Every industry has been grappling with how the fallout of COVID-19 alters its day-to-day functioning. The K-12 education community has been especially strained by the shift from classrooms to computers.

Pundits are predicting that online learning will last beyond this moment, and this may well be true. Yet a more consequential shift in K-12 education could be the welcomed acceleration of enthusiasm for career and technical education in high schools — that is, pathways from secondary schooling into the world of work instead of immediate enrollment in college.