| Reforming High Schools: The Role for Career Academies
Career Academy Support Network
National Academy Foundation
National Career Academy Coalition
by Betsy Brand
Director, American Youth Policy Forum
Background Common Vision for Reform
Career Academies Contribution to the Three R's
A Model That's Working
References
The concerns about America’s high schools are escalating as a number of recent reports reveal that large
numbers of our nation’s youth are not being prepared for college and careers, or are dropping out altogether. This paper explores how career academies can be used as a strategy for transforming the traditional, comprehensive high school in ways that support all students’ learning to high standards.
BACKGROUND While education reform has remained a “hot” issue for policymakers since the release of A Nation at Risk in
1983, much of the attention has been focused on elementary grades and improving basic reading and math
skills for younger students. The No Child Left Behind Act is heavily slanted towards reforms in the early
grades, although it does hold high schools and school districts accountable for high school graduation rates
as well as student performance on high school assessments. Federal education funding is also slanted
toward elementary and middle schools, with only the Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Technology Education Act playing any significant role in providing resources to high schools.
But after years of largely being ignored, high school reform is headed into the policy spotlight. A groundswell of recent reports has drawn attention to the problems of many American high schools, particularly those in large urban and high poverty areas. Others have focused on the lack of student engagement in learning, as many of us are all too familiar with one of high schoolers’ recurring complaints: “Class is boring – why do I have to learn this stuff?”
One recent report, Locating the Dropout Crisis: Which High Schools Produce the Nation’s Dropouts?
Where are They Located? Who Attends Them? (Balfanz and Legters, 2004), states there are currently
between 900 and 1,000 high schools in the country in which graduating is at best
a 50/50 proposition. In 2,000 high schools, a typical freshman class shrinks by
40 percent or more by the time the students reach their senior year, which represents
nearly one in five regular or vocational high schools in the U.S. that enroll 300 or more
students.
Another report, Who Graduates? Who Doesn’t? A Statistical Portrait of Public High School Graduation,
Class of 2001 (Swanson, 2004) provides a similar assessment:
The national graduation rate is 68 percent, with nearly one-third of all public high
school students failing to graduate. Other statistics show that students from historically
disadvantaged minority groups (American Indian, Hispanic, and Black) have little more
than a 50-50 chance of finishing high school with a diploma. By comparison,
graduation rates for Whites and Asians are 75 and 77 percent nationally. Males
graduate from high school at a rate 8 percent lower than female students. Graduation
rates for students who attend school in high poverty, racially segregated, and urban
school districts lag from 15 to 18 percent behind their peers.
Public High School Graduation and College Readiness Rates in the United States (Greene and Forster,
2004) continues the same lament:
Only 70 percent of all students in public high schools graduate, and only 32 percent of
all students leave high school qualified to attend four-year colleges. Only 51 percent of
all black students and 52 percent of all Hispanic students graduate, and only 20
percent of all black students and 16 percent of all Hispanic students leave high school
college-ready. The portion of all college freshmen that is black (11 percent) or Hispanic
(7 percent) is very similar to their shares of the college-ready population (9 percent for
both). This suggests that the main reason these groups are underrepresented in
college admissions is that these students are not acquiring college-ready skills in the K-
12 system, rather than inadequate financial aid or affirmative action policies.
Other studies have looked at the problems that high school students have when they enter postsecondary
education. In their 2003 report, Betraying The College Dream: How Disconnected K-12 and Postsecondary
Education System Undermine Student Aspirations, Venezia et. al. finds that “current K-12 and postsecondary education systems are fractured, create unnecessary barriers between high school and college, and send mixed messages about academic preparation. This particularly impacts low-income students and students of color, but it also contributes to poor student preparation for college generally, higher rates of remediation, and low college completion rates.”
The National Research Council of the National Academies entered the discussion with a different take on the
problem in Engaging Schools: Fostering High School Students’ Motivation to Learn (2003). It explores how
adolescents learn and what motivates them to learn. “The fundamental challenge is to create a set of
circumstances in which students take pleasure in learning and come to believe that the information and skills they are being asked to learn are important or meaningful for them and worth their efforts, and that they can reasonably expect to be able to learn the material.” Too often, the student perspective is ignored, but this report makes an eloquent plea for making learning meaningful for young people.
Dozens of other reports have dealt with various aspects of high school reform over the years, from block
scheduling, to team teaching, to applied and contextual learning, to small learning communities. The combined bulk of all of these reports seems to have finally pushed policymakers into paying serious attention to high schools. Both Presidential candidates had platform components focused on high schools. The U.S. Department of Education will hold its Second Annual National High School Leadership Summit in December 2004; the 2004-2005 Chairman’s Initiative for the National Governors’ Association is Redesigning the American High School; several states have recently passed comprehensive high school reform programs or will release high school commission reports (RI, IN, OH); and California just held the first ever State Superintendent’s High School Summit.
