In many respects, career education has never been needed more than it is today. The need to keep abreast of technological change and to participate effectively in today's high-performance workplace requires each worker to possess a set of basic competencies and a foundation of skills and personal qualities. The competencies, foundation skills, and…

Career clusters are part of a response to changing work and a changing workplace, a way of broadening the focus of secondary career and technical education (CTE). The following are some of the changes in work and the workplace: the nature and structure of work; leadership styles and organizational structures; the knowledge and skills needed;…

Many states and local districts use career clusters as a means of broadening the focus of secondary education, particularly career and technical education, as preparation for both further education and work. One continuing trend in career clusters is sheer variety. Cluster frameworks vary in the number, nomenclature, and organization of clusters.…

Dykeman and colleagues developed a taxonomy of career development interventions used in United States secondary schools that can help career and technical education (CTE) practitioners evaluate and improve the effectiveness of guidance programs. The interventions include introductory, advising, curriculum-based, and work-based interventions.…

Career portfolios contain evidence of individuals' knowledge and skills and are useful tools in job search and career change, especially now that employers want generalizable workplace skills not well portrayed by traditional means and students are often inept at communicating their skills and knowledge to employers. Career portfolios contain and…

Traditional academic diplomas and degrees remain the most prominent credentials for the workplace. Educational participation and rates of attainment of traditional and other credentials at all levels are at an all-time high. Between 1970 and 1997, female postsecondary enrollments increased by 67.2%. Blacks and Hispanics, however, remained…

New ways of work and new workers and workplaces need education and training systems and occupational classification systems based on the skills that different occupations share rather than on the industry sectors to which they belong. This new approach to providing occupational information (career majors or clusters or pathways) corresponds to…

Facts on career academies are provided for local school board members, superintendents, other district administrators, and building administrators. The facts are divided into three categories. The category title or the fact is followed by the numbers of the references on which that category or fact is based. The section called Components of Career…

Recent educational approaches that have career and technical education (CTE) components have integrated work-based learning (WBL) with traditional academics. Among positive effects of the association between WBL and secondary students' educational outcomes are: (1) increased attendance, (2) decreased dropout rates, (3) increased number of academic…

Career and technical education (CTE) can provide significant benefits to students with disabilities. Research shows that students with disabilities in secondary CTE programs were less likely to drop out and more likely to be employed, to have paid competitive jobs, and to work full time after high school, especially if they were mainstreamed and…

High Schools That Work (HSTW) sites have used a variety of specific approaches to implement a challenging curriculum, provide a systematic program of sustained guidance, and enable academic and career and technical education (CTE) teachers to work together in planning and delivering integrated instruction. The HSTW-recommended curriculum calls for…

Again today, as 40 years ago, the idea of setting standards for career and technical education (CTE) has come to the fore. CTE practitioners have learned some lessons about implementing standards, among them that there is no "standard" standard; instead, there can be a confusing variety of standards. An analysis of standards reveals that there are…

This document examines issues and techniques related to assessment of online learning for adult, career, and vocational education. The document begins with an overview of the disadvantages of assessing at a distance and the issue of security in the online environment. The following aspects of continuous assessment are discussed: characteristics…

This module, one in a series of performance-based teacher education learning packages, focuses on a specific skill that vocational educators need in order to integrate the teaching and reinforcement of basic skills into their regular vocational instruction. The purpose of the module is to help the educator assist students in improving their…

To assist career education and career development practitioners in helping students use occupational information, this Practitioner File begins by discussing the role of occupational information in career decision making. The next section addresses considerations and concerns in using online information such as user proficiency, quality of…