Very few products we reviewed are specific to Texas or include direct references to the TEKS in teacher and/or student materials. However, some products contain supplemental resources, such as lesson plans and correlation documents, to help Texas teachers plan TEKS-aligned instruction. Surprisingly, some products that include Texas in their titles (e.g., Pearson’s “Texas Manufacturing Welding”) do not include references to the TEKS. This is likely due to the fact that many CTE products, while suitable for high school instruction, are designed to meet the needs of community college students and students in career and technical schools. [Read more…]
Similarly, CTE products designed for post-secondary learning environments tend to have fewer supports for struggling readers, such as active reading strategies, checks for understanding, and margin notes with study tips and learning strategies, which may create challenges to their use in high school classrooms.
Nearly all of the products we reviewed addressed employment skills to some degree. Products include profiles of careers related to content, portfolio building activities, and lessons addressing job searches and skills for success in the workplace (e.g., collaboration, communication).
Some products are state-adopted for multiple courses. For example, Cengage Learning’s “Personal Financial Literacy” and Goodheart-Willcox’s “Foundations of Financial Literacy” are state-adopted for both Money Matters (Subchapter F: Finance) and Dollars and Sense (Subchapter J: Human Services). In such cases, districts can get products for two courses for the price of one course.
Generally speaking, we saw few supports for English language learners across CTE products. And, when we did see supports, they were minimal such as a Spanish language glossary. There is considerable overlap in content for some publishers’ submissions. For example, CEV Multimedia’s products are state-adopted for a wide range of CTE courses. CEV provides module-based online instruction, and in many cases, the same modules appear in multiple courses. For example, each of the modules that make up CEV’s “Medical Terminology” also appear in CEV’s “Principles of Health Science” (Subchapter H: Health Science). In such cases, districts will want to be careful not to pay twice for the very same content.
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