Curriculum: Career Technical Education (CTE)

Career Technical Education Vision Statement

Every student collaborates effectively as an ethical, confident, and competent individual to engage in the complex issues of a competitive and consistently changing global market place.

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Career Technical Education Mission Statement

The CTE program promotes creativity, innovation, leadership, entrepreneurial skills, and lifelong learning by integrating academic and technical content/skills.  Students educational and career outcomes are achieved through high-quality career pathways that offer rigorous, relevant, and work-based learning curriculum developed in partnership with business and industry.

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About Career Technical Education

Career Technical Education (CTE) engages all students in a dynamic and integrated learning experience resulting in mastery of the technical skills and academic knowledge necessary to become productive, contributing members of society. CTE courses, which are offered at all high schools in Long Beach, provide technical training while also emphasizing the integration of core academic concepts such as mathematics and language arts. CTE also instills essential workplace and career management skills that students can draw upon over a lifetime of learning and career development.

Informational Videos

• What is CTE?
• What is Linked Learning?
• What is Work-based Learning?

There are several different types of CTE courses:

• General CTE Courses provide students with specific industry instruction necessary to develop academic and technical knowledge/skills required for employment and postsecondary education. Examples of General CTE Courses include: Architectural Design; Business Travel, Tourism, and Hospitality; Exploring Computer Science; Healthcare Analysis; and The Act of Improvisation, as well as Project Lead the Way courses (ex. Introduction to Engineering Design, Computer Integrated Manufacturing).
• Academic Career Courses Integrates 50% academic standards and 50% CTE standards and teachers hold
  dual credentials. Examples of Academic Career courses include: Biotechnology (science + CTE); Digital Art
  and Imaging (art + CTE); and International Business (history + CTE).
• CTE Career Practicum Courses offer comprehensive in?class industry?specific preparation and training for 11th and 12th grade students. Examples of CTE Career Practicum courses include: Advanced Media Production; Emergency Medical Responder; Sports Medicine; and Virtual Enterprise.
• CTE Internship courses (paid or unpaid) offer comprehensive industry specific and in-depth workplace experiences for 11th and 12th grade students. Examples of CTE Internship courses include: Animal Care; Careers in Teaching; Hospital Health Services; Management of Aquatic Life and Animals; and
  Medical/Clerical Occupations.

Most of the district’s high schools have Linked Learning pathways or academies, many of which offer CTE courses as a cornerstone for the academy’s industry sector theme. The course of study for each academy determines which classes are available to students. CTE courses are offered in a coherent sequence (introductory, concentration and capstone) meaning that the sequence includes CTE courses with objectives and content that has a clear and direct relationship to the occupations(s) or career(s) targeted by the small learning community or academy. In many cases, Career Practicum or Internship courses are capstones to the academy experience.

CTE courses offer rigorous, integrated, technical, and academic content focused on careers that are intrinsically interesting to students delivered through applied, performance- and project-based teaching strategies that facilitate understanding and mastery. With the sequence of CTE courses, students are able to make a stronger connection between school and the real world. Making this connection often increases students’ interest in school and motivating them to go on to college and/or pursue a particular career.

For more information about CTE, go to the links below:

• California Department of Education Information
• Linked Learning
• Work-Based Learning

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