Career and Technical Education

Summer 2025 Issue of The Prairie Career Advocate

The AIRSS team is proud to present the fourth issue of our new digital publication, The Prairie Career Advocate. This storytelling effort is part of the Rural IL CTE Project that AIRSS and the Illinois State Board of Education began in 2023. We encourage you to read the issue below, featuring Flora CUSD #35, to […]

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Why Rural America Should Lead the CTE Charge to Reimagine Schools

By Joe Brewer When Thomas bolted out of my history class to respond to an accident on a remote road in our rural community, his training as a student EMT helped him turn fear into action. At just 17 years old, Thomas was the first to arrive on the scene—a heavy  responsibility for someone his

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Winter 2024 Issue of The Prairie Career Advocate

The AIRSS team is proud to present the second issue of our new digital publication, The Prairie Career Advocate. This storytelling effort is part of the Rural IL CTE Project that AIRSS and the Illinois State Board of Education began in 2023. We encourage you to read the issue below, featuring Reed-Custer Community Unit School

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RASI Helps Rural Students Find Community and College Success

Starting college was difficult for me. Even though I always excelled in my small town Illinois school district, and still view myself as a lifelong student with a zeal for learning, I had no idea the initial challenges I would face. I had the opportunity to attend college in a major urban area hours and

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Response: Rural CTE and the “Great Misalignment”

It’s no secret that our education system is struggling to inspire and train the next generation of the American workforce, and this problem is especially pernicious for rural districts. The Rural IL CTE Project has just concluded its first year, focusing on research, showing that rural and small school districts across Illinois are struggling to

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Training for Rural Vitality: Reflecting on the First Year of the Rural IL CTE Project

I am a huge proponent for the power of our small towns and country places. As a product of a small town in West Central Illinois myself, I feel the struggles we have faced in a social and economic system that does not regard rural places as much more than either a backward anachronism that

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