Petrilli: CTE Offers Alternative Track To Self-Sufficiency

Michael J. Petrilli, executive vice president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, research fellow at the Hoover Institution, and executive editor of Education Next, writes at Slate Magazine (3/19) that schools should be recognizing that not all students are fitted for college and that pushing as many as possible into college may harm them as so few actually graduate with a degree. He urges the development of “another pathway” for students who simply are not prepared for college, but who still need a means of preparing for employment that will allow them to support themselves. That pathway, he says, is “high-quality career and technical education, ideally the kind that combines rigorous coursework with a real-world apprenticeship, and maybe even a paycheck.”