The kids in Jeanne Gurtler’s marketing class buy and sell a lot of cars—at least in theory. The class includes an exercise in making a sale, and the students often use their own cars as a test case. Gurtler makes sure each student completes a sales-pitch checklist, including a sales aid, business cards, and a testimonial letter from a customer.
“Did they determine needs? Did they provide the features and benefits of the car?” she asks. “They have to suggest and sell.”
Gurtler teaches marketing and entrepreneurship at Mineral County Technical Center, located in the eastern panhandle of West Virginia. The center is a stand-alone vocational education facility serving the county’s two high schools. Gurtler was there in 1993 when the district implemented the reform model known as High Schools That Work. Three years later, lawmakers adopted the format as a statewide strategy for improving all of its 150-plus high schools.
Created by the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) in 1987, the High Schools That Work model is now used in more than 1,200 schools in 32 states. It’s one of several approaches to vocational education—increasingly known as career and technical education (CTE)—that has emerged over the past decade or two. Since the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, these kinds of programs have drawn increasing attention from educators seeking ways to increase achievement and motivation among high-risk students. Many CTE programs have made significant strides in integrating academic and work-related education, exposing students to a variety of career options, making class work more meaningful, and breaking down some of the boundaries that used to divide college-bound students from those going straight into the labor force. In addition, some models have gained momentum from the small-schools movement, which emphasizes the importance of personalized learning communities in supporting a wide range of student outcomes.
As Betsy Brand, director of the American Youth Policy Forum, wrote in Remaking Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century, a 2005 report published by the Boston-based nonprofit Jobs for the Future: “The best CTE programs and school designs point the way for high school reform more generally: greater academic rigor, a clear focus of theme, pathways connecting secondary and postsecondary institutions, and increased time with adults.”
“Rigor Comes First”
“Old vocational education programs—Auto Shop 1, Auto Shop 2, and Auto Shop 3—those have pretty much died,” comments Norton Grubb, a professor of education at the University of California, Berkeley, who specializes in education, training, and labor markets. Reeling from what Grubb calls the “one-two punch” of the Nation at Risk report and the recent emphasis on testing and accountability, traditional vocational education programs have gradually fallen by the wayside.
The CTE programs that have emerged to take their place are designed to meet the demands of the standards movement and today’s workforce. They typically offer a choice of vocations suited to a range of career objectives, from the entry-level to the professional. “Rather than being seen as a terminal program,” Grubb says, “a lot more of these [programs] see themselves as either leading to employment or leading to college.”
According to the 2004 National Assessment of Vocational Education, the vocational component of a high school education, though smaller than it once was, is still quite large. Career and technical courses made up about 16 percent of the high school curriculum in 2000. More than 95 percent of high school students had taken at least one career and technology course, and about 45 percent earned three or more occupational course credits.
The study found that students who concentrate in career and technical studies are meeting higher academic requirements. Between 1990 and 2000, the percentage of CTE concentrators taking four years of English and three years of math, social studies, and science rose from 18 percent to 51 percent, and the proportion taking a college-prep curriculum nearly tripled, from 10 percent to 29 percent.
Observers say CTE is at a critical juncture. It’s unclear whether it will lose ground in the face of rising pressures to boost academic achievement and increase graduation requirements, or whether exemplary programs can serve as a model for broad-based reform. “Progress has been made in the past decade toward more modern and rigorous CTE programs,” writes Richard Kazis, a senior vice president of Jobs for the Future and editor of the 2005 report. At the same time, he notes that the per-pupil cost of such programs is high and their overall academic record has been “disappointing.”
“Academic rigor must come first,” Kazis writes. “Without it, CTE cannot succeed—and should not be allowed to divert resources and students from more preferable options.”
Pathways to a Vocation
One popular model for integrating career and academic preparation is called the “pathways” approach, in which students choose from an assortment of clearly defined career paths to follow through high school. The Mineral County (W.Va.) Technical Center, where Gurtler teaches, offers career paths in a variety of fields: natural resources, business, engineering, human services, and health. Within each field there are different course requirements for students planning to enter the workforce directly, those who plan some postsecondary education, and those aiming to complete the baccalaureate. According to Alan Whetzel, director of vocational education for Mineral County schools, all students are encouraged to strive for college-level work. Students who do not intend to go to college may gain the credentials to enter the workforce as, among other things, a welder, a firefighter, a nursing assistant, or an electronics technician.
