CTE Publications

ACTE regularly produces reports, briefs, fact sheets and other publications about CTE policy, research and practice.

Facts About CTE

Fact Sheets: These one-pagers include quick facts and research points about CTE.
Sector Sheets: Sector Sheets, sponsored by Pearson, describe CTE’s role in growing the qualified workforce for high-growth, high-demand industries.
State Fact Sheets: These one-pagers describe the CTE system in each state.

High-quality CTE

High-quality CTE Publications: These publications describe the ACTE Quality CTE Program of Study Framework® and explore ways to use the framework for program evaluation and improvement activities like the comprehensive local needs assessment.

Perkins V Implementation

Perkins V: The Official Guide to the Strengthening Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century Act (October 2018): This comprehensive book includes background and overview of the new law; highlights of changes that will have the greatest impact on your programs; a complete side-by-side showing key differences between IV and V; section-by-section summary and analysis; summary and relevant sections of other federal legislation referenced within Perkins V for clear crosswalking; the complete text of the new law; and an index for easy reference.
Perkins 101 (February 2025): This series describes, in an easy-to-understand manner, the components of Perkins V legislation to anyone new to the purpose, importance and impact of this federal law.
Lessons in Collaboration and Innovation: The Impact and Promise of the Comprehensive Local Needs Assessment (January 2022): This report, developed with Advance CTE, describes state perspectives on successes and challenges during the first comprehensive local needs assessment and examples of CLNAs driving transformation on the local and regional levels.
Maximizing Perkins V’s Comprehensive Local Needs Assessment & Local Application to Drive CTE Program Quality and Equity (March 2019): This tool provides an overview of how to get started on your local needs assessment and helps you translate the language in the law into concrete, actionable steps for conducting a rigorous local needs assessment that meets Perkins V requirements.
ACTE’s Quality CTE Program of Study Framework Self-evaluation: A Tool for the Perkins V Comprehensive Local Needs Assessment (November 2021): This brief describes how the ACTE Quality CTE Program of Study Framework® and its companion self-evaluation instrument can help local CTE leaders evaluate their programs and complete key portions of the CLNA.
Cheat Sheet: Opportunities for Employer Involvement in CTE (October 2019): This brief, developed with Advance CTE and Business Leaders United for Workforce Partnerships, describes the many ways that employers can partner with education institutions.
Engaging Families and Communities to Support Special and Underserved Populations in CTE (September 2021): This report describes strategies for communicating with, collaborating with and supporting CTE learners’ families and communities, particularly for learners and communities who have been historically underserved.
With Learners, Not for Learners: A Toolkit for Elevating Learner Voice in CTE (August 2021): This toolkit, created with Advance CTE, provides CTE leaders with actionable resources, guidance and tools to ensure CTE learner voices are elevated and heard in order to improve CTE policies and practices.
Maximizing Access & Success for Special Populations in CTE series (December 2023-April 2024): This series, developed with Advance CTE, addresses how to support each of the nine Perkins V special populations and other underserved learner groups. Read the briefs and register for the webinar series!

Business Partnerships & Student Career Development

Taking Business to School series: This series, produced in collaboration with Xello, highlights case studies of strong employer-education partnerships.
Student Career Development series: This series, produced in collaboration with Xello, explores topics such as virtual career development, social-emotional learning, work-based learning, early grades experiences and more.
Career Exploration in Middle School: Setting Students on the Path to Success (April 2017): This publication, supported by Xello, describes the benefits of career exploration in middle school and explores different ways that schools and districts can integrate career exploration in these grades.
Lesson Plan: Postsecondary Dreaming (April 2023): This lesson plan from ACTE partner myOptions® Encourage® includes interactive activities that help students reflect on how their future career goals might include education beyond high school.

CTE Educator Pipeline

Career and Technical Education Leadership Series: Landscape of CTE Leaders (December 2021): This publication shares data on CTE leaders, such as numbers of administrators, preparation and responsibilities.
Teacher Recruitment and Retention: The National Teach Ag Campaign: The report describes a years-long successful campaign to encourage students to enter the field of teaching, the National Teach Ag Campaign from the National Association of Agricultural Educators (NAAE).
State and Local Strategies for Diversifying the CTE Educator Workforce and Recruiting Diverse Educators: A Database of Organizations Representing Underserved Populations (January 2024): This report, created in partnership with Advance CTE, presents common challenges to diversifying the CTE educator workforce, identifies promising practices to overcome these challenges, and provides actionable strategies and recommendations for local and state leaders. Read the full report or the executive summary and explore the companion database of organizations that CTE leaders can connect with to recruit educators from under-represented populations to teach in CTE.
Staffing Outside the Box: Strategies for Addressing CTE Teacher Shortages (August 2024): Providing learners with access to qualified instructors with relevant occupational experience and teaching skills is one of the most important and challenging aspects of providing high-quality secondary CTE programs. This report, sponsored by eDynamic Learning, explores considerations and provide examples for addressing CTE teacher shortages in the short and medium term through such methods as bringing industry experts into the classroom, sharing faculty across subject areas and institutions, and providing virtual learning opportunities.

Federal and State Policy

CTE Policy Past, Present, and Future: Driving Forces Behind the Evolution of Federal Priorities (April 2017): This article uses a social policy analysis approach to trace the history of federal CTE policy throughout the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century. Through this overview, we demonstrate how federal CTE policy has repeatedly evolved and responded to changing economic and social needs, while also incorporating policy flexibility that has led to variation in program implementation on the state and local levels.
State Fact Sheets (March 2022): These printable one-page documents provide basics on your state’s CTE program, including funding, enrollment data, performance statistics and labor market alignment.
State Policies Impacting CTE: Year in Review: This publication, co-produced with Advance CTE, gives an overview and state-by-state summary of CTE-related policies enacted each year.

Additional Publications

Connecting Industry-recognized Certification Data to Education and Workforce Outcomes: Measuring the Value Added to Skills, Employment and Wages (October 2017): This report shares results from ACTE’s Certification Data Exchange Project, which sought to expand and improve data exchange between industry certification organizations and state longitudinal data systems, and discusses lessons learned and recommendations for future data-sharing and -matching efforts.