What's New at CASN

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Workshops

February 28 - March 2
22nd Annual CA Partnership Academy Conference and Educating for Careers Conference
http://2010.ccpc-conference.net/

Hyatt Regency, Orange County CA

Reports

• High School Career Academies: A 40-Year Proven Model for Improving College and Career Readiness By Betsy Brand, Executive Director, American Youth Policy Forum
  Career academies are a time-tested model for improving academic achievement readying students for both college and careers, and engaging the world outside of school in the work of reforming them. As lawmakers work to craft policies that will dramatically improve American public education, career academies should be recognized for their effectiveness and included in reform efforts.
• Using Better Information to Help Reduce Inequality in College Access
  Sanchez, Juan; Kaufmann, Gail; Morales, Claudia; Hayes Mellish, Miya; Center for Educational Partnerships, UC Berkeley, 2009.
  This report explains how the Transcript Evaluation Service provides better information for advising individual students, planning a school's curriculum, and guiding local and state policy. It includes results from a pilot project.
• Reducing Inequality in College Access
  Findings and policy recommendations from a three-year study, involving six pilot high schools.
• Can Combining Academic and Career-Technical Education Improve High School Outcomes in California?
  One strategy for improving high school outcomes involves combining college-preparatory coursework with career-technical education (CTE) in the high school curriculum. The aim is to make high school more meaningful and motivating for more students, to increase graduation rates, and to prepare graduates for a range of postsecondary options. Preparation for college and career can be combined in various ways. Some high school students manage to complete the academic coursework required for college along with a career-technical sequence. Another approach is to enhance the academic content of CTE classes. A third approach is through “career academies” within comprehensive high schools that organize a multi-year curriculum around a career-related theme, with students at each grade level taking a set of core academic classes together, along with a technical class related to the career theme. This paper reviews the evidence on effects of these approaches for students. Despite the challenges of implementation and the incompleteness of the evidence that these strategies produce the desired effects, the necessity of reconciling universal college aspirations with the realities of labor markets implies that programs combining academic and career-technical curriculum will—and should—continue to develop.
• A Profile of The California Partnership Academies 2004-2005
  PowerPoint Presentation - A Profile of The California Partnership Academies 2004-2005
  Prepared by ConnectEd: The California Center for College and Career and The Career Academy Support Network at the University of California, Berkeley, in collaboration with the California Department of Education.

Resources

• College Tools for Schools
  A brand new website for high schools interested in increasing college going among their students. Based on a three-year pilot project involving the UC Office of the President, the Center for Educational Partnerships at UC Berkeley, and the Career Academy Support Network at Berkeley, this new site offers a host of tools to show high schools how to develop a college-going culture, increase a-g course offerings and enrollments, help students plan their schedule to meet UC/CSU entrance requirements, and strengthen their SLCs and/or Career Academies.
• Multiple Perspectives on Multiple Pathways Preparing California's Youth for College, Career, and Civic Responsibilty Combining Academic and Career-Technical Courses to Make College an Option for More Students:Evidence and Challenges
• Alliance for Education Academy Toolkit This toolkit has instructions, worksheets, and advice that can help you start and run an active, effective advisory group. The information comes from the Alliance for Education’s six years of helping create and maintain advisory groups in Seattle’s public high schools. Download PDF
• Scheduling Guide for Small Learning Communities/ Career Academies Developing a schedule for a high school is not easy. Students have to decide what courses to take: which ones they need to graduate, to qualify for college, and to meet their interests. Someone has to put all this into a "master schedule" for the high school that determines who teaches and takes what courses when and where each day. Small Learning Communities/ Career Academies add to these difficulties, with their need for cohort student scheduling and common teacher planning time. This guide offers the collected advice of experts from around the country, providing an annual calendar of who needs to do what when, and best practices that can help to address many of the problems. Download PDF
  
• Reforming High Schools: The Role for Career Academies 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. Download PDF.
  
• Career Academy Support Networks provides an overview of the various types of support organizations for career academies, and provides substantial information on the larger and more comprehensive ones. Download PDF.
  

Accolades

• Our congratulations to the many new districts that received Small Learning Community grants to develop or expand their SLCs and/or Academies. Please note that all of CASN's guides are available free at this website, in the various parts of the Resource section. We are also available to talk with you by phone (see Contacts), answer questions via e-mail (use the ask_casn feature), and provide professional development where needed.