Don’t make students choose college or career

integrated college – An opinion piece argues that schools and state policymakers should stop forcing students into “college or career” tracks and instead build systems where academic learning and career technical education reinforce each other—through integrated course design, dua

High school can feel like a fork in the road. For students who enroll in career technical education programs, that fork too often hardens into a wall—separating their futures into “college” or “career,” as if those paths can’t share a classroom, a curriculum, or even the same kind of rigor.

The author. Chantel Reynolds. makes the case for an integrated approach drawn from the CTE playbook: academic knowledge and technical skills. she says. should be treated as complementary building blocks. not competing destinations. In her view, the problem isn’t that schools have expanded and diversified prospects for students. It’s what happens next—when systems around those programs track students into narrow categories.

Reynolds points to how. in many states. “academic” and “career” courses are kept apart in separate directories. supported by different funding streams. and assessed through different accountability metrics. That separation, she argues, deepens polarization instead of widening opportunity. Even when coursework overlaps. students can still end up in different lanes: some earn college credits while others leave with technical skills and industry credentials—when the goal should be “both/and” rather than “either/or.”.

She also says the message students receive is quieter than people think but powerful all the same. A recent survey. she writes. found that only around 1 in 6 educators connected to CTE say they find the programs seamlessly integrated in their schools. For her, that gap isn’t just administrative. It’s cultural: a status quo that suggests academic success and technical skills are not equal.

Reynolds argues that both college readiness and career readiness depend on the same kinds of learning experiences—critical thinking. project-based learning. and authentic. performance-based assessment. She adds that advanced academic students have just as much to gain from education anchored in real-world problems as career-oriented learners do.

A persistent stigma around CTE courses, she says, keeps many students unaware of their options or uneasy about taking them. And she doesn’t treat the consequences as abstract. She describes her own experience in the early 1990s in Tennessee. when she was labeled an advanced high schooler and placed on a college-bound track with a small group of honors peers.

Reynolds remembers a final project in physics. The assignment required students to build an actual catapult capable of launching a projectile across the room. She says she and her cohort were flummoxed. They could talk endlessly about theory, she recalls—but couldn’t put concepts into action. The project that worked. she writes. belonged to a girl outside their cohort. a general education student whose catapult launched projectiles across the gym and eventually over the school.

That moment, Reynolds says, taught her that being “book smart” isn’t the same as being prepared.

She argues that. despite how much education has changed since then. some advanced academic programs still rely on traditional practices that lack contextualized knowledge. Assessments based on timed tests. essays. and multiple-choice questions can measure discipline-specific knowledge. she writes—but she emphasizes that authentic assessments require students to show what they know and apply skills to real-world scenarios.

Reynolds ties her argument to her current work at Cambridge International Education. where she says it’s possible to create assessments that merge the theoretical emphasis of traditional tests with the hands-on application associated with CTE. She adds that she has seen these approaches improve student learning, autonomy, and motivation.

For her, the key is contextualizing content beyond the classroom—work that she links to higher-order thinking, problem-solving, and decision-making. Those are the skills she says boost engagement and career success whether students are heading directly to the workforce or going to college first.

She also looks beyond individual classrooms to the reality of a rapidly changing world. where technological developments and labor market demands can move faster than higher education trends. In that landscape. she argues. students need real-world experience and adaptability. along with essential skills like communication. judgment. and critical thinking. High school, she says, is the moment to build those competencies.

Reynolds points to national conversations. including from thought leaders at Advance CTE. pushing schools toward models that integrate academic and career-focused learning rather than treating them as separate tracks. She says schools and states across the country are seeing success with that approach.

The solution, in her view, starts with policy and course design. She calls on state policymakers to recognize rigorous. dual-purpose courses that count for both academic and CTE credit and to remove barriers that keep programs siloed. School administrators. she says. need to rethink course codes and champion local examples that show how integrated learning boosts engagement and achievement.

Reynolds closes with a simple argument shaped by her own classroom memory and her broader focus on readiness. When students learn how to think and how to do, she writes, they are prepared not just for a first job, but for a lifetime of learning, opportunity, and growth.

That, she says, is what real readiness looks like—and what every student deserves.

career and technical education CTE college readiness integrated pathways academic and career courses authentic assessment policy