As districts confront declining enrollment, budget pressures, staffing challenges, and the ongoing need to engage students and families, CTE is moving closer to the center of the education conversation. Rita Ferrandino explains how career and technical education can address several of these challenges at once by connecting students to career pathways, community workforce needs, certifications, and postsecondary opportunities. She points to dual-enrollment and community college partnerships as particularly promising ways to expand career opportunities that individual high schools may struggle to provide.
Career readiness is also becoming less about preparing students for one specific occupation and more about building a connected pipeline from early learning through the workforce. Ferrandino describes how certifications and badging can make the workforce relevance of existing academic programs more visible without requiring schools to completely redesign what they teach. She also emphasizes that career awareness can begin well before high school by developing curiosity, critical thinking, and exposure to different jobs and career possibilities throughout the education continuum.
Turning that vision into reality, however, requires changes in how schools support teachers and design learning environments. Ferrandino argues that many existing academic standards already contain elements that support inquiry-based and active learning, but teachers need adequate preparation, materials, equipment, budgets, and time to put those approaches into practice. The conversation also points toward a changing role for teachers, with more customized and active learning requiring educators to serve increasingly as facilitators.
For education companies and investors, the changing CTE landscape creates opportunities but also demands a sharper understanding of policy, funding, and market conditions. Ferrandino describes an education investment environment where generating revenue has become particularly important and advises organizations selling into education to understand state priorities, legislative policy, funding sources, and workforce needs in each market. Looking ahead, she argues that schools must continue emphasizing communication, critical thinking, problem-solving, and collaboration as AI reshapes the workforce and automates more routine work.
- CTE is becoming an increasingly important strategy for improving student engagement while connecting education to career pathways, workforce needs, certifications, and postsecondary opportunities. Dual-enrollment programs and community college partnerships can further expand the pathways available to students.
- Career readiness is evolving beyond preparation for a single occupation toward a broader education-to-workforce pipeline. Certifications, badging, and career exposure throughout the education continuum can help students connect their academic experiences to future opportunities.
- Expanding active, career-connected learning requires more than changes to academic standards. Teachers also need adequate preparation, instructional materials, equipment, budgets, and time to successfully implement these approaches in the classroom.
- Education companies seeking to work with schools and districts need to understand the policy, funding, and workforce priorities shaping each market. Identifying where funding comes from and how state and local priorities are changing can be critical to developing effective education strategies.
- Preparing students for an evolving workforce means emphasizing durable skills that remain valuable as technology and AI change the nature of work. Communication, critical thinking, problem-solving, collaboration, and the ability to evaluate and work with technology will continue to play an important role.
- The growing role of CTE in student engagement and career readiness
- Enrollment, funding, staffing, and budget pressures facing school districts
- Dual enrollment and community college CTE pathways
- Certifications, badging, and workforce credentials
- Career readiness across the education continuum
- Community partnerships and employer involvement in education
- Active learning, teacher roles, and classroom transformation
- CTE, STEM, standards, and implementation resources
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Host, EdGate Powers Webinar Series |
Founding Partner, Arc Capital Development |
CTE Moves Toward the Center of Career Readiness
CTE is increasingly being positioned as a way for districts to address student engagement while creating clearer connections between education, careers, community colleges, and local workforce needs. Ferrandino highlights dual-degree and dual-enrollment programs as opportunities to give students access to vocational experiences that may be difficult for individual high schools to provide. She also describes certifications and badging as a way for schools to make the workforce relevance of existing academic programs more visible.
Notable Insight
“There are many things that we can do to instill a mindset to be able to have them be ready for work.”
Key Questions Explored
- How is CTE helping districts respond to enrollment, engagement, and workforce challenges?
- How are dual-enrollment and community college partnerships expanding career pathways?
- How can certifications and badging connect existing coursework to workforce opportunities?
Building the Conditions for Active, Workforce-Connected Learning
The conversation considers how schools can create learning environments that better engage students while preparing them for changing workforce expectations. Ferrandino argues that many existing standards already support inquiry-based and active learning, but implementation requires teachers to have adequate preparation, materials, budgets, equipment, and institutional support. She also anticipates a changing teacher role in which educators increasingly facilitate customized and project-based learning.
