The Career Field Technical Content Standards serve as the curricular framework for Ohio’s
career technical education pathway programs as outlined in Ohio Administrative Code 3301-61-
03 (Criteria for Secondary Workforce Development Programs).

Career Field Technical Content Standards outline the knowledge and skills needed for success in
careers across multiple pathways. Validated by Ohio business and industry representatives,
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.

These documents are designed to align these technical content standards to the National DECA
competitive events standards. As an integral part of the classroom curriculum, DECA’s industry-
validated competitive events are aligned with the National Curriculum Standards in the career
clusters of marketing, business management and administration, finance, and hospitality and
tourism. DECA’s flagship evaluation process involves students in both a written component
such as an exam or report and an interactive component with an industry professional serving
as a judge. DECA’s competitive events directly contribute to every student being college and
career ready when they graduate from high school.

The alignment of these standards allows a career technical teacher to demonstrate the
connections between competitive events and technical content standards. It also allows the
teacher to use competitive events as instructional tools that teach required content.

In these documents, each competitive event shows all standards alignments. However, an
alignment does not mean that the entire content of a standard is taught through the
competitive event. It only means that the competitive event and the standard align—either
partially or wholly.

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