Differences Between Career And Technical Education

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The following sections looks at the literature on types of courses that have been widely accepted to have a higher level of rigor and are positively associated with postsecondary outcomes.
Career and Technical Education
Career and Technical Education (CTE), along with many other high school postsecondary and workforce readiness programs, has several benefits to students. Students have the opportunity to receive college credit for courses completed in the high school setting. It also provides more variety of course offered for students, which in turn leads towards higher retention and high school matriculation. Students who gain technical expertise in high school have the opportunity to move into higher paying careers than their non-CTE peers …show more content…

Because the courses are transcripted, the grades not only provide early access to college-level work: it also helps to give credit that has a bearing on a student’s eventual high school grade point average (HSGPA) while also reducing the cost of college (Bailey, Calgano, Hughes, Jeong, & Karp, 2007). One of the main differences between CE and the credit by exam options such as advanced placement is that students demonstrate knowledge over time, whereas in the latter student success is based on a high-stakes test at the end of the course. The two main types of CE programs are the within program and the outside program. In the within program, students take classes on the high school campus and are taught by either college instructors or approved high school teachers. The latter method of the outside program is where students take classes on the college campus and are treated like traditional students (Marken, Gray, & Lewis, …show more content…

Of the institutions granting CE credit, 46% of them report that the eligibility requirements are the same as regular college students. Additionally, 86% report that the course content is the same for high and traditional college students (Marken, Gray, & Lewis, 2013).
Research has demonstrated that students have benefited from participating in a CE program. Students generally have increased levels of college readiness (Kim & Bragg, 2008), higher college grade point averages, and higher persistence rates (D’Amico, Morgan, Robertson, & Rivers, 2013) from CE enrollment. Although research confirms that CE has a positive effect on postsecondary outcomes, there is very little research that seeks to uncover the specific mechanisms that garner the benefits (Wang, Chan, Phelps, & Washbon,