Thank You, CTE Community!

As the 2023-24 school year opens, we want to commend Wisconsin’s CTE community for all the great work you are doing to support students on their path to postsecondary and career success.

Historically, Wisconsin CTE has been an area of great strength in public education with year-over-year increases in participation and graduation. Even in challenging years, CTE has shone brightly, for example, in the Wisconsin CTE Concentrator graduate rate:

While all graduation rates fell during the height of the pandemic, CTE concentrator graduation rates fell very little especially when compared to non-CTE graduation rates. CTE teachers around the state are engaging learners—ALL learners. For some high school students, it is clear that going to class for hands-on learning is not only a reason to attend school, but also a reason to stay in school.

We want to do all we can to support you in engaging learners to create a better Wisconsin. An outstanding opportunity comes from the National Alliance for Partnership in Equity (NAPE), the preeminent group that works to build educators’ capacity to implement effective solutions for increasing student access, educational equity, and workforce diversity. Because Wisconsin is a NAPE member, local education agencies are eligible for affiliate membership, which comes with a wide array of benefits, including:

• Unlimited access to an online database of videos, curriculum, posters, links, and reports at napequity.org.
• Monthly web meetings with your peers to share promising practices and provide input into NAPE’s program and service development.
• Summarized enrollment data, Perkins allocations, performance data for CTE concentrators, and career cluster enrollment numbers for every state in the nation located on NAPE’s Perkins V webpage.
• Free webinars and discounts on training through NAPE’s professional development programs – Program Improvement Process for Equity™ and Micromessaging to Reach and Teach Every Student™ – to increase access and success of underrepresented populations in nontraditional and other high quality CTE programs.
• Discounted pricing on NAPE Education Foundation produced resources such as the series of toolkits, which include: Explore Nontraditional Careers; Explore STEM Careers; Realizing Potential with Mindset; Ensuring Equity in Problem-Based Learning; Inspiring Courage to Excel through Self-Efficacy; and Eliminating Barriers Through Culturally Responsive Teaching.
• All these toolkits include self-paced content, activities, lesson plans and materials to increase student interest and self-efficacy in STEM and nontraditional CTE programs, and each is supported through professional development if you are interested.
• And more!

We thank you again. It’s a brand-new year with brand-new possibilities. Start fresh!