Notable Insight
“I think we need to actually provide teachers with the support to be able to execute.”
Key Questions Explored
- What needs to change in classrooms as active and project-based learning become more important?
- Do academic standards need major changes to support CTE and workforce skills?
- What resources and preparation do teachers need to successfully implement these approaches?
Navigating the Education Market Through Policy and Workforce Priorities
Ferrandino describes an education market shaped by economic conditions, policy changes, limited investment, and increasingly important workforce partnerships. She emphasizes that organizations selling into education should understand state priorities, legislative policies, funding sources, and the specific needs of their target markets. Looking toward the future, the discussion connects these market considerations with AI and the growing importance of human skills that remain difficult to automate.
Notable Insight
“At the end of the day, if you're trying to sell into any of those markets, you have a responsibility to understand where the money is coming from.”
Key Questions Explored
- How can education companies identify state-level opportunities and align with policy priorities?
- How are investment conditions affecting education companies and their growth strategies?
- Which skills will remain essential as AI changes jobs and the workforce?
What This Means for Education Leaders
Education leaders should view CTE as part of a broader strategy for student engagement, career readiness, and workforce development rather than as a narrow pathway to a specific occupation. Partnerships with community colleges, employers, and other local organizations can expand the opportunities available to students while helping districts respond to workforce needs. Leaders can also consider how certifications, badging, dual enrollment, and career exposure can complement existing academic programs.
Implementation will require attention to the practical conditions that make active learning possible. Ferrandino emphasizes that CTE and STEM programs require materials, equipment, budgets, teacher preparation, classroom setup, maintenance, and ongoing support, meaning that program design should account for more than curriculum alone. Education leaders should also consider how teacher roles and professional development need to evolve as classrooms become more active, customized, and technology-enabled.
Finally, leaders should prepare students for a workforce in which specific jobs and tasks may continue to change because of AI and other technological developments. Rather than focusing exclusively on predicting which occupations will exist, schools can strengthen durable capabilities such as communication, critical thinking, problem solving, collaboration, and the ability to evaluate information and technology critically. These skills can provide students with a foundation for navigating changing career opportunities over time.
Q: Why is CTE becoming more important to school districts?
A: CTE can help districts address student engagement while connecting education to career pathways and community workforce needs. Ferrandino also points to enrollment, funding, staffing, and budget pressures as factors increasing the importance of programs that create meaningful connections between students and future opportunities.
Q: How can schools incorporate career readiness without completely redesigning their curriculum?
A: Schools can connect existing coursework to certifications and badges that demonstrate workforce-relevant skills. Ferrandino describes this as a mapping process in which relatively small additions to existing programs can allow students to earn both course credit and industry certifications.
Q: What do teachers need to successfully implement CTE and active learning?
A: Teachers need preparation, materials, budgets, equipment, and time to manage the practical demands of active learning environments. Ferrandino emphasizes that technology and hands-on programs also require ongoing maintenance and support.
Q: How can education companies identify opportunities in different states?
A: Companies can examine governors' State of the State addresses and compare current priorities with previous years to identify workforce and education objectives. They can then determine whether those priorities align with their products or services while also monitoring state and local policies, funding sources, and district initiatives.
Q: What skills should schools prioritize as AI changes the workforce?
A: The discussion emphasizes communication, critical thinking, problem solving, and the ability to work with people. Ferrandino argues that as AI automates more routine work, people who can think critically and communicate effectively will remain essential.
“In education today, you must skate to where the puck is going. You can't skate to where the puck has been.”
The following transcript has been edited for readability. Timestamps have been removed and minor transcription errors corrected. Speaker comments and context have been preserved.
Opening Remarks
Rich Portelance
Well, hello, everyone. Rich Portelance here for the EdGate Powers podcast. I'm super excited today. I have Rita Ferrandino with me. Rita probably doesn't need an introduction, but I'm going to let her do her own. So, we're excited because we're coming into the fourth quarter, and every year, EdGate does an update on standards, and this year we're going to focus on CTE (career and technical education). So, the campaign theme is CTE Rising. Rita has a plethora of experience in different facets of education and educational standards. So, this is going to be an exciting conversation that's going to lead into the fourth-quarter Executive Forum, which will take place on December 10th. There's probably going to be a link below for you to register. Please do. Rita will be there, along with Jane Swift and some other wonderful guests. We're going to be doing some extra podcasts this quarter. So, there's a lot coming up. This is just the beginning, but a wonderful beginning that it is. Rita, can you give us a little intro?
