AI Literacy Inside Career and Technical Education

CTE appears three times in the framework's logic: as an addressee (state CTE directors), as a delivery vehicle ("Delivering AI literacy as part of existing... CTE curricula"), and as a forward expansion target (DOL welcomes input on industry-specific guidance for "career and technical education"). The framework's literacy-vs-proficiency distinction is native CTE thinking: foundational literacy for every student, role-specific AI proficiency layered onto each career pathway.

CTE is where the framework's "Embed Learning in Context" principle becomes concrete: the same AI literacy core lands differently in a health-sciences pathway than in manufacturing or business administration. The framework gives CTE directors a defensible answer to the question every CTE program is fielding, "where does AI go in our pathways?", without inventing new stand-alone courses: literacy embeds into existing curricula; proficiency attaches to the occupation.