Modernized career and technical education will prepare learners for sustainable careers in a changing labor market
Kate Kreamer, who heads Advance CTE, a national nonprofit representing state CTE directors and CTE state leaders, outlines the recently updated National Career Clusters Framework, an essential guide for developing more relevant, industry-focused, and learner-centered career and technical education programs of study.
September 15, 2025
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Consider the makeup of your school board. Who is a former educator or school or college leader? Who owns a business? Who has a career in technology or human services? Who has had more than one of these careers?
Now look at which of your colleagues have skills in communication, teamwork, risk assessment, critical thinking, and adaptability. It’s likely all your colleagues possess at least some, if not all, these skills.
The wide skill set needed to succeed in any career is the reality of today’s world of work. Yet employers continue to indicate an increasing skills gap and difficulty in finding employees that meet their hiring needs, which is hurting their bottom line.
At the same time, new industries have emerged that did not exist 20 or even five years ago. Those industries include digital media and unmanned vehicles, automation, vertical farming, and clean and alternative energy. Artificial intelligence is transforming how we work and the types of jobs that will require human support.
As a result, all career pathway experiences are grappling with this question: How can experiences be designed to adequately prepare learners of all ages for the world of work while keeping pace with changes in the world around us?
From its inception at the beginning of the 20th century, career and technical education (CTE) has been responsive to economic, societal, and cultural changes. CTE has evolved from its original mission of providing high school job training in limited program areas known as vocational education. It now provides a wide range of career exploration and preparation opportunities for over 11 million learners from the middle grades to adulthood.
For over 100 years, my organization, Advance CTE, has served as the federal CTE policy advocate for states and in recent decades a thought leader in the national vision for high-quality CTE. The structure guiding CTE’s transformation was the National Career Clusters Framework, for which Advance CTE serves as the steward. And now it is once again time for CTE to respond to the world around us.
When the original Framework was released in 2002, it provided stronger linkages and programs across K-12 and postsecondary systems. Advance CTE unveiled in 2024 a modernized Framework that takes this work to the next level by providing shared structure and language that bridges industry’s organization of work. The Framework is grounded in 12 Career Ready Practices that are essential for every career. Fourteen industry-aligned Career Clusters are grouped into six Cluster Groupings, such as “cultivating resources” and “caring for communities,” which help learners discover purpose and connections across career clusters. Each Career Cluster contains multiple career areas with similar skills known as Sub-Clusters.
FOUR KEY STRENGTHS
Ultimately, the Framework provides states and educators with a new foundation to build more relevant, industry-directed, and learner-centered CTE programs of study through four distinct features. The Framework:
- Responds to industry structure and needs. CTE programs must be designed to equip learners with the technical and human skills needed to be successful in the workplace. The Framework’s methodology is focused on qualitative and quantitative labor market data. Over 200 industry advisors provided input on the structure, content, and wording of each career cluster and connected occupations. For example, the Information Technology career cluster was expanded and renamed Digital Technology; the Health Science and Human Services clusters were combined into a new interrelated Healthcare and Human Service career cluster.
- Fully reflects all skilled, living wage careers available. The modernized Framework did not take away industry sectors, but rather reorganized and added new sectors and occupations. They range from robotics and self-driving vehicles to cybersecurity and data science to entrepreneurship. Furthermore, to guide learners toward sustainable career paths that start or lead to family-sustaining wages, the framework only includes middle and high-skills occupations.
- Reflects the interconnectivity of work today. The Framework now includes three “cross-cutting” sectors—Digital Technology, Management and Entrepreneurship, and Marketing and Sales. Cross-cutting clusters are designed to be both stand-alone career clusters but also reflect the careers and organizational functions that can be further embedded across multiple industry sectors. This will remove silos across CTE systems and programs to create flexible pathways that expose learners to a more complete range of career paths and settings. For example, learners can be exposed to cybersecurity careers not only in a technology firm or government office, but also in health care and manufacturing settings that connect to their purpose and interests.
- Designed to advance innovation in CTE. The focus on connecting rather than siloing systems in the Framework opens the floodgates for innovating state and local policies. These policies give learners, educators, and employers more options, more individualization, and better outcomes for career exploration and preparation. Educator credentialing eligibility can be adjusted to include multiple career clusters. Course sequencing can include multiple industry sectors and even multiple course options rather than being limited to one career cluster.
THE ROLE OF SCHOOL BOARDS
While many states have started implementing the modernized Framework, fully leveraging these strengths and opportunities will be a multiyear process and will look different in every state. It will require collaboration and creativity across all roles within K-12, postsecondary, and workforce systems. States, school districts, and higher education institutions will need to examine course and program offerings, educator credentialing, staff structure, career and technical student organization (CTSO) alignment, data collection, legislative initiatives, and other areas.
- School boards will be important partners in encouraging and shepherding this opportunity for thoughtful evaluation and innovation.
- School board leaders can take a variety of actions, including:
- Collaborate with state and local CTE and industry leaders to identify where family-sustaining jobs are and will be.
- Review local labor market data to see how and to what extent all learners and workers, particularly those historically disconnected or underrepresented in in-demand sectors, have access to those well-paying jobs.
- Partner to adopt and adapt the Framework through changes to policy and practice to be as relevant as possible to your state, communities, and labor markets.
- Review all career pathways (not just CTE) to encourage greater innovation and personalization in curriculum, instruction, career exploration, work-based learning such as internships and apprenticeships, and career advising.
- Share the Framework with other leaders and promote how future changes to CTE will benefit learners, communities, and economies.
With your help, the modernized National Career Clusters Framework can serve as a national model for CTE and all career pathways experiences to bridge industry to education, and design effective career preparation experiences that empower all learners to see themselves in and be ready for any career. It’s what our learners and communities need and expect from of us. A recent Phi Delta Kappa poll indicated that, in this current economy, the top priority for the public is preparing students for entering the workforce.
Advance CTE is committed to supporting school district leaders and school boards on this journey. Visit our website to explore Framework resources and receive updates on how to get involved.
Kate Kreamer (kkreamer@careertech.org) is executive director of Advance CTE, a national nonprofit representing state CTE directors and CTE state leaders.