Rita Ferrandino
Well, Rich, it's a delight to be here. I'm Rita Ferrandino. I'm the founding partner at Arc Capital Development. We're a private investment and advisory firm that has worked exclusively in supporting research-based education companies, serving the entire education market, from early learning, straight through workforce development. And in that work, we have worked globally with over 125 companies to scale their impact and their bottom lines. We do a lot of work in M&A (mergers and acquisitions), and in preparing companies for their capital raise, and just in general their growth strategies.
Rich Portelance
Well, that sounds terrific. And I know you do a little teaching yourself. Is that correct?
Rita Ferrandino
Absolutely. I am so proud to say that I have been on the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania's Graduate School of Education–the number one graduate school of education in the world for three years. I work in education entrepreneurship, and what I do is work with, again, around the globe, students and founders who are looking to scale and prove that they've got research efficacy, and that they need and want to be able to reach more people. So, that piece of my world being with an Ivy League, gold-star university, really adds to the value and the network I can bring to our clients and portfolio companies.
Rich Portelance
And aren't they lucky? You know, I'll tell everyone, I remember meeting Rita; I think it was about 10 years ago up at LearnLaunch in Boston. I was running my startup, CareerPath, and you were running a program up there, and you were so generous with your time, and talents, and treasures, and we, you know, I just want to thank you personally for that experience. It was a highlight for me. And I know for many entrepreneurs, like you said, you've– you've– you've worked with 150 or so, but you've influenced thousands, I'm sure. So this is a real treat today to get to talk to you, so thank you.
Rita Ferrandino
Thank you, Rich. Actually, we were– Arc Capital Development was the first investment partner with LearnLaunch, which is an accelerator that's been helping education companies probably for 20 years. So, I love that work. I'm glad that it was helpful, and I'm glad to be reconnected with you!
Rich Portelance
Same here. Same here.
Discussion
Rich Portelance
So, I wanted to get started with what you're seeing on the ground today, because things are changing. From the experience of working with superintendents and school leaders, what are the biggest changes you're seeing in how districts think about preparing students for life and work after high school?
Rita Ferrandino
Well, what I think is really important for everybody who's listening is to really understand the mindset and the environment to which superintendents and school leaders are working in. I was just reading that Broward County, Florida, just announced that they had over 12,000 fewer students, which equals about $430 million in decline.
Rich Portelance
Wow.
Rita Ferrandino
So, they have a huge number of students who did not return, and that affects a big budget decline. Many superintendents in this country are spending a lot of time trying to figure out how to keep the wheels on the bus–literally–because a superintendent and a big school district, like in Florida, all of the school districts in Florida meet that criteria of being, you know, 25,000 students and above. When they see a spike in diesel fuel, that throws their entire world. You know, when food costs go up, it affects their bottom line. So, superintendent school leaders today have a lot of other– they have economic issues that they're dealing with, they have budgetary changes that they're dealing with, they've got staffing challenges that they're dealing with, and they have got to, at the end of the day, figure out how to improve and enhance student engagement and parent engagement.
So where does CTE fall into that? Well, there is nothing more engaging than CTE. And that's why I'm so bullish on CTE, because when you look at where the critical problems are that a school district is facing, or a charter school, or a private school, that student engagement and parent engagement is really important, and the pathway and career pathway to work. So, there's a lot of reasons why I'm bullish on CTE.
Rich Portelance
So, that's a– I like that summary, and it makes a lot of sense. CTE seems to be moving from the margins towards the center of the conversation. And you've kind of explained why that's happening. What else has changed in the needs of the students, employers, and the communities to accelerate interest? Do you see, you know, you talked a little bit about some of the cost structures. Are there other things that are moving CTE to the center stage here?
Rita Ferrandino
Well, I think there's a very big movement in order to keep… So, a school district is measured by how many students attend and how many graduate. I mean, that's a really low-level baseline, but in order to keep their doors open, they have to have students attending. They get funding from the local, state, and federal government for seats– for, you know, butts in seats.
Rich Portelance
Yeah.
