Graduation Day and the Uneven Promise of CTE

It is graduation day, and two New Jersey high school graduates look ahead to their future with excitement. Both students took a series of career and technical education (CTE) courses. One student took classes in plumbing and the other, in early care and education (ECE). Both series were created to help students move easily into careers. Will these students continue on to careers in their CTE subject area?  What does the future hold for them?

Research seems to assume that students do move from CTE into careers. Data from two longitudinal education studies, the High School Longitudinal Study, 2009 (HSLS:09) and the Education Longitudinal Study, 2002 (ELS:2002), indicated that students who took a concentration of CTE courses in high school had higher incomes eight years later, as compared to those that did not focus on CTE courses. These findings were incorporated into the 2018 Strengthening Career and Technical Education Act for the 21st Century (Perkins V), which increased federal funding and support for states and districts to provide CTE programs¹.  

CTE is often envisioned as a pipeline: students who take multiple courses in a field are expected to continue training and ultimately work in that field. A plumbing student, for instance, is assumed to become part of the plumbing workforce. Perhaps many students continue on from CTE into a workforce aligned with their field of study, but maybe some students are less likely to continue with the same field of study after learning more about that particular field. Perhaps our plumbing student will go on to work as a plumber, but, given the challenges of working in ECE, will our ECE student also continue on to work in the field?

What the New Jersey Pipeline Reveals About CTE Pathways

We were able to access New Jersey’s education-to-workforce pipeline data through an Applied Data Analytics (ADA) training, as part of the Coleridge Initiative, to examine how well CTE programs were serving as a pipeline for the workforce².  We looked at CTE programs in early care and education (ECE) because the field has long struggled to recruit and retain staff³. Given the recent and proposed expansions to child care and PreK described in our earlier post⁴, many states are likely to need more early childhood teachers.  

We examined workforce outcomes for New Jersey’s 2015 high school class, from 2015 through 2025 (hereafter referred to as the 2015 NJ cohort)⁵. We were curious whether students who took ECE courses in high school through CTE programs were likely to work in ECE after graduating high school and/or command higher wages in ECE than those that did not take CTE courses.

Few New Jersey ECE Teachers Come Through CTE

Interestingly, in New Jersey, we find that only a few hundred students in the 2015 NJ cohort took ECE CTE courses in high school. In the ten years post graduation, fewer than 10% of these students took positions in ECE in any given year (see Figure 1). In contrast, students who took plumbing/HVAC CTE courses took positions in plumbing/HVAC at about twice that rate.

Figure 1.

Note: Here, the denominators are 2015 NJ cohort members who took any ECE or plumbing/HVAC CTE courses in high school and were working in any given year. The numerators are 2015 NJ cohort members who took any ECE or plumbing/HVAC CTE courses in high school and were working in that field in any given year. Cohort members might not be working in a particular year and therefore would not be shown in this graph. 

When examining this from the opposite perspective, we find that between 1000 and 2000 NJ 2015 cohort students worked in ECE in any given year. However, as shown in Figure 2, very few of these teachers ever took an ECE CTE course. This may be because not all students had access to ECE CTE courses, and students could have taken ECE college courses or completed other training (we did not check for this). However, this brings into question whether CTE courses are providing a pipeline into ECE careers.

Figure 2.

Note: Figure 2 shows all 2015 NJ cohort members who were working in ECE in any given year. Cohort members might not be working in a particular year and therefore would not be shown in this graph. 

ECE Coursework, but Not an ECE Career 

Given the demand for ECE teachers, it seems unlikely that cohort members who were interested in ECE as a career were unable to find positions. However, it may be that high school students are not yet ready to commit to a career. Perhaps CTE courses serve as an opportunity to explore different career options. High school students who take ECE CTE courses may go on to teach younger children in the K-12 school system or pursue a different career related to young children or child development. However, factors that may discourage high school students from pursuing a career in ECE are lower wages and a lack of a wage differential for workers with additional training. That is, although the CTE courses are designed to prepare students for a career in ECE, maybe the low wages, especially for those with specialized training, prevent them from continuing along the pipeline into ECE jobs.

Recent evidence shows just how unstable the ECE workforce has become. In Virginia, a large study of publicly funded child care centers found that about 38 percent of ECE teachers left their jobs from the start of the 2023–24 school year through the start of the following year. When asked about why they left, teachers most often cited low pay⁶. Wages for ECE teachers are considerably lower than for K-12 teachers. For example, in New York City, ECE teachers earn around $25,000, compared with about $100,000 for their K-12 counterparts⁷. Recognizing these pressures, Pennsylvania’s 2025-26 state budget created a new $25 million Child Care Staff Recruitment and Retention Program to address shortages and reopen classrooms. The program provides bonuses to ECE employees, supporting roughly 55,000 child care workers across the state⁸.

