Hechinger Report | Push for career-technical education meets parent resistance

Hechinger Report | Push for career-technical education meets parent resistance:

Push for career-technical education meets parent resistance

by Sarah Butrymowicz

A student at Oklahoma’s Ardmore High School, works on an assignment for his Biotechnical program, which is designed to lead to careers in fields like chemistry and microbiology. (Photo by Tom Fields/Oklahoma Department of Career and Technology Education)

SAN DIEGO — Career and technical education has come a long way since the days when students could be steered from academics into hairstyling, auto repairs or carpentry. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy to sell the concept of having all students take courses in CTE, as it is known.
Take what happened this March in La Jolla, Calif. Parents rose in protest after the San Diego Unified School District  proposed new high school graduation requirements mandating two years of career and technical education courses—or two to four courses. The district would have been the first in the nation to have such a mandate, experts believe. Parents circulated an online protest petition and school officials spent hours in a