Rita Ferrandino
And it's become increasingly difficult to do that. So, there's been a really strong movement to dual-degree programs that work with community colleges. And often in those community college courses, there are strong CTE components to it, right? So, you can go to a community college– for example, you can go to a community college and learn how to become certified as a drone operator, right? Drone operator jobs are in great demand. I think there's over 400,000 across the country. They're high-paying at over $40 an hour, and it's difficult sometimes for just a high school to do that.
But when you are working in a dual-degree program, and you have some of that living at a community college, man, now you have a hit, right? Because a student wants to go to learn to program drones. And you can replace that with many other kinds of vocational things that can be done at a community college that maybe high schools can't make work. Or if they can, then– then that's the engagement. So, you've got dual enrollment, and you've got vocational programs getting more emphasis in high schools, all making it a bigger pot to be able to go after.
Rich Portelance
So, there's a lot there and a lot going on–a lot of change. When you talk about district leaders, what does career readiness actually mean today? And what I mean is has the definition changed from the traditional idea of CTE, as simply preparing students for a specific occupation, or is it different than that?
Rita Ferrandino
Okay. Well, first of all, I want to just tell the audience I have many, many years of experience in CTE. I started my career back in traditional textbook publishing, and I was on the team– founding team that brought spreadsheets– learning of spreadsheets to universities and high schools to be able to do accounting courses using technology. So, I've been in this game a long time. And so, I am incredibly bullish that school leaders are understanding that CTE has got to have components of career pathways, and they've got to be building more bridges into their communities, because we have to be training students to be able to meet the demands of a community workforce. And then this whole pipeline of either to vocations or to university work.
Rich Portelance
Okay. And in that paradigm, how are the district leaders thinking about the relationship between academic standards and the skills needed for the workforce? Because some– there's a correlation there, but it's not direct, and, you know, it can affect how they go about teaching classes.
Rita Ferrandino
Well, I think that part of keeping students engaged and keeping them in school, and keeping them in a place where they see and understand the relevance of their learning, this whole embedding of certifications into high school programming has become far more standard, right? Whether it's you… become Adobe certified, and you can put that on your resume–or today, LinkedIn–or you're getting certified in, you know, some having taken a… a critical thinking, you get a critical thinking badge, or something. I think that there has definitely been a shift to certification and badging to be able to… It was pretty easy for schools and districts to do that work, because they already were teaching it–they just weren't packaging it and labeling it.
Rich Portelance
Yeah.
Rita Ferrandino
But I think they're doing that much more now.
Rich Portelance
And how far back do superintendents need to look when they're talking about embedding skills and teaching skills? Are we going back to kindergarten, or are we just doing high school? What's your thought there?
Rita Ferrandino
My thought is that they're looking at the entire pipeline. I attended a really interesting Department of Education symposium on this topic, and what we are doing for career readiness, you know, in the lower grades. Well, what we're doing there is we're instilling a curiosity, right? We're getting them to be able to take a nature walk or to be able to look at things critically. And so, it may not be a direct– you know, clearly we're not taking kindergarteners and, you know, teaching them how to be plumbers, right? But there are many things that we can do to instill a mindset to be able to have them be ready for work. And there's no time like the present, regardless where you are in the education continuum, to be exposing them to jobs, and careers, and all of that, which is your world, as you know.
Rich Portelance
That's right. That's right. And so, it's such a changing landscape. So when you look forward, there's a lot of uncertainty around how AI is affecting the future of work. How do you think superintendents and district leaders think about the fact that some jobs will change dramatically, and the skills students need will change with those?
Rita Ferrandino
Again, if you are in the mindset of where most district leaders are, it's not in worrying about where jobs are going to be, right? They have really immediate problems that they've got to solve. And for anybody who's looking to sell into schools and districts, I'm always happy– that is consult– consultative work that we do at Arc–I'm happy to talk to them about that, because there may be somebody in the C-suite who is responsible for that, and I really think where that's going to land is in these community partnerships.
Rich Portelance
Yep.
Rita Ferrandino
Right? So, if you've got an employer who has not got enough drone pilots, and they need, you know, you to produce 30 drone pilots, you may be able to get them to pay for the curriculum and the drones to do the certification course that they can offer.
