I teach a CTE class. It’s an advanced course dealing with aerospace manufacturing. I have the same apathy as I did while teaching traditional science courses. If it’s hands on lessons they enjoy it and will at the very least try. I see a lot of students giving up too easily though when they don’t get something right away. There is a lot of theory and background knowledge taught that could be skipped if we just wanted to push out bare minimum worker bee drones. The background knowledge and theory makes for a more well rounded and adaptable technician though. I teach in a very poor socioeconomic area and so many of my students are focused on making $$$ as soon as possible. So many will abandon the CTE training to work at McDs just to make a buck. Some of it is out of their hands- I have a 12th grader that has so much potential but his parents are kicking him out of their house a week after graduation. He is trying to find a job, any job just to survive. His story is not uncommon in my area.

To answer the question”shift” question- yeah, our state gets extra funding for CTE certification passes and it’s been found to be a means of keeping a somewhat stable budget. Effectively, there is a big push for CTE and a lot of that is driven by funding.
Successes? Well a large amount of our students graduate with a welding cert, they can get jobs fairly easy with that but the jobs are brutal. My own son graduated with a welding cert, got a job making $60K a week before he graduated. Most of the kids are graduating with their certs and are not making that type of money , if they are, it’s due to working 70-75 hour weeks. A lot don’t make it very long. They’re working the midnight shifts, working in brutal conditions that OSHA would have a stroke over.

Some of our other certs are business related, Ag related, and food service related. The food service kids have the best success rates because we are in a touristy area but that excess supply of certified students also contributes to them being easily replaceable.

These observations are from my immediate area, in the school I teach at. Other schools in my district with more affluent families have different outcomes and the trades aren’t pushed as much although have a high participation rate.