Intro
When most people hear “career and technical education,” (CTE) they picture high school students in a shop class, coding in a computer lab, or learning agricultural basics in a greenhouse. But what if we’re starting too late? By the time students reach high school, many have already formed perceptions about themselves. They have preconceived notions about what they’re “good at,” and about what careers are “for them.” It’s time to broaden our horizons and our beliefs about CTE. At its core, CTE is about exploration, problem-solving, and building skills that grow with students over time. Starting in middle school, these experiences can nurture curiosity, challenge stereotypes, and plant the seeds of adaptability that today’s rapidly changing world demands. CTE isn’t just about preparing students for the future workforce, but creating a foundation of lifelong learning and skills for their future.
Importance of CTE in Middle Schools
Samantha Godbey and Howard Gordon from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas published a report, “Career Exploration at the Middle School Level: Barriers and Opportunities,” that discussed the importance of implementing CTE programs at the middle school level because of the wide variety of opportunities that it opened for students. They note that student engagement often declines from 80% during elementary school to 60% during middle school and is only 44% by high school. They explain that career exploration opportunities through CTE programs in middle school can have a positive effect on students improving school engagement, increasing motivation, creating higher awareness of future career pathways, and improving self-esteem of students. CTE programs offer students the opportunity to expand their skillset and strengthen their skills in collaboration, innovation, critical-thinking, and creativity.
The Rural IL CTE Project has highlighted that the narrative and understanding of CTE is outdated amongst communities, parents, and students. Many still think of CTE programs as being just “shop class”, for students who are “troubled”, or an “easy” elective course that doesn’t carry the same weight as a traditional academic course. This perception undervalues the tenacity and relevance of CTE programs today and what they have to offer students. CTE programs not only create strong post-secondary and career pathways for college and non-college bound students, but allow students to gain and strengthen valuable life skills that have a larger and long term impact for communities as well. They create long-lasting technical and transferable skills that apply beyond just the workforce.
There are frameworks in place that can help the process of introducing CTE opportunities to students in middle school. The Illinois Postsecondary and Career Expectations Framework (PaCE) is designed to provide middle and high school students with exploration of postsecondary planning and paths that is consistent with their growth as an adolescent. The PaCE framework focuses on students’ aspirations, planning, and self-advocacy that allows them to perceive the postsecondary journey as achievable and something meaningful to engage with. The developmental work with PaCE in middle schools is critical in allowing students to be better prepared and to fully engage and explore their postsecondary options before they reach those critical high school years. PaCE works in conjunction with the Career Clusters framework to allow students to see what their skills and interests could look like as a future career opportunity.
Challenges that Rural Schools Face
While it’s easy to see the value of CTE programs for middle school students, rural schools face unique challenges to implementing these types of programs.
- Limited funding and resources: One barrier to implementation of CTE programs in the middle grades is the lack of funding that is provided. CTE programs often require special equipment, more classroom space, and various supplies. While Illinois did shift to the Evidence-Based Funding (EBF) model in 2017 as a way to try and achieve more equity and stability of funding amongst schools, the model still fails to recognize the unique needs of rural schools. With 50% of a school’s annual funding coming from local taxes, this already leaves rural and small areas to be at a disadvantage because of their much smaller tax base to pull funding from. Even when school districts receive funding opportunities for their districts CTE programs, most of the funding is often funneled to high school programs and not properly distributed to junior high and elementary schools.
- Shortage of educators: Results from the most recent Rural IL CTE Project survey found that throughout rural school districts, the main challenge behind offering more CTE courses at any level is the lack of educators to teach such programs, with over 60% of respondents claiming that to be the most persistent issue. With the combination of the remoteness of the location and lack of competitive salaries to pull new educators in, rural schools have a particularly difficult time acquiring and retaining passionate teachers.
- Low student population: Small student populations also create a challenge when addressing the sustainability of resources and funding to be allocated to CTE programs. Even if there are many students interested in various CTE programming opportunities, it can be difficult to justify the cost of creating more exploration opportunities for students to learn new skills and identify career areas that interest them in middle school.
Why Bring CTE to Middle School Students
Expanding CTE to the middle grades is more than just preparing students for future careers, but giving them all the tools and opportunities they need to thrive. We can see how CTE lays a foundation that shapes individual student success and creates stronger communities.
- Equity: One of the most powerful reasons to expand CTE into elementary education is equity. Too often, access to career exploration and hands-on learning is uneven, shaped by geographic location, school funding levels, or ingrained stereotypes. By introducing CTE earlier, we can begin to close those gaps and ensure that every child has the opportunity to imagine a future full of possibilities. Implementing CTE programs at an earlier point in a student’s academic experience will only continue to close the opportunity gap that rural students face for the betterment of their future lives.
- Exposure: Early exposure matters because children start forming ideas about what they can or cannot do at a young age. If students from rural communities never see the range of careers available, they may not consider them later on. By embedding CTE into middle school classrooms, we normalize exploration across all industries before those limiting beliefs take root and provide students the opportunity to see what skills they can bring to their communities.
- Everyday skills: CTE programs are not just for building career skills, but teaching everyday skills that extend beyond the classroom. Through hands-on projects, students learn how to manage their time, work effectively in teams, solve real-world problems, and adapt when plans don’t go as expected. By framing learning in practical, applied contexts, CTE helps students see the value of education in their daily lives, cultivating a mindset of curiosity that supports a foundation for lifelong learning.
Where is it Working/How Rural Schools Can Implement Programs
With the right support, rural middle schools can introduce hands-on projects, career exploration activities, and implement community partnerships that make CTE accessible and rewarding for students. This past spring in Knox County, Carl Sandburg College hosted a “Real World and Career Exploration Experience“, partnering with the University of Illinois Extension and Regional Office of Education #33. The event offered over 350 eighth grade students the unique opportunity to stimulate financial decisions, hear from professionals about career path options, learn about the necessary education and training from industry experts. Junior Achievement hosts a similar event where students are able to connect in-class activities to functions of the real world with a day-long visit to “JA BizTown.” Students are able to write checks, manage their own business, and even vote for mayor of their town for the day. Both of these hands-on and classroom to real world connected events allow young students to have roles as citizens, consumers, and workers to understand how they function and have responsibilities in their communities as adults. These kinds of events demonstrate how partnerships with local community colleges, regional organizations and industry leaders can bring authentic CTE experiences to rural students.
There are also other online resources for rural schools and educators that may have limited time, funding, or staff available to implement more CTE courses for their middle school students. LearningBlade offers online supplemental mission-based lessons for students to explore career pathways and skills in STEM, Computer Science, or CTE. Students can explore and complete these “missions” that combine work in science, math, social studies and language arts and offer students the ability to explore career clusters that they may be interested in. The lessons also come with instructions for in-class, hands-on activities for educators to utilize materials already in the classroom to bring these ideas to life, without significant extra costs.
Together, these approaches show how rural middle schools can blend community partnerships and flexible digital resources to expand career exploration opportunities for students. With activities like these, rural schools can give students early and meaningful access to CTE pathways that are achievable and create a lasting impact on students’ futures.
Conclusion
CTE is too often seen as a separate track, reserved for only certain students. But when we reframe CTE as a foundation for lifelong learning, its value expands far beyond preparing for a single job. It becomes a way of teaching curiosity, critical-thinking, and collaboration, skills that carry students through every stage of their education, their careers, and their lives. Introducing CTE earlier in students’ academic experiences can only offer them the ability to see themselves as someone that has a desire to keep learning and becoming a better version of themselves.