Rich Portelance
So that relationship between education and the workforce has always been a little– I know there's always attempts and, you know, who fosters the relationship? Is it born upon the educators? Is it born upon the employers? Is it the workforce agency? Where do you think that belongs in your mind, and what have you seen that's successful?
Rita Ferrandino
Well, what I have seen successful is we have had policy change, we have had policy shifts. And in… in the– So, first of all we had COVID. COVID changed the landscape and the number of students’ butts in seats going to school, and you've had recently with the current administration a shift in policy. So, you've got a policy shift that has really changed that willingness of districts to reach out to local partners, because they need the funding, or they need the connections, or they're trying to get grants from the federal government–that requires partnership work. So, I think that the policy shifts and the economic situation has opened up more opportunity and more prioritization of those partnerships.
Rich Portelance
Okay. So, that's very clear. You know, if the policy's pushing it, then the administrators need to foster these relationships in order to fund some of the programs to keep things fluid, right?
Rita Ferrandino
Mhm.
Rich Portelance
Okay. What does that mean for education– the education system itself? And what I mean is, if we're moving towards a world where skills, credentials, work-based learning, and career pathways matter more, what needs to change in the way of schools designing programs and to measure student outcomes?
Rita Ferrandino
Well, I'm going to… We need students engaged in active learning. And, you know, the days of the 50s where students are expected to sit in rows and quietly listen isn't working at all. So, we're going to see much more of a shift to– we have fewer teachers, and we have a different student body who's used to having technology at their fingertips, and their attention spans are really different. I think we're going to see a shift of teachers as facilitators with more customized learning, which AI was going to provide. And I think that the design of a classroom will reflect that. That was a lot for me to say, right, Rich?
Rich Portelance
You know, it's– it's– you know, you– you're– you're precise, and I like that you drill right to the point, and you bring up teachers, and that's a point of interest for me–watching this change, you know, from the butts in the seats, and the rows, and formal learning environment to, you know, what you described as more of a project-based learning environment. How do we handle teachers in the future? How do we compensate them better–differently–in order to facilitate this change? Do you have any prognostication as– in terms of what the future holds for them?
Rita Ferrandino
Well, first of all, I'm optimistic, and I think any good teacher, whether you're a 25-year veteran or a new teacher, understands that the best way to do classroom management is through engagement. It takes a different skill set to be able to get kids up out of their seats than, you know, if you're going to be teaching them about math in, you know, area. Instead of just having them sit in a seat and learn an equation, you get them up out of your seats, you put them, you know, let them be the square, and measure the area. Or, if you're going to be teaching graphing, well, let's– let's graph the sunrise and sunset data, right? And then, let's see how that looks, and then we can experience that in the mornings and in the afternoons. There's lots and lots of engaging ways to do that. And the truth is, we've got a different kind of teacher that's coming to the table. There are fewer of them, and it's the job of the industry and our… departments of education– our universities, who are doing the education, to meet the new teacher profile.
Rich Portelance
So because, you know, because we're talking about CTE Rising as a major theme, and, you know, we want to think about education standards as it relates to CTE standards, I want to shift the lens slightly towards that perspective. I think I can do that safely with you because, you know, you have the experience. Is, you know, do you see those– the way those standards are created, or how they embed skill-changing as well? Because if the classroom's changing, the standards in which we teach probably have to change as well.
Rita Ferrandino
Well, first of all, we have had math standards for as long as, you know, since the 90s, and we have science standards that have all been adopted by states that were, you know, those science standards that were built were all inquiry-minded, that already have a lot of this embedded. And I don't think we need a lot of standard changes. I think we need to actually provide teachers with the support to be able to execute. You know, the thing about CTE or STEM education is that it does require materials, it does require budgets to be able to do a lot of that work, and it does require teacher preparation, because it's… because they have to set up a room before it starts! They’ve got to clean up the room when it ends, you know? And somebody needs to refresh materials because, you know, gaming consoles need maintenance, you know, VR (virtual reality) headsets–which I'm a super big fan of the use of VR and XR (extended reality). And you have to build into your budget and your time management that you’ve got to keep that machinery working and up to date.
Rich Portelance
That's right. Which is a lot of other stuff that doesn't come under the normal guise of just teaching, right?
