A Missing Link for California's Pathways Movement

Recently, the State of California committed nearly $1 billion to the development of career and technical education (CTE) pathways that lead to locally relevant, high-growth, high-demand careers. Despite such significant energy and investment, attention to the instructional staff needed to design and implement these pathways across K–12 and postsecondary education systems has been disproportionately low. Based on research related to the California Career Pathways Trust initiative, this brief first highlights three challenges to increasing the supply of CTE pathways instructional staff and then puts forth opportunities for state and local leaders as they pursue strategies for more systematically supporting grade 9–14 CTE instructional staff and pathways. This brief attempts to capture the opportunity to pivot from relatively disjointed approaches to CTE staffing in California’s high schools and community colleges to a more intentional and integrated system.