Kimberly Green, NASDCTEc Executive Director, recently wrote a blog post for Pearson on how Career Technical Education (CTE) impacts college and career readiness. Read an excerpt of the blog post below.

The phrase college and career readiness is used constantly, along with an assumption that there is a common understanding of what this term means or aspires to achieve for students, employers and our nation. Yet, when you start to unpack the term, what becomes crystal clear is that there is no clarity.  While there is some agreement that college readiness means preparation for credit-bearing, college-level coursework without the need for remediation, such agreement doesn’t exist when defining career readiness. And it all gets even less clear if you ask people to explain college and career readiness as one term, not two.

Having worked as an advocate for Career Technical Education (CTE) for more than 20 years I know that for the CTE community, college and career readiness isn’t a new term or initiative – it’s what CTE is and has been all about. High-quality CTE has always prepared students with the academic, technical and employability skills and knowledge to succeed not only in one’s first job, but for the lifetime of a career.  College isn’t the goal. College of any form – two-year, four-year, apprenticeship, etc. – is a pathway to a career– a career that aligns to an individual’s skills, talents and aspirations; a career that can support one’s family and fuel one’s passion; a career that drives our nation’s economy and ensures our country’s global competitiveness.

Read the rest of this blog post here.