About CASN
History
The Career Academy Support Network (CASN) was founded in 1998 in the Graduate School of Education at UC Berkeley by a group of practitioners and researchers interested in career academies and their potential for improving high school education. In response to requests from schools and districts in several states, the group has supported development and improvement of career academies, while assembling information and resources to help schools and districts plan, implement, or enhance academies. This work resulted in a series of guides now available on the CASN website, along with other tools, templates, a curriculum database, videos, and more.
CASN has been funded by private foundations, as well as through contracts with several states and numerous individual school districts. The team has worked in some twenty different states, across a broad range of efforts that join research findings with practical strategies to help educators and other stakeholders improve high schools.
Mission
CASN conducts research and practice to improve high school education and increase future opportunities for students whose options in the past have been unfairly and unnecessarily restricted. This includes students whose options have been restricted because of income, race, ethnicity, immigration status, language, gender, sexual orientation, or family educational background.
CASN continues to focus on supporting the growth and improvement of college-and-career pathways—including career academies, Linked Learning pathways and systems, and small learning communities. These strategies can expand options for students and prepare them for both college and careers.
The Team
David Stern, Principal Investigator, is co-founder of CASN, Emeritus Professor of Education at UC Berkeley, and past Director of the National Center for Research in Vocational Education (NCRVE). An economist by training, he has written numerous books and articles about connections between learning and work, and improving options for under-served high school students. He leads many of CASN's research efforts.
Gilberto (Gil) Conchas, Executive Director, joined CASN in 2011. He currently is a professor at UC Irvine, and previously has been a professor at Harvard University and Senior Program Officer at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He is particularly interested in addressing the opportunity gap and in improving the fortunes of students of color and others facing challenges to success, and has produced three books and a number of articles related to these issues. He oversees all of CASN”s projects and personally leads several.
Charles Dayton, National Liaison, co-founded CASN and served as Coordinator until 2011. He helped to start the first career academies in California, contributed centrally to their expansion in California and nationally, has written many of CASN”s guides and handbooks, and has worked to evaluate and provide assistance to high school career academies and small learning communities for three decades. He had a lead role in developing National Standards of Practice for career academies, and also leads a national conversation three times a year for organizations involved with college-and-career pathways.
Susan Tidyman, State and Regional Coordinator, has been a team member and lead manager in CASN since 1998, and was previously the State administrator of the Partnership Academies for the California Department of Education. She has worked in many states as well as extensively in California, managing a variety of projects and offering professional development related to the implementation of career academies and small learning communities in high schools.
Patricia Clark, Senior Program Manager, joined CASN in 2003. She was the founding Director of the Health and Bioscience Academy at Oakland Technical High School as well as Director or Co-Director of numerous high school improvement projects and networks, focusing especially on curriculum and instruction. She has worked extensively with schools, districts, and communities throughout the country and serves as a coach, technical assistance provider, facilitator of professional development and strategic planning, resource and fund developer, and evaluator for a range of initiatives.
Erin Fender, Project Manager, is past director of a Federal small learning community grant in Petaluma, CA, where she was recognized as the administrator of the year just before joining CASN in 2009. She taught science and was lead teacher in an Environmental Science Academy at Windsor High School. She manages several projects, including the development of an extensive online database of curriculum that integrates academic and career-technical subjects.
Carrie Collins, Administrator, worked for the National Center for Research in Vocational Education before joining CASN in 2000. She interfaces with funders and with other offices at Berkeley, manages contracts and budgets, and provides administrative support to the rest of the team.
Our current Graduate Student Researchers are Annie Johnston, lead teacher in the Community Partnerships Academy at Berkeley High School and Ed.D. candidate at UC Berkeley, who is contributing to the work of building an integrated curriculum database; and Candace Hamilton Hester, a Ph.D. candidate in Public Policy, who is conducting statistical analysis of data from California Partnership Academies.
Locations
CASN has fostered high school reform in many places across the country. We have worked at the state level in California, Illinois, and Hawaii, and with individual districts in California, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, South Carolina, Texas, and Washington. We have helped to nurture the development of state support for career academies in California and have worked closely with the California Department of Education to support its network of nearly 500 academies. Information on California Partnership Academies is provided in the CPA section of this website.
Partners
CASN has worked with many partners, including the Center for Educational Partnerships at UC Berkeley, UC Irvine, and the UC Office of the President, as well as national organizations. Among these are the American Youth Policy Forum in Washington, D.C.; Connect Ed: the California Center for College and Career; the Center for the Social Organization of Schools (CSOS) at Johns Hopkins University; MDRC in New York and Oakland; the Institute on Education and the Economy (IEE) at Teacher's College, Columbia; the National Academy Foundation (NAF) in New York and Berkeley; the National Career Academy Coalition (NCAC) in Philadelphia; the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) in Atlanta; and WestEd in Oakland. Descriptions of these and other support organizations are available on this website.
Related to our work with partners has been the development of the Career Academy National Standards of Practice, developed and issued jointly in 2004 with a network of these partners. These provide quality standards for career academies nationally. CASN also hosts meetings of the many organizations interested in career academies three times each year, at conferences of the California Partnership Academies, National Academy Foundation, and National Career Academy Coalition.