Table 1

Growth of Career Academies

*Includes only state-funded academies. As a rough approximation, these numbers would need to be doubled to estimate the full number in California in 1998.

Numerical data on the growth of academies are available from California, Philadelphia, and from the National Academy Foundation (NAF). The State of California was funding 12 academies in 1985, 29 in 1990, 45 in 1995, and 200 in 1998, with the number projected to grow to 300 in 2000. NAF was supporting eight academies in 1985, 54 in 1990, 167 in 1995, and 289 in 1998, with a projection of 400 by 2000, distributed across more than 30 states.

In addition, Illinois, Florida, Hawaii, and other states followed California's lead and began funding career academies in the 1990s. Another academy-building network started in 1997 at the Center for Research on the Education of Students Placed at Risk (CRESPAR) in Baltimore, and an uncounted number of unaffiliated academies have sprung up independently across the country, serving all kinds of students. The total number of career academies in 1998 probably reached well over one thousand.

A Brief History

The first career academy was established in 1969 in Philadelphia, PA. It was an "Electrical Academy" at Edison High School, supported by the Philadelphia Electric Company. This gradually spread to other fields (business, automotive, health, environmental technology, law, horticulture, tourism, aviation) and other high schools, growing to a network of 28 academies today. In 1982 the separate nonprofit organizations that had mobilized employer support came together in the Philadelphia High School Academies Inc. (PHSA), which continues to manage and finance these programs while the city school district retains jurisdiction and supplies teachers and classrooms. Although the Philadelphia Academies began as vocational training programs, today they send most of their graduates to college.

In 1981 the academy idea was introduced in California, starting with a "Computer Academy" at Menlo-Atherton High School and an "Electronics Academy" at Sequoia High School, just north of Palo Alto. Based on a series of evaluations that demonstrated improved student performance California passed legislation in 1984 that supported ten replications of the model. Evaluations of these academies continued the pattern of encouraging results, and in 1987 a second state bill was passed, supporting approximately 40 additional replications. The pattern was repeated again in 1993, and with support provided under this legislation, California will provide approximately $14 million for 200 career academies in 1998-99. These academies range over some 25 career fields. Many others have begun on their own, and in many districts there are now several non-funded academies for every one receiving a state grant.

Also in the 1980s, New York City created the first "Academies of Finance," sponsored by the American Express Company. American Express subsequently joined with other companies, which now number more than 100, to create the National Academy Foundation (NAF). NAF added the field of "Travel and Tourism" in 1987. Today it provides curriculum and technical support for nearly 300 academies in more than 30 states. The NAF Academies originally included only grades 11-12, but most are moving toward the Philadelphia and California models, adding both earlier years of high school and more coordination with academic classes. NAF academies have been college-oriented since their inception.

In the early 1990s the Illinois State Board of Education became interested in the career academy model, and during the 1994-95 school year began twenty California style academies in that state. Most of these continue to operate, and with 18 new academies beginning in the fall of 1998, Illinois will have 35 in operation during the 1998-99 school year, with more planned for the future. Illinois has also replicated California's evaluation system, with similar results, a pattern of improved performance among students enrolled in academies there.

Another site with a growing network of career academies is the city of Baltimore. Since 1990 Baltimore has started several kinds of academies, including NAF academies and California-style academies, and operates 13 academies as of 1998. Patterson High School here received help from CRESPAR to restructure itself entirely into academies.

Many other examples could be cited, both cities and states. Several cities in California have developed extensive networks of academies Bakersfield, Pasadena, Riverside, and Sacramento to name a few. Other cities with developing networks include Atlanta, Chicago, Seattle, and Washington, D.C. Oakland is aggressively expanding its career academies, enrolling students in 33 different academies in its six comprehensive high schools in 1998-99.

The Track Record

One reason for the expansion of career academies is that they appear to be effective. Academies are sufficiently distinct to permit formal evaluation, and they have been around long enough to have accumulated a track record.

Several studies in California have found that academy students perform better than a comparison group of students in the same high schools with similar demographic characteristics and similar ninth grade records of low grades, high absenteeism, and disciplinary problems. An evaluation of the first two academies in California in the early 1980s found that academy students in grades ten through twelve had better attendance, earned more credits, obtained higher grades, and were more likely to graduate (Reller 1984; additional citations in Stern, Raby, and Dayton 1992; see also Raby 1995). From 1985 through 1988 a similar comparison group evaluation of the ten initial state-funded academies in California showed substantial and statistically significant advantages for academy students in attendance, credits earned toward graduation, grade point averages, and retention through high school (Dayton et al. 1989; Stern et al. 1989).

Annual data collected from state-funded academies in California continue to show improvement after students enter an academy and while they are in it (Dayton 1997; Warren 1998). High school dropout rates in academies average about 7 or 8 percent over three years about half the rate in the general population of California students, despite the fact that state-funded academies are required to recruit a majority of students who are economically or educationally disadvantaged. Although these data describe only the performance of academy students, without comparison groups, they are consistent with the comparison-group evaluations.
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² Only results that have been published, or are about to be published, are summarized here. Several unpublished dissertations also contain descriptions and evaluations of academies.

