How partnering with career and technical education creates career paths in pizza
For decades, public education operated under a singular, rigid mandate: push every student toward a four-year college degree. The cultural narrative was absolute – to be successful, respected and financially secure, students had to enroll in a traditional university program. It took us, as a nation, a long time to realize that this “one size fits all” approach was fundamentally flawed. The reality is that college is not for everyone, undirected degrees created a debt crisis, and a hyper-focus on “white-collar” paths has resulted in a massive, systemic void in the skilled trade industries.
Over the past decade, the pendulum has begun to swing back toward a more balanced center. Public education is undergoing a quiet revolution, equipping students with the agency to take control of their futures through career and technical education (CTE). These programs have surged in popularity, offering students a diverse menu of high-skill and in-demand career paths before they even graduate high school.
While the implementation varies by state and school district, this shift is rapidly spreading across the country, redefining what it means to be career ready. Over 90% of public high schools offer CTE, and more than one in five students take multiple CTE courses before graduation, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
What does career and technical education have to do with the pizza industry?
Everything. One of the many offerings in modern CTE programming is culinary certification. Programs such as ProStart, led by the National Restaurant Association Educational Foundation, are doing the heavy lifting to change the outdated mindset that working in hospitality is just a gig or a starter job. It is a solid, viable and profitable career choice.
Michael Burke, a local CTE director who brings infectious energy to this specialty, spoke about “career clusters,” a concept that every restaurant owner needs to understand. These culinary programs aren’t just opening doors for future line cooks, they are teaching sourcing, digital marketing, price-setting, food-cost analysis and all the complex business practices necessary to find success in our industry. Students aren’t just learning to make a sauce, they are learning how to run a business. They are becoming entrepreneurs who happen to use flour and water as their medium.
To fully capitalize on this educational momentum, we must address a narrative within our own industry. There is a persistent, vocal theme that the younger generation is lazy or ill-equipped for the workforce. If we want to build a sustainable workforce with future leaders on our teams, we must change the way we talk about them. As industry leaders, we cannot expect to recruit the best and brightest if we lead with negativity. We can’t expect them to want to join an industry that spends its time belittling their work ethic.
Hands-on, experiential learning
While my career is rooted in pizza, I wear many hats in my community, including serving as vice president of the 27J Schools Board of Education. Serving over 25,000 students, our leadership team is actively pursuing the “Thinking Classroom” model.
This isn’t your grandfather’s classroom! This educational shift moves from memorization and regurgitation toward hands-on, experiential learning. It prioritizes problem-solving, collaboration and critical thinking – the exact skills required to survive a Friday night rush during a staffing shortage.
27J Schools Superintendent Will Pierce says, “The future calls for skills from our students, and this is a different learning experience than traditional teaching has offered.” The next generation is being trained to pivot and solve problems in real-time.
We all know that in a pizza shop, the ability to pivot when the oven goes down, collaborate when the rush hits and solve problems in real-time is exactly what creates success. (See “FOH vs. BOH: Ending the Division”) That is the Thinking Classroom in action. So, let’s start talking about our future leaders as the capable thinkers and doers they are.
As the education pendulum shifts, we need to look at how that aligns with our field and opportunities for employment. The culinary trades market is constantly growing and changing – especially in this post-COVID world. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, culinary and hospitality trade work has serious momentum. We aren’t just seeing more opportunities, we are seeing rapid wage growth that is changing the math for young people.
As minimum wages rise across the country, we are seeing the income gap between skilled trades and college degree careers shrink to almost nothing. In 2025, for the first time in five decades, trade worker unemployment fell below that of college grads. When you pair high living costs and rising tuition with the fact that a skilled trade professional can enter the workforce debt-free and start earning a competitive wage immediately, hospitality becomes an extremely viable option. We are no longer the alternative to a career, we are the career!
How do we as industry leaders and operators take advantage of the opportunity?
As the infrastructure for CTE becomes more robust, we can bridge the gap between classroom and kitchen. Why sit on the sidelines and complain about the labor shortage while ignoring the talent being cultivated in our own backyards?
CTE Director Michael Burke’s advice to business owners is simple:
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“Be curious.”
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Join the conversations in your community.
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Find the spaces where students are learning the skills you are looking for as a hiring agent.
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Investigate what your local youth programs offer.
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Become a guest speaker.
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Offer a job-site visit.
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Host interns and apprentices.
When people think about the restaurant industry, they often think of a dishwasher, someone sweating on the line or tough customer service. All of those are respectable, necessary and foundational roles, but they often lack glamour in the public eye. However, these positions teach a level of resiliency that you cannot find in a textbook. They are steppingstones for those searching for real career growth. Paint a clearer picture of that growth.
When you speak about your career, speak of the lifestyle it has provided. Talk about the fiscal advantages and the freedom that comes with being a master of your craft. Speak to the community it creates and the doors it opens.
As an industry, we too often lead with the negative. We say, “This is so hard,” or “Don’t do what I did.” That must stop. It shouldn’t be surprising that the talent pool dries up when this is the messaging. This narrative starts with each of us.
I’ve grouped hospitality and culinary trades together for the purpose of CTE. But for a final thought, I want to look at our industry: pizza.
Not only do we have all the opportunities mentioned above to build a solid workforce, but we also have something no one else has: a unique and amazing culture. The pizza community is unlike any other trade; we are uniquely collaborative. We gather at events to share recipes, labor strategies and encouragement. The culture of lifting as we climb makes our trade more resilient than almost any other.
The momentum is here. The education system is strategically positioning itself to align with the needs of the workforce. The wages are rising, and the stigma is fading.
Now, it is up to us to go out into our communities, be curious and create a pipeline of future leaders who are driven to make pizza their career, not just their first job. Let’s stop talking about the future and start building it.
MELINDA CARBAJAL is the CEO and managing member of Simply Pizza in Colorado.