At the local level, high school reform is much farther advanced. Cities like Boston, Chicago, San Diego, and
New York City are deeply involved in creating more rigorous and engaging learning opportunities for young
people. At the school level, there are many fine examples of redesigned, reformed, reengineered, refashioned high schools. Not only have local leaders (primarily superintendents and principals) been supporting changes to the design and look of high schools, a number of organizations have also created new models or strategies to improve student learning. It is especially helpful as we enter into a broader and higher level debate on high school reform to have this experience and knowledge to guide us.
Groups like the High Schools That Work Initiative of the Southern Regional Education Board, Tech Prep
Network, Talent Development Career Academy model, First Things First, National Academy Foundation,
National Career Academy Coalition, and the Career Academy Support Network are just a few of the
organizations that have developed school models or promoted change strategies. Today, our focus is on the
career academy movement.
One of the earliest books on high school reform, Career Academies: Partnerships for Reconstructing
American High Schools (Stern, Raby, and Dayton, 1992) laid the groundwork for significant change to the
traditional high school. The book espoused three central elements for reforming high schools into career
academies: (1) creating small learning communities; (2) providing a college preparatory curriculum with a
career theme; and (3) building partnerships with employers, community and higher education. Despite the fact that many career academies have been created over the past decade, the movement has remained to some extent on the edge of school reform efforts. National education leaders and policymakers have generally been focused on reform in the earlier grades or viewed anything to do with “career education” (including career academies, career clusters, school-to-work, tech-prep, and career and technical education) as tangential to the improvement process. It seems, however, the discussion is changing.
COMMON VISION FOR REFORM
A recent report by the National High School Alliance, Crisis or Possibility? Conversations About the
American High School (Harvey and Housman, 2004), makes the case that “powerful voices are backing the
proposition that the time has come to re-think and reinvent the American high school. Expert agreement
emerged around several key variables related to effecting institutional change.” The report goes on to list
several “levers” for high school change, such as building a K-16 educational pipeline, addressing the dropout problem, focusing on literacy and teacher competence, and making schools small.
Another framework for reform, espoused by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, promotes schools founded
on Three R’s: Rigor, Relevance, and Relationships.1 These ideas are aligned with many of the levers for
change described in Crisis or Possibility. While one could perhaps characterize the Three R’s as a sound
bite, the three words carry with them descriptive images that translate readily to policymakers. For that
purpose, I will use the Three R’s as the framework for the common vision of reformed high schools in this
paper.
First, let’s be clear on what rigor, relevance and relationships really mean for high schools and their students.
Rigor is shorthand for ensuring that students have access to and take what is commonly known as a collegepreparatory
curriculum. All students, regardless of their abilities or performance level, take four years of
English, and at least three of mathematics, science, and social studies, and a foreign language. If all students
are to take these courses and pass them, it means that schools and the adults in them must commit to finding
ways to help all students master these new basics – which usually means spending more time helping lowerperforming
students. Rigor means that all students will be prepared for postsecondary education, without the
need for remediation, and that there is an alignment between high school exit exams and postsecondary
entrance requirements. It also means that expectations for all students are heightened and no students are
relegated to low-level general track classes or shipped off to outdated vocational shop. It also means teachers
must be fully qualified and competent in their discipline.
Relevance shifts the focus to students and what motivates them to learn. Students in schools in which
learning is relevant don’t ask the question, “Why do I have to learn this?” Curricula is set in context so
students can see how knowledge builds on what they already know, and it is applied so they can see how it is
used in the real world. Studies are connected to students’ goals, and teachers and counselors help students
plan their course taking to meet their interests and career and college goals. Most importantly, students
become engaged in their learning because they understand that what they are learning has meaning for them
and will impact their futures.
But relevance also needs to be closely tied to rigor. Efforts must be made to develop student skills (analytical,
communication, organizational and social), broader content knowledge (in the arts, economics, and current
and historical events), and values that are particularly relevant to success in academic, workplace and civic
settings. While relevance in curriculum is important to help students make connections, a broader definition of
relevance is important – one that helps students find where they fit in the world and develop the broader
knowledge and skills necessary to be a competent and engaged adult.
