment templates. 

America’s School-to-work Crisis: A survey conducted by the Schultz Family Foundation and HarrisX examines the education and workforce attitudes of young adults, parents, navigators (e.g. teachers, counselors, workforce specialists) and employers. The researchers surveyed over 5,600 respondents and found the following: 

• Across each group, most respondents indicate that while four-year degrees can lead to a job, other skills and experiences are more important. 
  • Fifty-eight percent of employers say skills are more important than degrees. 
  • While navigators express support for noncollege pathways, 70% still advise young people to pursue a four-year degree. Parents also primarily recommend a four-year degree despite reservations about its value.  
• Sixty-four percent of young adults want hands-on experiences to explore career options before choosing a pathway, and 45% say that current career resources available to them offer little guidance.  
  • Young adults are also engaging with AI: 20% use AI tools to explore education and career possibilities. However, 54% are concerned about whether AI will replace the jobs they seek. 
• Tools that navigators recommend for young adults include goal setting (54%), career assessments (41%), college fairs (37%) and job fairs (36%).  
• Thirty-eight percent of employers offer internships, and 14% offer job shadowing opportunities.  

Updating and Expanding the Workforce Almanac: A recent update to the Workforce Almanac from the Project on Workforce at Harvard University provides new figures on short-term workforce training providers nationwide. As of August 2025, more than 20,000 providers are captured in the Almanac’s data, including federal Registered Apprenticeship providers, higher education institutions and WIOA-eligible providers. The researchers analyzed this data and found the following: 

• Nonprofit providers account for 37% of total providers, followed by WIOA-eligible providers (29%), higher education institutions (18%) and Registered Apprenticeships (16%). 
• The Midwest has the highest number of providers per 100,000 workers and per 100,000 unemployed individuals. 
• Washington, D.C., Wyoming and Alaska have the highest number of providers per 100,000 workers; Nebraska, Texas and South Carolina have the lowest. 
• Puerto Rico, West Virginia and Arkansas have the highest ratio of postsecondary institutions that offer short-term workforce training programs to workers. 
• The most common Registered Apprenticeship program sponsors are union/labor organizations, employers, business associations and community colleges/universities.