Rita Ferrandino
Right.
Rich Portelance
So, I want to bring in a little bit of your investment perspective because, you know, at the beginning, you talked about Arc Capital Development, and having worked with so many different entrepreneurs, there's a lot of– I would say… you've also had a different vantage point as someone who spent years looking at education entrepreneurship as an investment ecosystem. From that perspective, what does the current investment climate tell us about where the education market is and where it may be going?
Rita Ferrandino
Do you really want to know, Rich? I was just at the HolonIQ Back to School Summit, which is a summit that has been conducted for 25 years. It's really– it's in New York, it's right at the back-to-school season, and it's where we look at the data, and the analysts present where it really is the education market, and where are the opportunities, and where's the funding and the investment. Whether it's venture capital or private equity, which is at an all-time low in education across the ecosystem. And it is below, not just COVID, but it's below where we were in 2009 right after the recession. If you remember we had a big recession in 2008 where things really collapsed. Our investment numbers are equivalent to that recession time. So what does that mean for budding entrepreneurs who have a great product or service? That means you should be generating revenue. There's a concept.
Rich Portelance
Yeah.
Rita Ferrandino
It's not terribly sophisticated. You make a little bit and sell it. Maybe you have to make a little more and sell more. I mean, but, it's just that the fact is that revenue is king. There's always going to be people who are going to be able to attract some of that investment money. But for the most part, we're really looking at are there revenue– are there ways for revenue to generate enough cash to make your investment thesis? Are there any grants and philanthropic or even community? You know, many states have economic development boards, many communities have economic boards–sometimes they make money available, and there are some places to tap. But at the end of the day, revenue is king. Go sell stuff.
Rich Portelance
Do you see– because the funding is so low, is there M&A activity of rollups and other consolidations happening that's affecting change?
Rita Ferrandino
The data out of the back-to-school summit said there's a lot of M&A activity, but the dollar volume is super low. So although there's a lot of transactions, there isn't a lot of money flowing. And what that means is that there's not a lot of money exchanging hands. So the M&A activity is, “We'll bring you in, we'll employ your team, we'll give you an earnout.” That's more typical if you have a value proposition that an acquirer wants.
Rich Portelance
That makes sense. That makes sense. What– does a growing emphasis on CTE, workforce development, and skills create a different investment opportunity than the traditional K12 marketplace?
Rita Ferrandino
Well, it's a… all investment is really about, you know, what does your team look like? So, what's your leadership look like? What does your product look like? What's your sales and marketing? And then what do your financials look like? Those are the bones of any good investment. And so, I would say that people may see there's more market opportunity in the workforce, but it doesn't mean that you– you have to have the whole package.
Rich Portelance
Yeah.
Rita Ferrandino
You have to have the four legs of the stool.
Rich Portelance
Right. You can't not have revenue in today's day and age and expect that you're going to get a little bit of money to help grease the skids.
Rita Ferrandino
Right.
Rich Portelance
Yeah.
Rita Ferrandino
It's really, you know, it really is a different marketplace as I just described.
Rich Portelance
And are you seeing a disconnect between where educators see the greatest needs and where investors are willing to put capital?
Rita Ferrandino
Okay, I'm smiling now. Yes. Investors are looking for a return, and their return may have some social impact because they certainly impact investors, but at the end of the day they're looking for a return. And so, where teachers may have the most need, that's where my heart is, and that's why I love scaling education– research-based education that really makes a difference. But, I think market opportunity, budget availability, and policy alignment is really more important.
Rich Portelance
Okay. So–
Rita Ferrandino
Sorry, teachers! I'm going to keep doing my best!
Rich Portelance
You know, you do a great job, Rita, and it's, you know, I know this– the markets shift, right? We've both been around long enough to see the ebbs and flows, and you're referring to today's market similar to 2009. We know, you know, that the 2010s were better, and then, you know, probably 2020 was good until the bottom came out and COVID hit, and, you know, so we've seen these ebbs and flows. You know, looking at where the policies are, if you had to look forward to 2030, how does it look? Do you think it's going to improve, or do you think it's going to get even tougher?