We looked at the data in New Jersey to see whether CTE training influenced wages, since both HSLS:09 and ELS:2002 reported higher wages after eight years for CTE students as compared to non-CTE students. However, for ECE, we find almost no wage differential in New Jersey between ECE teachers who had previous CTE coursework and teachers who did not (Figure 3). Wages for teachers with CTE coursework and without are very similar. They are also fairly low.

In contrast, students who took a plumbing or HVAC CTE course and continued on to work in their field did command higher wages: the pay differential for workers who completed CTE courses is notably higher than workers without CTE coursework. Moreover, plumbers and HVAC technicians make about twice as much as ECE teachers. 

Additionally, although plumbing/HVAC CTE students saw their coursework pay off in that they are now commanding higher salaries than their cohort median, ECE CTE students did not see similar returns (and, in 2025, earn below their cohort median). 

Figure 3.

Note: Figure 3 includes all 2015 NJ cohort working in ECE or plumbing/HVAC in any quarter in 2015 through 2025, part-time or full-time.

Figure 4 shows only 2015 NJ cohort members who took ECE and/or plumbing/HVAC courses. Cohort members who took plumbing/HVAC courses and went on to work in plumbing/HVAC earn higher salaries than their peers who took the same courses but are not working in the field. However, cohort members who took ECE courses and went on to work in ECE ultimately earn slightly lower salaries than their peers who took the same courses but are not working in the field.

Figure 4.

Note: Figure 4 includes 2015 NJ cohort members who previously took ECE or HVAC/plumbing CTE courses working in any quarter in 2015 through 2025, part-time or full-time.

Why Better Pay Is Essential for a Stronger ECE Workforce

Career and technical education (CTE) programs are a promising strategy for recruiting young people into the ECE teacher pipeline. However, without higher wages, ECE is likely to continue to face issues with recruitment and retention. Experimental research suggests that paying ECE teachers more reduces turnover and increases teacher well-being⁹, which likely also improves teachers’ ability to have high-quality interactions with their students.

Longitudinal data connecting ECE, K-12 education, postsecondary education, and workforce outcomes allow us to keep track of these pipelines. Additionally, efforts like the Coleridge Initiative could allow researchers to explore these trends across states and to examine whether state policies, like that recently implemented in Pennsylvania, impact ECE teacher recruitment and retention.

As 2026’s CTE graduates look to their future, many may look to stable, high-paying careers like plumbing or HVAC. Our ECE graduates, however, face a more unstable and uncertain future. 

1. You’ve Been Asked to Participate in a Study:IES. (2022). Ed.gov. https://ies.ed.gov/learn/blog/youve-been-asked-participate-study ↩︎
2. Coleridge Initiative. (2026). Coleridge Initiative. https://coleridge.us/news/case-study-newjersey ↩︎
3. Adnot M., Dee T., Katz V., Wyckoff J. (2017). Teacher turnover, teacher quality, and student achievement in DCPS. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 39(1), 54–76.  https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED577321.pdf; Fares, I., Markowitz, A., & Bassok, D. (n.d.). https://edworkingpapers.com/sites/default/files/ai26-1417.pdf ↩︎
4. Chernoff, J. J. (2025, December 18). Seeds of Opportunity: Growing Universal Pre-K and Child Care Wisely. Agora Education Research. https://edevaluator.org/seeds-of-opportunity-growing-universal-pre-k-and-child-care-wisely/ ↩︎
5. The 2015 NJ cohort includes students who did not graduate from high school. ↩︎
6. Fares, I., Markowitz, A., & Bassok, D. (n.d.). https://edworkingpapers.com/sites/default/files/ai26-1417.pdf
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7. Elsen-Rooney, M. (2025, November 12). Mamdani’s $6 billion universal child care plan: How will NYC fund, staff, and scale up the program? Chalkbeat. https://www.chalkbeat.org/newyork/2025/11/11/mamdani-universal-child-care-pledge-faces-operational-challenges/?utm_source=Chalkbeat&utm_ca%E2%80%A6 ↩︎ ↩︎
8. Shapiro administration highlights new 2025-26 budget investments to expand and support Pennsylvania’s child care workforce. (n.d.). Department of Human Services | Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. https://www.pa.gov/agencies/dhs/newsroom/budget-investments-to-expand-and-support-pennsylvania-s-child-ca?utm_source=copilot.com ↩︎
9. Bassok, D., & Doromal, J. B. (2022, January 5). How can we improve early childhood education? Use public dollars to pay teachers more. Brookings. https://www.brookings.edu/articles/how-can-we-improve-early-childhood-education-use-public-dollars-to-pay-teachers-more/ ↩︎