More recently, Maxwell and Rubin (1997) surveyed former high school students from a large California school district one or two years after their graduating year. They found that students who had attended career academies were at least as likely to be enrolled in four-year colleges as students who identified themselves as having been in the academic track in high school. Both the career academy and academic track graduates had significantly greater likelihoods of enrolling in four-year college than graduates who classified themselves as having been in the high school general track. Yet academy students had lower average scores on sophomore reading tests in high school, and they were less likely to be native English speakers, compared to students in the general track.

Maxwell and Rubin (forthcoming) also analyzed school district records on academy and non-academy students. They found that students in career academies obtained significantly better grades. This was not due to easier grading standards within the academies: Maxwell and Rubin found that courses within most of the academies actually awarded lower grades than non-academy courses in the same subjects. Furthermore, when Maxwell and Rubin divided students into high, middle, and low groups according to tenth grade math and English test scores, they found in each group that academy students obtained higher grades than non-academy students. The higher grades of academy students appear to be the main reason for their higher rate of college attendance, compared to non-academy students.

Outside of California, an earlier evaluation of business academies in Philadelphia (Snyder and McMullen 1987b) found a higher graduation rate compared to the citywide average, but a lower rate of postsecondary enrollment for academy graduates than for the general student population, and no significant differences in employment after graduation compared to graduates of other business programs. On the other hand, an early study of a NAF academy in New York City found high rates of postsecondary enrollment (Academy for Educational Development 1990). The difference apparently reflects the origin of the Philadelphia academies in traditional vocational education, while the NAF academies were designed as college preparatory from the outset. A subsequent study by Linnehan (1996) found that graduates from Philadelphia business academies reported better attendance while in high school, and that this carried forward into less absenteeism in their post-high school jobs.

Hanser, Elliott, and Gilroy (forthcoming) analyzed data from three career academies affiliated with the Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps (JROTC). They found positive effects on attendance, credits earned, grades, and the likelihood of staying in high school.

Ten career academies in different parts of the country are currently being evaluated by Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation (MDRC). This evaluation uses an experimental design in which students who apply to the academy in each school are randomly assigned either to the academy or to a control group that remains at the same school but does not enroll in an academy. Randomization minimizes the average differences, observed or unobserved, between academy students and those in the control group.

Student performance results from the MDRC evaluation have not yet been published, but early findings on the experiences of students and teachers show that academies "provide their students and teachers with a greater degree of institutional support than is available to their non-Academy counterparts in the same comprehensive high schools." (Kemple 1997, p. ES-1). More specifically, after one or two years in an academy, students gave significantly more positive responses to questions about teacher support, peer support, intrinsic motivation, and the perceived relevance of schoolwork. The overall index of engagement, however, was the same for both academy and control students.

Teachers in the academies, compared to colleagues at the same schools, expressed significantly more positive views of teacher collaboration, resource adequacy, influence over their work, degree of community among teachers, emphasis on personal attention to students, and job satisfaction. They also rated themselves higher on effectiveness, but the difference was not statistically significant.

Poglinco (1998) analyzed interviews with students, teachers, and administrators from three of the academies in the MDRC study, to see whether academies were supporting students' college goals. One of the themes running through students' comments is that the atmosphere of trust and encouragement created within the academy, and with workplace mentors, bolstered their general self-confidence. College aspirations were seldom mentioned as a reason for entering the academy in grade nine or ten, but they became more explicit by junior year.

The evidence to date therefore indicates that students in career academies have been more academically successful while in high school. The evidence on enrollment in postsecondary education is more limited, but on balance suggests that academy graduates are more likely than non-academy graduates to attend college. There is little evidence that career academies give their graduates any immediate advantage in the labor market. In other words, entry-level job training is not what career academies seem to be delivering. Instead, they appear to be helping students strengthen their academic performance, which may improve their career options some years later.

Challenges

Although career academies are spreading, and their appeal has grown with the realization that they are effective instruments for achieving important high school objectives, efforts to expand career academies confront a number of challenges. One is that the new popularity of academies will be their undoing. Education is notoriously susceptible to fads. If career academies become trendy, educators will be tempted to apply the term to activities that are not academies as we have defined them, in hopes of attracting funds, students, or public approval. The result could be a spurious proliferation of self-styled academies that do not actually offer anything extra, and which will soon be discredited, leaving behind a sense of empty disillusionment and desire for another quick solution.

Building career academies that incorporate the features we have described takes time, careful planning, and continued commitment. Academy teachers and school administrators need to understand the concept. Local employers must play an active role. Curriculum has to be redesigned, and school schedules reorganized. The size of these tasks helps explain why academies in Philadelphia and California have not grown exponentially, though they have grown steadily. Studies by Stern and others (1988, 1989), and by Maxwell and Rubin (forthcoming) have found substantial differences in the extent to which academies accomplish all these tasks in practice.