Rita Ferrandino
Well, CTE is going to be important. Career pathways and having a workforce is going to continue to be important. I also want to make a commentary about the current political situation with student visas, which is really critical, especially at the undergraduate level and somewhat at the graduate level. But many of the students that are coming from around the world who need student visas to get in are studying CTE courses, and they have pretty much shut down visas in some really key areas of India and China, and that is– those are mostly the big cities. So that pipeline is going to not only just affect how much is being sold into education, but it also is going to impact– those people won't be staying to join our workforce.
Rich Portelance
Okay.
Rita Ferrandino
So we're going to have a ripple effect–and that's not insignificant. And I've been in some rooms recently where employers are starting to wake up to the fact that there just isn't going to be enough skilled workers to be able to fill the jobs that they have without additional global employees.
Rich Portelance
Okay. So, the young people coming up through our system there, it seems like the policy is pushing for us to train up the people we have, but what you're saying is that it's just not going to be enough?
Rita Ferrandino
Correct.
Rich Portelance
Okay. So, getting those visas reestablished at some point is going to be a critical factor in seeing the success of our CTE programs.
Rita Ferrandino
Correct.
Rich Portelance
Okay.
Rita Ferrandino
That's just a little insider baseball, because I've just seen that shift starting to be talked about, and having people starting to worry about it.
Rich Portelance
And are you seeing those policies? I mean, that's a federal policy. How are the states’ policies affecting those situations? Does the state have any leverage independently to do different things, or not really?
Rita Ferrandino
To the best of my knowledge, the state– it's not a state issue, it's a federal issue.
Rich Portelance
Yeah.
Rita Ferrandino
There's something called OTP (optional practical training), which is that students are able to stay after graduation. It had typically been two years so they could get established, and that they could then have an employer apply for their more permanent status. That's being truncated, if not eliminated. And again, if you don't have a pipeline of those students coming in, then there's nothing to truncate.
Rich Portelance
True.
Rita Ferrandino
Stay tuned.
Rich Portelance
So, Rita, you know, I want to– I want to switch the lens slightly again because we're covering a lot of ground and I think it's significant. I'm curious about the way that each of the states are handling CTE content, because what we see at EdGate is that those standards are, you know, just kind of all over the place. It could be you could talk about cybersecurity in California; it's completely different than in Wyoming or Connecticut or other states. So, you know, there's not a lot of commonality or thread between the standards, although they're kind of aimed at the same industry. Do you see the same thing? And do you see that shifting over time to create some more… I guess commonism amongst the states to bring some standardization to the standards?
Rita Ferrandino
So, I will say that I see no movement at all for any consolidation of standards. I don't anticipate that happening. I would love it. I believe national standards actually really do help us. So, if a student is taking a CTE course as a freshman high school student in Pennsylvania, and his dad moves, you know, across the stateline to Ohio, and he has to go to school in Ohio, it would be really nice that that student was learning the same materials, which is the whole, you know, issue of educational standards, right? Is that in a mobile world that we have, you would really like a student who's going to school in Broward County, Florida, whose dad gets moved to Georgia, or his mother gets moved to Georgia, or there's a hurricane and they have to relocate, that you would know that that student has learned these things anywhere in the country.
Rich Portelance
Yep.
Rita Ferrandino
But it's a whole different argument and we would– I'll come back. The answer to your question is I'm not seeing a lot of push for nationalization of CTE.
Rich Portelance
Okay. So in that case, it is what it is. We have these states that are all acting independently, which is okay. But if you're a company working into that market and you want to find some success and growth, what are some things that you can do on a state-by-state basis in order to find contracts to be successful?
Rita Ferrandino
Okay, first thing I would do is every governor does a state of the state in January, which is coming up, and they list their priorities for the year. Many of them do include tidbits about the workforce. So, if you want to know what Pennsylvania cares about, go look. And you can actually look and see what Pennsylvania said in 2026, 2025, and 2024, right? And then you can see if the road map maps to your product or service, because the state's education department really does reflect back to what the governor's mission is. So that's a really easy way to top-line that.
Now certainly, you can use AI tools and you can figure out which states are more likely to be targets for districts. You know, I really believe that sales and marketing– here's, again, another way for people to call us, is if you are really looking to smarten your sales and marketing operation using AI, we're seeing a lot of success with that.