Now to relationships. Young people who have relationships with caring and competent adults have better life
chances than those that do not.2 Strong, respectful relationships between students and adults in the building
are the bedrock of any successful school. There must be a culture of respect and a desire on the part of
adults to not only help young people academically, but socially and developmentally as well. Schools should
encourage and support opportunities for adults to serve as mentors, coaches, advocates, and advisors, both
formally and informally. Smaller learning environments provide a structure that allows more personalized
relationships between teachers and students to develop and grow. Adults in the wider community are also an
important resource, as many young people form bonds with adults through service projects, extra-curricular
activities, or during work-based internships or job shadowing experiences.
Creating schools that have rigorous and relevant curriculum and that support positive relationships takes time
and hard work. And there is a lot that needs to be done “behind the scenes” (scheduling, common planning
time, breaking up large high schools, aligning resources and professional development, using assessments
wisely, to name a few) to support schools based on the Three R’s. Fortunately groups like the National Career
Academy Coalition, the National Academy Foundation, and the Career Academy Support Network have been
engaged in this process, and through their efforts and hard work, we now have vibrant examples of how career
academies contribute to student achievement and positive student outcomes.
CAREER ACADEMIES' CONTRIBUTION TO THE THREE R's
By design, the three central elements of a career academy lead to a school that is rigorous, relevant, and
relational. As such, career academies are an excellent example of a reform model for policymakers and
practitioners to consider as they reform high schools. In addition to the central elements that define a career
academy, career academy leaders have been working on the development of Career Academy National
Standards of Practice, which are very closely aligned with the Three R’s and designed to support ongoing
improvement of the model. Some detail follows.
Career academies are small, personalized learning communities within a high school that select a subset of
students and teachers for a two-, three-, or four-year span. Students enter the academy through a voluntary
process; they must apply and be accepted, with parental knowledge and support. While academies vary in
size, they usually have from one to three sections of students at each grade level, or 100-300 students in all.
Academy classes are usually on a block schedule, and students attend classes as a cohort.
A career academy involves teachers from different subjects working together as a team. Teams usually
participate in professional development, particularly in implementing the key features of the model and gaining
exposure to the career field and also share daily common planning time. Students are grouped together for
several periods every day with a core group of teachers, which promotes a family-like atmosphere, nurturing
close student-teacher ties.
Students in a career academy have a mix of career (one or two) and academic (three or four) classes at a
time. These classes meet entrance requirements for four-year colleges and universities and are linked to
academic and industry standards and encourage high achievement. They show students how their subjects relate to each other and the career field. Special projects require students to bring together academic skills
across several disciplines and apply these to community and work settings outside the school. During the
junior or senior year, students participate in work experience: a paid or unpaid work internship or a community
service assignment. During the senior year, students are provided with college and career counseling and
form a post-graduate plan, based on their interests and goals.
The academy theme is selected locally, based on labor market needs and employer interest. Employers
participate as speakers at school, informing students of the industry and career options; as field trip and job
shadow hosts at their companies; as individual mentors or career-related “big brothers and sisters;” as work
internship supervisors; and as community service coordinators. Postsecondary institutions are often included
as well, providing course articulation and dual enrollment options.
The Career Academy National Standards of Practice add to and augment the design and structure of career
academies and provide a path for continued improvement. The National Standards of Practice, which are
voluntary, address the need to continue to focus on rigor. The standards state that curriculum and instruction
within an academy should meet or exceed external standards and college entrance requirements, raise student
aspirations, and increase student achievement. Relevance is emphasized by ensuring that curriculum is
integrated among the academic classes and between academic and career classes and that learning
illustrates applications of academic subjects and includes authentic project-based learning. Opportunities for
the community to help guide the academy’s curriculum and provide speakers, field trip sites, mentors, student
internships, college tours and teacher externships are also examples of how career academies are making
learning relevant.
Lastly, the National Standards of Practice state that academies need to have a well-defined structure within
the high school that reflects its status as a small learning community and that the academy maintains
personalization through limited size, teacher teamwork and a supportive atmosphere. Other National
Standards of Practice provide much greater specificity on other aspects of rigor, relevance and relationships.
A MODEL THAT'S WORKING
On paper, the career academy model seems to fit perfectly with accepted ideas of reformed high schools and
small learning communities. But how does it work in practice? Certainly we know of many anecdotes about
successful career academies, with students who finally see the connection between what they are learning
and their future plans or who become so excited about a career field they want to learn as much as possible in
order to advance.
We also have access to research that indicates positive outcomes for many students who participate in career
academies. Clearly, the academy model is working, and career academy students are evidencing more
success in postsecondary education and careers. But research also cautions that if the career academy
model is not fully and effectively implemented, with a strong academic component, students will do no better.
