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From Concept to Vision

Explore the journey of CTE Connects from the curated Summit through public release and beyond.

CTE Connects envisions a bold future for CTE, outlining the priorities and actions necessary for building an interconnected CTE ecosystem that increases opportunities and economic mobility for learners while meeting industry needs. It was developed through a highly collaborative, cross-sector process to ensure it reflects and benefits learners, educators, CTE leaders, employers, and national partners.

CTE Connects builds on a legacy of shared visions stewarded by Advance CTE that similarly challenged the field to expand opportunities and advance systems that fully prepare learners for the ever-changing world of work:

2010: Reflect, Transform, Lead: A New Vision for Career Technical Education
2016: Putting Learner Success First
2021: Without Limits: A Shared Vision for the Future of CTE

Scroll to explore the timeline and process that went into creating this new shared vision for the future of CTE.

2021 - 2025
Without Limits: A Shared Vision for the Future of Career Technical Education
CTE Without Limits set forth that each learner must have access to and be successful in the career of their choice by tearing down the barriers that limit opportunity with CTE as the catalyst.
As a result of a shared commitment to the success of each learner, from 2021 through 2025:
- Advance CTE conducted over 100 technical assistance projects with over 30 state teams from across the country, aligned with the principles of CTE Without Limits.
- Over 70% of respondents to the Advance CTE member services survey (State CTE Directors and their team members) reported using CTE Without Limits to help inform their colleagues and networks on where the field was headed.
Early Spring 2025

Connecting Across Partners and Sectors

In early spring of 2025, Advance CTE partnered with 11 national organizations as co-convenors to begin the development of the new shared vision for the future of CTE.
Spring - Fall 2025

Collaborative Summit Planning

Every five years, Advance CTE convenes a summit to kick off the next shared vision for the field. Continuing that tradition, Advance CTE, the 11 co-covenors, and the facilitation partner, Kinetic West, developed the agenda for this uniquely facilitated, highly interactive brainstorming and visioning event.
Invitees included leaders from across the CTE continuum, including education, workforce development, business and industry, CTE educators and administrators, the philanthropic community, national partners, and learners.
October 2025

CTE Unlocked: A Summit to Shape the Future of the Skilled Workforce

The CTE Unlocked Summit took place in New Orleans, Louisiana, from October 6-8, 2025, with over 200 attendees from around the country, spanning a wide assortment of roles across the CTE continuum. From learners to CEOs, attendees spent the three days actively collaborating, brainstorming, and envisioning the next 25 years for CTE.
Thanks to the skillful facilitation of the Kinetic West team, by day three, attendees were able to review and provide feedback on initial themes developed from the conversations and written input from the first two days of the summit, which serve as the basis for the vision principles.
November 2025
Unlocking CTE’s Potential
About a month after the CTE Unlocked Summit, the design committee, co-convenors, and Kinetic West met to review the fully synthesized outputs from the CTE Unlocked Summit. The Kinetic West team had synthesized:
- Dozens of chart papers
- Personas ranging from grade school students to adult learners to employers
- Hundreds of Mentimeter, tapestry, and butterfly sticky note comments
- Pages of notes taken from the continuous conversation and brainstorming among participants
Six early principles emerged that prioritized the need for education and industry to reimagine their partnership and become more interconnected to ensure all learners are able to be successful in economically sustainable and personally fulfilling careers.
Dec - Jan 2026

From Summit to Vision

The new vision for CTE began to take shape as Advance CTE worked to further synthesize the extensive ideas that the thought partnership and collaboration of the Summit created. Working in partnership with the 11 co-convenors and the Advance CTE Board, Advance CTE fine-tuned the principles, created action steps, and developed a vision that could not only serve as a “north-star” for CTE for the next five years, but also set the stage for progress far into the future.
February 2026

The Connected Path

After multiple rounds of review, The Connected Path: A Shared Vision for Opportunity & Empowerment (CTE Connects) was approved by the Advance CTE Board of Directors.
March 2026

Connecting Vision to Action

With the approval of the final version of CTE Connects, Advance CTE began recruiting partner organizations to support the adoption and implementation of the vision and its principles. To support the public release and future work, Advance CTE also began planning for the development of additional resources to aid CTE leaders in sharing and advancing the vision.
April 29, 2026

Connecting Vision to Impact

CTE Connects is publicly released at Advance CTE’s Spring Meeting: Connecting Vision to Impact.