How Aligned is Career and Technical Education to Local Labor Markets?

This report examines whether students in high school CTE programs are more likely to take courses in high-demand and/or high-wage industries, both nationally and locally. By linking CTE course-taking data from the High School Longitudinal Survey to employment data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, it seeks to answer three central research questions:

• To what extent do national CTE course-taking patterns at the high school level reflect the current distribution of jobs across fields and industries?
• To what extent is CTE course-taking in high school linked to local employment and industry wages?
• How do patterns of CTE course-taking differ by student race and gender?