{
  "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register",
  "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/career-technical-education-teachers-middle-school/",
  "methodology": "https://cookedindex.com/methodology",
  "notice": "Verdicts are re-examined as evidence accumulates. Re-fetch before relying on this; the page above always carries the current score.",
  "scored_at": "2026-08-11",
  "model": "claude-opus-5",
  "occupation": {
    "title": "Career/Technical Education Teachers, Middle School",
    "soc_code": "25-2023",
    "category": "Education",
    "us_employment": 16870,
    "median_annual_wage": 65030
  },
  "verdict": "SAFE",
  "risk_resistance": 70,
  "contested": false,
  "near_boundary": false,
  "dimensions": {
    "task_resistance": 13,
    "embodiment": 16,
    "liability_shield": 13,
    "trust_premium": 15,
    "judgment_accountability": 13
  },
  "reasoning": {
    "task_resistance": "Demonstrating a proper crosscut, spotting a kid who has just tied back their hair wrong, and catching the moment a 7th grader's solder joint is cold are corrections made by eye and hand in real time — but the grading, curriculum mapping, CTE pathway documentation and Perkins-reporting side of the week is genuinely draftable by a model, which is why this lands at 13 and not 17.",
    "embodiment": "You spend the period on your feet moving between stations — resetting a jammed sewing machine, checking a blade guard, wiping a range top, physically blocking a student from reaching over a hot surface — in a room full of powered tools and adolescents, which is about as uncontrolled as an indoor workspace gets, short of a road crew.",
    "liability_shield": "You hold a state teaching credential, usually with a CTE or industrial-arts endorsement, and you're the named supervising adult when an injury report goes to the district and the parents' attorney; the 13 rather than 18 reflects that the district's insurance and administration absorb most exposure and your licence isn't a personal practice licence you could lose a business with.",
    "trust_premium": "Middle schoolers only pick up a chisel or a chef's knife because they trust the adult who handed it to them, and CTE is often where the disengaged kid finally connects — that relationship is the mechanism of instruction, though at 15 rather than 19 because you're teaching six rotating sections a semester, not building one long-term advisory bond.",
    "judgment_accountability": "You decide daily which student is ready for the drill press unsupervised, when a behavior pattern crosses from horseplay into a safety removal, and how to modify a project for an IEP student's motor limitations — real calls with injury consequences, but bounded by district safety protocols, tool checkout rules and the IEP itself rather than made from scratch."
  },
  "rationale": "This job is supervising 12-year-olds around table saws, soldering irons, sewing machines, and kitchen ranges — physical instruction with real injury risk that no current robot or chatbot can take over. AI will absorb the paperwork tier: lesson plan drafting, rubric writing, safety-quiz generation, progress-report narratives. What remains is shop-floor demonstration, hands-on skill correction, behavior management, and legal responsibility for student safety under state teaching licensure.",
  "outlook": "Enrollment in middle-school CTE is politically favored and the work is physically anchored; expect the role to persist with AI eating roughly a third of the planning and paperwork load.",
  "what_would_raise_it": {
    "levers": [
      {
        "dimension": "liability_shield",
        "change": "State CTE facility rules that name a licensed, present adult as the sole legally responsible supervisor for powered shop equipment and set student:instructor ratios (as in existing state industrial-arts safety codes and OSHA-modeled district policy); district liability insurers already condition coverage on a certified instructor being physically in the lab, and tightening that from policy to statute/board rule would harden the shield",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 3
      },
      {
        "dimension": "liability_shield",
        "change": "Industry-certification bodies (NCCER, ServSafe, AWS, Snap-on) requiring that a credentialed human proctor sign off on middle-school pathway skill assessments, making the teacher the named signatory on portable credentials",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 2
      },
      {
        "dimension": "task_resistance",
        "change": "Genuine two-tier job: if AI absorbs lesson planning, rubric generation, safety-quiz writing and IEP/progress narratives, the residual day is nearly all live demonstration, tool-hand correction, and behavior management — the share of the day AI cannot do rises even with no capability change",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 3
      },
      {
        "dimension": "judgment_accountability",
        "change": "Formal codification of the teacher's call on student readiness to operate a given machine — e.g., a district-required tool-permit system where the instructor personally authorizes each student per machine and that authorization is auditable after an injury",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 2
      },
      {
        "dimension": "trust_premium",
        "change": "State CTE funding tied to Perkins V pathway completion with employer advisory boards demanding in-person shop hours; parents and local employers rejecting virtual/simulated substitutes for hands-on hours would keep the human-taught lab a purchased requirement rather than a preference",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 2
      }
    ],
    "ceiling_note": "Already SAFE and near ceiling on embodiment; the realistic gains are small and mostly consolidation of what the role already is. The live downside risk is not AI but enrollment and budget — CTE labs get cut for cost, not replaced by software."
  },
  "adjudication": null,
  "employment_history": {
    "points": [
      {
        "y": 2017,
        "emp": 12040,
        "wage": 58630
      },
      {
        "y": 2018,
        "emp": 11940,
        "wage": 59230
      },
      {
        "y": 2019,
        "emp": 11860,
        "wage": 60800
      },
      {
        "y": 2020,
        "emp": 11670,
        "wage": 62270
      },
      {
        "y": 2021,
        "emp": 11840,
        "wage": 61820
      },
      {
        "y": 2022,
        "emp": 11110,
        "wage": 62630
      },
      {
        "y": 2023,
        "emp": 12210,
        "wage": 63860
      },
      {
        "y": 2024,
        "emp": 14200,
        "wage": 63620
      },
      {
        "y": 2025,
        "emp": 16870,
        "wage": 65030
      }
    ],
    "from": 2017,
    "to": 2025,
    "change_pct": 40.1,
    "comparable_from": 2019,
    "spans_soc_revision": true
  },
  "pivots": [],
  "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms"
}