A recent paper from the National Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research (CALDER) explores how teachers’ professional backgrounds influence student success in career and technical courses (CTE) in high school.
Notably, researchers Roddy Theobald, Dan Goldhaber, and Erica Mallett Moore found that CTE students in Washington state performed better on outcomes ranging from attendance, disciplinary incidents, grade point averages, retention in grade, and on-time graduation when their teachers entered the profession through an alternate “business and industry” pathway emphasizing experience, rather than through a traditional teacher-preparation program.
The findings did not differ for students with and without disabilities, even though teachers coming straight from industry often have little training in how to teach students with disabilities.
In pointing to the prospect that traditional teacher training may not be necessary, or even preferable, for CTE teachers, the new CALDER research brings valuable new evidence to the debate over how best to train the nation’s teachers.