ACTE regularly produces reports, briefs, fact sheets and other publications about CTE policy, research and practice.
Facts About CTE
- Fact Sheets: These one-pagers include quick facts and research points about CTE.
- Sector Sheets: Sector Sheets, sponsored by Pearson, describe CTE’s role in growing the qualified workforce for high-growth, high-demand industries.
- Career Readiness series: This series of publications describes what it means to be career ready.
Perkins V Implementation
- Perkins V: The Official Guide to the Strengthening Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century Act: This comprehensive book includes background and overview of the new law; highlights of changes that will have the greatest impact on your programs; a complete side-by-side showing key differences between IV and V; section-by-section summary and analysis; summary and relevant sections of other federal legislation referenced within Perkins V for clear crosswalking; the complete text of the new law; and an index for easy reference.
- Maximizing Perkins V’s Comprehensive Local Needs Assessment & Local Application to Drive CTE Program Quality and Equity: This tool provides an overview of how to get started on your local needs assessment and helps you translate the language in the law into concrete, actionable steps for conducting a rigorous local needs assessment that meets Perkins V requirements.
- ACTE’s Quality CTE Program of Study Framework Self-evaluation: A Tool for the Perkins V Comprehensive Local Needs Assessment: This brief describes how ACTE’s Quality CTE Program of Study Framework and its companion self-evaluation instrument can help local CTE leaders evaluate their programs and complete key portions of the CLNA.
- Cheat Sheet: Opportunities for Employer Involvement in CTE: This brief, developed with Advance CTE and Business Leaders United for Workforce Partnerships, describes the many ways that employers can partner with education institutions.
- Engaging Families and Communities to Support Special and Underserved Populations in CTE: This report describes strategies for communicating with, collaborating with and supporting CTE learners’ families and communities, particularly for learners and communities who have been historically underserved.
- With Learners, Not for Learners: A Toolkit for Elevating Learner Voice in CTE: This toolkit, created with Advance CTE, provides CTE leaders with actionable resources, guidance and tools to ensure CTE learner voices are elevated and heard in order to improve CTE policies and practices.
Student Career Development
- Student Career Development series: This series, produced in collaboration with Xello, explores topics such as virtual career development, social-emotional learning, work-based learning, early grades experiences and more.
- Career Exploration in Middle School: Setting Students on the Path to Success: This publication, supported by Xello, describes the benefits of career exploration in middle school and explores different ways that schools and districts can integrate career exploration in these grades.
CTE Educator Pipeline
- Career and Technical Education Leadership Series: Landscape of CTE Leaders: This publication shares data on CTE leaders, such as numbers of administrators, preparation and responsibilities.
- Teacher Recruitment and Retention: The National Teach Ag Campaign: The report describes a years-long successful campaign to encourage students to enter the field of teaching, the National Teach Ag Campaign from the National Association of Agricultural Educators (NAAE).
Federal and State Policy
- CTE Policy Past, Present, and Future: Driving Forces Behind the Evolution of Federal Priorities: This article uses a social policy analysis approach to trace the history of federal CTE policy throughout the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century. Through this overview, we demonstrate how federal CTE policy has repeatedly evolved and responded to changing economic and social needs, while also incorporating policy flexibility that has led to variation in program implementation on the state and local levels.
- State Fact Sheets: These printable one-page documents provide basics on your state’s CTE program, including funding, enrollment data, performance statistics and labor market alignment.
- State Policies Impacting CTE: Year in Review: This publication, co-produced with Advance CTE, gives an overview and state-by-state summary of CTE-related policies enacted each year.
Additional Publications
- Connecting Industry-recognized Certification Data to Education and Workforce Outcomes: Measuring the Value Added to Skills, Employment and Wages: This report shares results from ACTE’s Certification Data Exchange Project, which sought to expand and improve data exchange between industry certification organizations and state longitudinal data systems, and discusses lessons learned and recommendations for future data-sharing and -matching efforts.
- myOptions-ACTE Data Dashboard: This dashboard features findings from our annual, nationwide survey of CTE high school students and educators, conducted in partnership with myOptionsTM.