Perhaps the most comprehensive and rigorous research is the MDRC study (2004) that has followed students
who participated in career academies over a 10-year period. The biggest gains, according to MDRC, accrued
to young men, a group that has faced declining employment and earnings prospects over the last 20 years.
Total earnings of male career academy students were more than $10,000 (18 percent) higher over the study’s
four-year follow-up period than those of a randomly selected control group. And, although the MDRC study found that career academies had no effect, positive or negative, on helping students gain access to education
opportunities beyond high school, over 80 percent of the academy students enrolled in some type of
postsecondary education program, and over half had either completed a degree or were still working on one
after four years.
Maxwell and Rubin, in their 2000 book, High School Career Academies: A Pathway to Educational Reform
in Urban School Districts?, found that career academies can be effective in facilitating postsecondary
education success for their students. Previous research they conducted (1997) also showed that compared
to California high school students from general and vocational tracks, career academy graduates in California
were more likely to graduate high school, more likely to attend a postsecondary institution, and more likely to
attend a four-year college.
High school reform has to be centered in the community and responsive to its needs and the needs of its
students. To help meet these needs, communities and school districts should offer a wide range of learning
options for adolescents that are located both in the high school and in the wider community. Career
academies are one of several models or initiatives that communities and school districts can make available to
high school students. By bridging school and the world of work in a way that leads to academic achievement
and that draws on the excitement of solving real work and real world problems in a sensible context, career
academies have been successful in engaging many students who would otherwise be indifferent to or possibly
lost from school.
Career academies should also be acknowledged and supported for their contribution to high school reform.
They have blazed many trails in breaking up large high schools into smaller ones, creating personalized
learning for young people, making learning relevant by using careers as a context for learning, and helping
adolescents learn about future career opportunities and connect in meaningful ways with adults who want to
see them succeed. As a reform initiative, career academies have proven their value. With ongoing
improvement suggested by the National Standards of Practice, and widely known best practices, career
academies are well positioned to lead and influence high school reform efforts and policy debates. Educators
and policymakers should rely on the central elements of a career academy and now the National Standards of
Practice as a guide to help develop effective high school reforms with positive outcomes for students. 1 Various reports have used these words prior to the Gates report, High Schools for the New Millennium, Imagine the
Possibilities. For instance, the American Youth Policy Forum released a report entitled Rigor and Relevance: A New Vision for
Career and Technical Education in 2003. The Stern book (1992) provides a description of career academies that embraces the
Three R’s and uses the words rigorous and relevant throughout.
2 Some Things DO Make a Difference for Youth: A Compendium of Evaluations of Youth Programs and Practices. 1997.
Washington, DC: American Youth Policy Forum; More Things That DO Make A Difference for Youth: A Compendium of
Evaluations of Youth Programs and Practices, vol. II. 1999. Washington, DC: American Youth Policy Forum; Jurich, Sonia &
Steve Estes. 2000. Raising Academic Achievement. Washington, DC: American Youth Policy Forum; James, Donna Walker,
Sonia Jurich and Steve Estes. 2001. Raising Minority Academic Achievement: A Compendium of Education Programs and
Practices. Washington, DC: American Youth Policy Forum.
REFERENCES
American Youth Policy Forum. 1999. More Things That DO Make A Difference for Youth: A Compendium
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Evaluations of Youth Programs and Practices. Washington, DC: American Youth Policy Forum.
Balfanz, Robert and Nettie Legters. 2004. Locating the Dropout Crisis: Which High Schools Produce the
Nation’s Dropout? Where are They Located? Who Attends Them? Johns Hopkins University: Center for
Social Organization of Schools.
Gates Foundation, Bill and Melinda. High Schools for the New Millennium, Imagine the Possibilities. Seattle,
WA: Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Greene, Jay P. and Greg Forster. 2004. Public High School Graduation and College Readiness Rates in the
United States. New York: Manhattan Institute, Center for Civic Innovation.
Harvey, James and Naomi Housman. 2004. Crisis or Possibility? Conversations About the American High
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James, Donna Walker, Sonia Jurich and Steve Estes. 2001. Raising Minority Academic Achievement: A
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Kemple, James J. and Judith Scott-Clayton. 2004. Career Academies: Impacts on Labor Market Outcomes
and Educational Attainment. New York, NY: MDRC.
Maxwell, Nan L. and Victor Rubin. 2000. High School Career Academies: A Pathway to Educational
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Venezia, Andrea, Michael W. Kirst, and Anthony L. Antonio. 2003. Betraying the College Dream: How
Disconnected K-12 and Postsecondary Education Systems Undermine Student Aspirations. Stanford, CA:
Stanford Institute for Higher Education Research. |
