What is the role for states in recruiting more learners to Career Technical Education (CTE) programs, and how can community partners support that role? This webinar featured two states - Maryland and New Hampshire -with emerging practices to sustain long-term engagement with both learners and employers to increase enrollment in CTE programs.

Across the country, new approaches to virtual and remote Career Technical Education (CTE) during the coronavirus pandemic provided opportunities for learners to access courses or engage with industry experts when they could not before. As learners become increasingly mobile and not place-based, lessons learned from these solutions borne out of crisis should be leveraged to increase access to high-quality CTE programs in the future. 

As we enter the third year of the coronavirus pandemic, it is clear that employers across multiple economic sectors remain challenged due to the lack of a skilled labor pool to fill the existing skills gaps. Skills-based hiring offers the opportunity to confront degree inflation, expand talent pipelines and support economic growth in the face of systemic social inequities. It evaluates employees and new hires based on their skillsets instead of their work histories and/or education credentials exclusively.

Each year, Advance CTE and ACTE track and analyze state policy to prepare a Year in Review: State Policies Impacting CTE report. While 2021 was marked by significant and necessary coronavirus pandemic-responses, states were surprisingly active in enacting policy actions impacting Career Technical Education (CTE). Last year 41 states enacted 138 policy actions that will impact millions of CTE learners in secondary and postsecondary systems.