1. Career Technical Education
  2. Career Clusters

Career Clusters

Nurses standing next to each other.

Career Clusters

The National Career Clusters® Framework provides a vital structure for organizing and delivering quality CTE programs through learning and comprehensive programs of study.

The National Career Clusters® Framework serves as an organizing tool for Career Technical Education (CTE) programs, curriculum design and instruction. There are 16 Career Clusters in the National Career Clusters Framework, representing 79 Career Pathways to help learners navigate their way to greater success in college and career. The framework also functions as a useful guide in developing programs of study bridging secondary and postsecondary systems and for creating individual student plans of study for a complete range of career options. As such, it helps learners discover their interests and their passions, and empowers them to choose the educational pathway that can lead to success in high school, college and career.

Download a full list of the Career Clusters and Career Pathways here.  

Below are resources to support the implementation of Career Clusters and their integration into the broader CTE environment in your state or community.

A career guidance tool that allows learners to respond to questions and identify the top three Career Clusters of interest based on their responses. Offered in both English and Spanish. 

These rubrics are for state and local administrators to use as they assess the progress made on the implementation of the Career Clusters, focusing on critical components such as state plan/administrative support, professional development, partnerships, family and community support, teaching strategies and workplace learning.

 

A collection of crosswalks to support the linkage or bridging of different coding systems with the 16 Career Clusters and Career Pathways to assist in reporting, research and other applications. Download here.