California Career Technical Education Model Curriculum Standards

On January 16, 2013, the California State Board of Education adopted new Career Technical Education Model Curriculum Standards (CTE Standards) [for K-12]. The CTE Standards have been updated to keep pace with the changes in industry and meet the expectation for the 21st Century workforce, to ensure all students are career and college ready.

The new standards continue to follow California’s 15 industry sectors; however, some industry sectors titles have been changed to align with business and industry terminology. Examples of changes to sector titles include changing from Finance and Business to Business and Finance, Energy and Utilities to Energy, Environment, and Utilities, from Engineering and Design to Engineering and Architecture, and from Information Technology to Information and Communication Technologies.

There are still 58 pathways, some pathways have been dropped or consolidated into others, while new and emerging pathways have been added. The California CTE Standards include Standards for Career Ready Practice, adapted from the national Common Career Technical Core. These practices describe the career-ready skills educators should seek to develop in all students. It is important to understand that while California adapted the Career Readiness Practices from the Common Career Technical Core, California did not adopt the Common Career Technical Core.

In addition to the upgraded sectors and pathways, and the Standards for Career Readiness Practice, California has aligned the CTE MCS Anchor Standards (formerly the Foundation Standards) to the English Language Arts (ELA) Common Core. Additional alignment to the Common Core ELA, Math, Next Generation Science, and History/Social Science standards has been accomplished through individualized pathway matrices, provided at the back of each sector/pathway document. Look for the new CTE MCS document to be available online at: http://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/ct/sf/ctemcstandards.asp .

What about professional development related to the new CTE Standards? Look for presentations on the overview of the new CTE Standards to be provided at the 2013 Educating for Careers Conference in Sacramento. In addition, the California County Superintendents Educational Services Association (CCSESA) Career Technical Education Counsel is in the process of developing a toolkit to assist in the rollout of the new CTE Standards. Look for this toolkit to be rolled out at four regional Train the Trainer workshops in April, 2013.

What about the CBEDS Codes, Credentialing, and the Frameworks? The CBEDS codes are currently being updated to reflect the new CTE Standards and are scheduled to be completed for the next school year. California Department of Education staff has been working with the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing to resolve credentialing conflicts and a Credential Leaflet with guidelines will be issued. The next step is to upgrade the CTE Frameworks and work on this process will begin in March, 2013.

For additional information regarding all upgraded industry sectors and pathways, Career Ready Practices, alignment to the ELA Common Core and alignment to academic content, please visit the following website: http://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/ct/sf/ctemcstandards.asp