CTE Resources

The cancellation of 19 federal Career-Connected High Schools grants in 2025—$48.6 million in expected funding evaporated overnight—taught CTE programs a hard lesson. Grants launch partnerships. They don't sustain them. When…

When ninth graders at Penn Hills High School walk into the PHorge Robotics lab, they are not sitting through a lecture on theoretical engineering concepts. They are earning an industry…

Here's the problem with the way most CTE programs handle industry certifications: they treat them as a senior-year event. Students spend three and a half years building skills in a…

When engineering students at Philadelphia's Swenson Arts and Technology High School open their PLTW lab kits each fall, they are not completing a textbook exercise. They are building the same…

What NCCER Actually Is The National Center for Construction Education and Research — NCCER — was founded in 1996 by a consortium of major construction companies and industry associations. It…

Hook: Your Lab Has Stations Already — Use Them Deliberately Walk into any CTE shop — electrical, culinary, health sciences, automotive — and you'll see natural work zones: the tool…

If you teach construction trades in a CTE program, NCCER is the credential your students should leave with. Not as a supplement to something else—as the primary credential that tells…

When HVAC students at a Pennsylvania career and technical center first encountered an AI-powered predictive analytics dashboard during a employer-sponsored lab demonstration, the reaction was immediate: this is what the…

Every CTE instructor knows the problem: thirty students, one brake lathe, two hydraulic lifts, and a class period that evaporates the moment someone asks a question at the demo table.…