Providing Learners Access to Diverse Career Pathways. CTE on the Frontier

Rural communities all too often face scarce funding, instructors and facilities, forcing institutions to choose between offering a variety of introductory courses across a breadth of subjects or providing more narrowly focused, sequenced programs within one or two priority Career Clusters. Providing learners access to diverse career pathways in rural areas is a persistent challenge for all states. This brief from Advance CTE is the third installment in the "CTE on the Frontier series," designed to help states identify promising strategies for expanding the variety of career pathways available in rural areas. The brief profiles how states such as Nebraska, Alaska, North Dakota and Idaho have leveraged strategic partnerships and new technologies to reach economies of scale and offer a wider breadth of career pathways to rural learners. [This brief was developed through the New Skills for Youth initiative, a partnership of the Council of Chief State School Officers, Advance CTE and Education Strategy Group.]