Standards, Assessments and Licensure
Career Field Technical Content Standards outline the knowledge and skills students need for success in careers across multiple pathways. It’s important to have a way for students to showcase expertise in their career field. Ohio’s career-technical education programs use career field pathway end-of-course exams to measure and validate a student’s knowledge of technical content.
Student success begins with finding the best educators to share their expertise and passion for teaching. The Office of Career-Technical Education provides guidance to schools in hiring properly licensed teachers. The office also provides support to prepare new career-technical education teachers entering the classroom. This statewide support collaboratively ensures delivery of high-quality programming and technical content with student success at the center of this work.
Standards
The Office of Career-Technical Education schedules revisions of its Career Field Content Standards on a rotating basis. Validated by Ohio business and industry representatives in conjunction with Ohio educators, these standards form the basis for developing educational programming in Ohio secondary schools. The standards also serve as the framework for developing strong career pathways that connect secondary education with postsecondary education systems and the workplace.
- Content Standards Revision Overview - The Office of Career-Technical Education schedules revisions of its Career Field Content Standards on a rotating basis. To ensure students learn the rigorous, industry-relevant knowledge and skills they need to be successful in careers and college, the office seeks feedback from educators, community members and industry professionals as each set of career field standards are reviewed and revised.
Assessments
Ohio’s career-technical education programs use career field pathway end-of-course exams as a valid and reliable assessment of technical content. The statewide career-technical education testing system complements the local districts’ systems for assessing student academic performance. In addition to measuring the technical skill attainment of students, the state testing system supports seamless transitions between secondary and postsecondary education by integrating the assessments into statewide articulated credit transfer agreements.
- Assessment System - Secondary Career-Technical Education programs require career field pathway end-of-course tests. All career-technical education tests are developed and administered by The Ohio State University, Center on Education and Training for Employment through a proprietary system called WebXam©.
Licensure
To support teacher recruitment and retention, the state provides several paths to obtain an Ohio Career-Technical Teacher License. Resources are provided for initial career-technical education teacher preparation, professional development for teachers, administrators and career and academic guidance counselors at all levels.
- Teacher Preparation and Licenses - The quality of educator preparation programs is maintained through a collaborative effort of the Ohio Departments of Education and Higher Education by supporting career-technical teacher preparation programs.
- Educator Licensure for Veterans and Active-Duty Service Members - The Ohio Department of Education has eliminated fees for educator licenses to recognize the contributions of military families. The fees for any initial Ohio educator license, permit or certificate – or for a renewal – will be waived for candidates who are veterans with honorable discharges or current service members of all branches of the United States Armed Forces; the National Guard or Reserve; and the Ohio Military Reserve or Ohio Naval Militia (under the Ohio Adjutant General). Spouses of active-duty service members also may receive a license free of charge.
- Middle Grade Validation and Programming - Teachers who hold a valid, non-career technical education Ohio resident educator, professional or permanent license that includes middle grades must complete the Ohio Department of Education’s career-technical education middle school validation course. The Department recommends that teachers complete the middle school validation course prior to teaching career-technical education middle school courses.
Last Modified: 9/14/2023 6:26:01 AM