College Board is taking on CTE

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Can the AP Model Work for CTE? How the College Board Is Embracing Career Prep

It’s deploying CTE courses using the Advanced Placement model and highlighting career options for SAT test takers

Whether it’s through student surveys, higher rates of chronic absenteeism, or declining college enrollment, more and more evidence—especially since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic—points to students’ growing disengagement with traditional high school and fundamentally questioning of the four-year college pathway as the norm.

It’s a reality ever apparent to David Coleman, the chief executive of the nonprofit College Board, which runs two core institutions of the college-going world: the Advanced Placement program and the SAT assessment—both programs historically aimed at high schoolers with plans to attend college.

While most students say they need post-secondary education, and enrollment in AP courses and the number of SAT test takers continues to grow, Coleman recognizes a large subset of students are disengaged from high school and aren’t proactively making post-secondary plans. At the same time, students say they want more opportunities to learn about career options and prepare directly for those possibilities.

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