A trademark of the High Schools That Work program is its commitment to collecting and scrutinizing data. In addition to the standard student data—subject-area test scores, attendance rates, graduation rates, etc.—SREB conducts biannual teacher and student surveys to link student performance to “key practices”: providing challenging programs of study, coordinating academic and work-based learning, setting high expectations, encouraging collaboration among academic and technical teachers, engaging students, involving parents, and providing structured opportunities for extra help.
Whetzel and his staff have gleaned from the surveys that much of what they are doing—setting high expectations, creating strong career clusters—is working well, while other areas need some work. “Integrating what’s going on in the math class with what’s going on in our career classes—that’s a challenge for us,” he says. The effort to integrate or link academic and technical courses without sacrificing the quality of either is a significant obstacle for many schools trying to implement effective CTE programs (see sidebar “Leading the Way to Higher Achievement"). Whetzel plans to bring academic teachers from the two high schools together with CTE teachers at the technical center to develop coordinated lesson plans.
Several studies have shown that to the extent schools implement the High Schools That Work design, they begin to raise academic achievement and reduce dropout rates. “What seems to be most important,” says Gene Bottoms, vice president of SREB, “is that the students have a very demanding academic core, and they have access to high-quality career and technical studies that provide a sense of purpose, a sense of meaning.”
The results of implementing High Schools That Work in West Virginia have been slow but impressive, according to Bottoms. “I’m not going to tell you that West Virginia is heaven yet,” he says, “but in terms of a gradual, incremental approach, they are making progress.” In 1996, the college-going rate among the state’s high school graduates was 42 percent. Now it’s 60 percent, and nearly three-quarters of the students enrolled in postsecondary studies attend a four-year institution. In addition, more students are taking AP tests, and a larger percentage—65 percent of high school graduates in 2005—are taking the ACT college admissions exam. Between 1994 and 2004 the Mountain State had a six-point gain on the ACT, the highest increase in the nation.
Career Academies
Another promising model is the creation of “career academies,” small learning communities within a larger school. Career academies adhere to a specific career theme and focus on both academic instruction and vocational education. They also partner with local businesses to give students on-the-job experience.
A. B. Miller High School, located 50 miles east of Los Angeles, is home to 4,400 students. Seventy-nine students and four teachers make up the Teacher Education Academy@Miller, or T.E.A.M., one of three career academies at the high school. In addition to their academic studies, students in the academy learn about classroom management, learning styles, lesson planning, and state standards, and complete an internship with a classroom teacher. They take most of their classes together, and the teachers at each grade level meet every Monday to discuss their students and ways to help those who are lagging.
“Students will tell you they have teachers that care about them now,” says academy coordinator Virginia St. Andre.
The academy is one of more than an estimated 2,500 nationwide. Fueled in part by the small-schools movement, interest in career academies is growing rapidly, according to James Kemple, a senior analyst with the social policy research organization MDRC. In a randomized, controlled study of the long-term effects of career academies, released in March 2004, MDRC researchers tracked 1,700 students from nine schools. The programs’ most dramatic impact was on the annual earnings of young men. Over a four-year period, those who had attended career academies earned more than $10,000 (18 percent) more than those in the control group. The difference was most pronounced among those who had been at high or medium risk of dropping out of school. In a summary of the MDRC study, Kemple points out that career academies “are one of the few youth-focused interventions that have been found to improve the labor market prospects of young men.”
The academic impact of career academies, however, is less clear. The MDRC study found no significant differences in academic achievement, graduation rates, college-going, or attainment of postsecondary credentials between students who attended career academies and the control group. “The findings demonstrate the feasibility of improving labor market preparation and successful school-to-work transitions without compromising academic goals and preparation for college,” the report concludes.
Long considered the Rodney Dangerfield of high school curriculum, CTE gets little respect. But SREB’s Bottoms and other advocates are optimistic that the ongoing refinement of models like High Schools That Work, career academies, and the newer, much-touted Project Lead the Way can capture the benefits of career-oriented training—closer relationships with adults, increased motivation, practical problem-solving experience, and better earnings potential—and combine them with academic achievement. School leaders in these kinds of programs, says Bottoms, “are constantly searching for what’s working and not working and how to refine what they’re doing. Schools that have this context are raising both achievement and completion rates.”
Lucy Hood is a freelance writer and reporter who lives in Washington, D.C.