A big growth spurt may occur if a large number of high schools start developing multiple academies, or use career academies as the basis for organizing the entire school, but this poses additional challenges. Existing career academies have derived some of their energy from the voluntary participation of students and teachers, based in part on shared interest in the academy's career theme. If every student and teacher in a school is obliged to choose an academy, what will happen to that sense of voluntary participation? Will it be possible to maintain the same enthusiasm and esprit de corps? Increasing the density of career academies within a district will also strain the capacity of local employers to provide internships and the other contributions that are vital to academies. Will this lead to dilution of the experience for students?

The Career Academy Support Network (CASN) recently launched at U.C. Berkeley has now entered this scene. Its purpose is to convert the current surge of interest in career academies into effective investment, by developing strategies to help create new academies that embody high academic standards, and by making information from these and other examples available to anyone wanting to start, expand, or improve career academies.

We are testing a threefold strategy. The first is to demonstrate and document capacity-building at a local level. Initially this includes just the cities of Atlanta and Oakland, although we are in the initial stages of expanding to St. Louis and Seattle as well. As we establish our efforts here and test our own procedures, we hope to expand to additional cities and districts.

Second, we are demonstrating and documenting how states and regional agencies can develop their capacity to foster career academies. The first state in this category is Illinois, which outside California has the largest state network of career academies. Here we are informing state agency staff how to design policies and procedures that encourage development of academies. We are also helping to design and lead a series of staff development workshops for new academies. The first regional agency in this category is the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) based in Atlanta, which sponsors High Schools That Work, a network of over 800 high schools in over 20 states intent on improving student achievement. In addition to joining forces in Atlanta, we will work through SREB to develop member states' capacity to nurture career academies.

Third, on a national level we are creating a web site and distributing printed materials to schools and districts seeking information on how to start, expand, and improve career academies. The web site (http://casn.berkeley.edu) includes a national directory of career academies, as well as lists of practical and research related readings and how to obtain them. It also links to other sites of interest. In addition, we maintain a clearinghouse for those wanting hard copies of these materials.

CASN pools expertise from several existing academy networks: in California and Illinois, Philadelphia, Oakland, and Baltimore, in addition to the multistate networks of NAF, the new National Career Academy Coalition (NCAC), and MDRC. While each of these networks has its separate mission, linking them can lead to better coordination, clearer definitions, and mutual assistance among them. For example, until now there was no directory that included the academies from the various networks, nor even a common definition of what constitutes a "career academy." Nor was there any central listing of the materials available to assist academies, or a list of assistance providers that draws from all the existing networks. CASN is now working on these tasks. NAF is contributing assistance in several sites; SREB is providing support for our work in Atlanta and helping in other interested HSTW sites; we have signed an agreement to collaborate with NCAC; and MDRC is evaluating our efforts.

Districts and high schools interested in starting or expanding academies often need assistance. Teachers and administrators need to learn what is involved in establishing an academy, in order to produce the desired effect on student achievement. The steps required to launch an academy have been worked out, but it is not a simple process and this information is often not made sufficiently available to those responsible for starting new academies. Such topics as recruiting and selecting students, creating teams of teacher/managers, fitting the academy into the larger high school structure, and forming a steering committee with representatives from the various partner groups (employers, colleges, parents), can all benefit by sharing of accumulated wisdom.

Beyond the planning and start-up phase, there continue to be learning needs for those engaged in launching academies. Several of the approach's central features require development beyond the first year: the ongoing work to integrate academic and career-related curriculum; creating a mentor program, usually in the second year of the academy; finding community service and internship placements, which usually do not occur until the summer following the second year; and meeting academic and industry standards to ensure rigor and relevance. Teachers in academies can benefit from assistance with these tasks through a two-or three-year period, covering each phase of academy implementation as it comes into play. They can also benefit from contacts with other academies, learning how common problems have been dealt with elsewhere.

Finally, the academy model itself continues to evolve. We have described how it has already grown from a dropout-prevention strategy to a more comprehensive model that prepares diverse high school students for both college and careers. We have also described how some schools have now begun to apply the academy idea schoolwide. One of the remaining challenges for career academies in general is how to create a stronger connection between young people's experience in school and their life outside of school. As we have seen, career academies do help students connect school with real work experience, and teachers in academies also tend to be more proactive in reaching out to students and their families outside of school. But there is still more to be done, especially for young people whose out-of-school environments are the most turbulent, dangerous, or unhealthy. Academies might be more helpful to these young people if they could join forces with youth-serving agencies in the community. Since academy teachers know their students relatively well, academies are perhaps the best place within the high school to form collaborative relationships with community agencies to support youth development in school and out. A specific effort to discover how best to accomplish such collaboration could result in a valuable addition to the academy strategy.

Even with the challenges before them, academies have accomplished much already, and their potential to contribute on a larger scale is significant. They have begun to expand rapidly because of their successful track record and their consonance with the principles of youth development. A challenge for educators, public authorities, employers, and foundations will be to make the investments necessary to maintain the quality and intensity of career academies as their numbers expand.

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