Skills Change Fast in CTE. Can Teachers Keep Up?

Career and technical education is being forced to keep pace with rapidly changing industry skills, and teachers are feeling the strain. At South Tech High School in St. Louis, EMT and firefighting instructor David Hope is not only teaching students but also taking online Federal Aviation Administration certification classes and training with remotely controlled drones to earn a pilot and instructor license and launch in-person drone courses. The school is expanding part-day career pathways as it joins a federal registered apprenticeship program, helping drive a 10% CTE enrollment increase in the St. Louis County special school district over five years. But recruiting or retraining specialized educators is difficult as fields like healthcare, advanced manufacturing, and information technology—including AI—evolve quickly. The U.S. Education Department prioritized CTE and workforce development grants in the last year, while Wisconsin launched a $7 million CTE initiative for AI and manufacturing this year.