Maryland redesigned its CTE (career and technical education) program a dozen years ago to prepare students for the 21st Century's global economy and its rapidly changing workforce needs. With 350 business and industry representatives, the state created a program whose emphasis is problem-solving and critical thinking, rather than narrow,…

It is hard to overestimate the significance of the master planning process. The process is one of the most salient strategies that the Maryland State Department of Education utilizes for improving student achievement and closing the achievement gap. Until recently, many local school systems (LSSs) treated planning as a local endeavor that merely…