Narrative: b. 2. K.

Minnesota students who elect to take CTE courses do not have to choose between becoming Career or College ready -ultimately, secondary CTE courses aim to prepare students for both. For example, this year MN will be inviting many of the CTE teachers to partner with core content teachers within their building; together these teams will be attending the a new CTE professional development series with the goal of linking academic and career and technical education outcomes. The professional development series will allow teachers to set aside time to align their vocabulary, curriculum sequencing, and concepts so that students receive direct instruction as well as hands-on experiences of the content standards and benchmarks.

The Programs of Study and the Rigorous Programs of Study all reflect academic AND career and technical education opportunities. In addition the MN State Plan reflects investment in articulation agreements, dual enrollment options, and support of CTE students who also complete AP and IB coursework.

The State professional development opportunities have emphasized the use of data to promote strategies for student success. These professional development opportunities have included webinars around specific performance criteria, face-to-face local workshops to help consortium reflect on their own student populations and how to promote the academic and career achievement, workshops at all state-wide gatherings to promote data driven decision making to promote student success.

Advisory committee input at the postsecondary and secondary programs assist in streamlining and informing course sequencing, course content and skill attainment as well as emphasizing the critical, foundational, transferable skills such as communication, critical thinking, problem solving, and teamwork.