Rich Portelance
Okay. As are we. And looking at sales and marketing, I always encourage people to understand, you know, not only the state of the state or the district initiatives, but the policy initiatives that are coming out in the legislature so you really have a good understanding of, you know, what they're aiming for, how they're going to govern it, and then you can– you can slide into the position correctly, right? Without, you know, overcompensating one way or another, you know, if you don't understand the policy, right?
Rita Ferrandino
Rich, it doesn't matter if you're a public school, or a charter, or a public charter, or a private school, or a micro school. At the end of the day, if you're trying to sell into any of those markets, you have a responsibility to understand where the money is coming from. And that means you have to follow federal, state, and local policy. And that's just a core competency of running a business selling into that market. So, if you have to join an association to get that information, join an association. If you have to sign up for alerts from the states you're in, do that. But there is a responsibility to understand where the pockets of money come from.
Rich Portelance
So, we've kind of gone from the educators, what challenges they are facing, the people in– that are creating the products and what challenges they are facing, and the investments. And you know– so, we've gone full circle here. What did I miss, Rita, in this spectrum, and how can we elucidate to folks who are listening what opportunities exist? Because there's a lot– right now, it's tamped down quite a bit based on what we're talking about.
Rita Ferrandino
I'm getting a big smile on my face. It's as simple as just seeing a video of what classrooms look like when they're doing really good, engaging CTE work at whatever level. Whether it's inquiry science in third grade, where they're, you know, learning circuits and putting circuits together, or whether it's something, you know, more substantial in the high school market, or in the community college vocational market, it's where education is at its best: when students are engaged in thinking and making.
Rich Portelance
And if we– if we– as we're looking at this broader state of standards conversation, what does the rise of CTE and workforce skills mean for the way we think about standards in education? Do you think there's a mind… a shift in the mindset there?
Rita Ferrandino
I did a project at one point with a major public university where they already had their curriculum in computer science, and what they wanted to do was, how do we take what we're already doing, and how do we get certifications from it? Like, what do we have to add in order to be able to say, “You're not only going to get a grade and a matriculation of this course, but you're going to take this course, and then you're going to get these three certifications out of it.” It was simply a mapping job. And, you know, it wasn't very hard to find the small things to insert in order to have both. And so, I think you're just going to see more of that. I don't think you're going to see tremendous shifts in what they're teaching, but I think that they're going to be able to just map it smarter so that students will have certifications, as well as course completions.
Rich Portelance
Okay. And I'm going to ask you a question you partially answered before, but I want to ask it again because I think it's really significant, Rita, and then we'll wrap up. Are we still preparing students for jobs, or are we increasingly preparing them to navigate a workforce where the jobs themselves are going to keep changing?
Rita Ferrandino
Well, I think we've been trying for many, many years–as long as I've been in the education business–trying to get core decision-making skills, critical thinking, communication, all of those basic skills to be at the cornerstone of every educational opportunity, right? And I think we just have to keep working at that. And I think, with AI, because so much of it's going to be automated, the jobs are going to be with the people who can communicate, can think, and can look critically at the AI, that we're going to take a lot of remote… not remote–rote work out of our workforce with the use of AI. But we're still going to need people who understand how to work with people.
Rich Portelance
And how to think critically.
Rita Ferrandino
And think critically.
Rich Portelance
Yeah.
Rita Ferrandino
And problem solve! Oh my god. There's just no way we are going to ever have a world where people don't have to do problem solving.
Rich Portelance
Yeah. You– you– you wonder, I mean, all those parents whose children went for the English major and they were cringing they'll never find a job. Now those people are in high demand because they know how to think–they understand language. I mean, there's real skills there, right?
Rita Ferrandino
Correct.
Closing Thoughts
Rich Portelance
Rita, I'm going to let you have the last word. I really thank you for joining us today. This has been an incredibly insightful conversation. As I know, our state of the standard CTE Rising executive forum will be on December 10th, and you'll be joining us then. But any last words for the folks out there?
Rita Ferrandino
In education today, you must skate to where the puck is going. You can't skate to where the puck has been. And I think the companies that embrace the idea that that change is critical–school leaders–have to embrace that. So, skate to where the puck is going.
Rich Portelance
Sage advice from Rita Ferrandino. You heard it here. Thank you for your time today, Rita.
Rita Ferrandino
Thank you.