Aligning Youth Apprenticeship and Career and Technical Education

This report examines the available, although limited, data from emerging high-school-based RA programs to see how they already align and could better serve CTE programming and goals. With further alignment, CTE-based apprenticeships can become a scalable model serving the goals of both
systems and their students. We recommend that high-school-based (hereafter, HS-based) apprenticeship programs seek out CTE programs to support expansion into a wider range of occupations and to recruit a more diverse population of apprentices. CTE programs can benefit from
the more in-depth career experiences available to HS-based apprentices, particularly in manufacturing and digital technology where HS-based apprenticeships already have a foothold. We also recommend
two core data improvements to better track and analyze the performance of HS-based apprenticeship programs. First, the RA system should collect information on the following: whether programs are based at a high school; any credits, degrees, or credentials earned; and connections to postsecondary educational institutions. Second, states should establish structures to combine data from CTE participants with RA data and include these data within their statewide longitudinal data systems.