Career and technical education as a driving component of

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Career and technical education as a driving
component of whole school reform
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Marisa CastellanoandSam Stringfield

• Johns Hopkins University

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Today we will provide a review of research on
the intersection of whole school reforms and
CTEand first-year observations ofpromising
practices at work
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Purpose of the Study
To examine and report on programs that are
attempting to improve education for all students
using CTE as their focus.
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Outline of Presentation - I

• Review of Studies of Selected Reform Efforts
• Tech Prep
• Curriculum Integration
• High Schools That Work
• Urban Learning Centers
• Career Academies
• Career Pathways

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Outline of Presentation - II

• Selected Reform Practices Presented
• Implementing reform - first steps
• Curriculum integration examples
• Which career academies or pathways should we
  choose?
• The role of the middle school
• Making tech prep work

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Methods - I

• 4-Level Sampling Frame
• Promising CTE/whole school reform designs
• Serving high at-risk populations
• 3 middle school - high school - community college
  feeder patterns (nominated and verified)
• At each site, following 3 cohorts of students for
  four years1st cohort grades 7-102nd cohort
  grades 9-123rd cohort grade 11- two years
  post-HS (some to CC)

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Methods - II

• Replication Sites
• Similar reforms, similar demographics
• Control Sites
• No reforms, similar demographics
• Data Collection
• Quantitative outcomes measures and qualitative
  longitudinal case studies (2000-2004)

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Methods - III

• A more detailed description of the research
  methods is available at
• http//www.nccte.org/programs/index.asp
• Look under What Makes it Work

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Tech PrepEssential Features

• An articulation agreement among consortium
  members such as schools, school districts, and
  community colleges
• Sequence of secondary and postsecondary courses
  (or apprenticeship) leading to a degree or
  certificate
• A common core of required proficiency in math,
  science, and communications
• Placement in employment

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Tech PrepImplementation Challenges

• Parents and students often balk at strictly
  defined sequences of courses explicitly preparing
  youth for a CC education
• Lack of confidence by CC faculty that high school
  courses are equivalent to CC courses
• Lack of student awareness

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Tech PrepOutcomes

• Compared to non-Tech Prep graduates, graduates of
  mature Tech Prep programs are more likely to
• Enter two-year postsecondary education
• Be employed and more likely full time
• Hold more highly skilled jobs
• Receive larger wage increases

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Curriculum IntegrationEssential Features

• Increase the relevance and utility of
• communication skills
• mathematics
• science
• by teaching them in the context of occupations
  that students are studying

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Curriculum IntegrationImplementation Challenges

• Teachers do not have enough time to work on
  integration
• Resistance among some academic and vocational
  teachers to the concept
• High school graduation and college admission
  requirements often do not recognize or grant
  credit for integrated courses

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Curriculum IntegrationOutcomes

• There have not been rigorous studies that assess
  the effectiveness of integration
• There is anecdotal evidence that suggests
  increased engagement and achievement

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High Schools That WorkEssential Features

• Rigorous vocational courses and more required
  academic coursework
• Common planning time for teachers to collaborate
  on curriculum integration
• High expectations
• Extra help for students
• Individualized advising system
• Use of assessments to improve student learning

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High Schools that WorkImplementation Challenges

• About half of vocational teachers report they
  need professional development in integrating
  academic and occupational content
• Most academic teachers lack knowledge of and
  skills in the vocations, and will need
  professional development as well to be full
  partners

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High Schools that WorkOutcomes

• Evaluations show that schools that implement the
  model faithfully usually see improved
  achievement, and higher retention and
  postsecondary enrollment rates
• Evaluation reports show improved NAEP scores for
  students who complete a HSTW vocational
  concentration

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Urban Learning Centers Essential Features

• Houses pre-K through grade 12 in one building to
  develop collaborative, articulated communities
  across the grades
• Emphasis on interdisciplinary curriculum,
  project-based learning opportunities, and school
  to work transitions

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Urban Learning Centers Implementation Challenges

• Some parents and teachers may resist the change
  to K-12 all in one building, especially if the
  building is not new and has a history of being an
  elementary, middle, or high school
• Takes a great deal of physical space,
  coordination, and scheduling prowess

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Urban Learning CentersOutcomes

• High percentage of graduates go to 4-year
  colleges and universities
• 62 of the graduates of the school in our study
  go to 4-year colleges, many to the nearby
  prestigious private university
• Most of the rest enroll in other postsecondary
  education or the military

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Career AcademiesEssential Features

• School within a school where students stay with a
  core group of teachers over 3 or 4 years
• Academy students take several courses together,
  both within academy and academic core courses
• Academic and vocational curriculum is integrated
  around a career theme
• Partnerships with businesses build connections
  between school and work
• Teacher autonomy in curriculum development

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Career AcademiesImplementation Challenges

• Some secondary and postsecondary faculty question
  the rigor of an integrated curriculum
• Teachers require professional development to
  develop integrated curricula
• Teachers need to spend time in the workplace to
  understand how their subjects are applied at
  work, requiring release time and common planning
  periods
• Scheduling challenges

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Career AcademiesOutcomes

• Reduced drop out rates, increased attendance, and
  more credits earned for at-risk students
• Increased likelihood of on-time graduation for
  those minimally at risk of dropping out
• Appropriately structured, academies lower risk-
  taking behavior, increase school engagement and
  performance, and lower absenteeism

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Career PathwaysEssential Features

• A strategy to organize high school curricula
  around a cluster of occupations that share
  similar skills and knowledge, although they may
  differ in length of education and training
  required
• Replace traditional college prep, vocational, and
  general tracks
• Form the context for interdisciplinary or
  integrated activities, e.g., senior projects
• Need strong connections with business/industry

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Career PathwaysImplementation Challenges

• Unknown, but we can assume there might be
  resistance from
• Some academic subject teachers, as with
  curriculum integration
• Some parents and students,who might see pathways
  as narrowing students post-high school choices

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Career PathwaysOutcomes

• No major studies have been undertaken on student
  outcomes in schools implementing career pathways
• Several states are now requiring schools to adopt
  pathways or career majors, so more information
  should be forthcoming

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Comprehensive High School- Demographics -

• Implementing career pathways
• A rural comprehensive HS of 2200 students, some
  400 of whom are migrant students
• 49 Hispanic, 43 White, 4 African American, 3
  Asian
• 48 free/reduced-price lunch program

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Vocational High School- Demographics -

• Implementing High Schools That Work
• Urban vocational HS serving 1550
• 51 Hispanic, 29 African American, 18 White
• Over 57 free/reduced-price lunch program

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Academy High School- Demographics -

• Implementing Urban Learning Centers
• An urban core HS of 700 students
• 69 Hispanic, 31 African American
• 94 free/reduced-price lunch program

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Implementing Reform - First Steps

• These schools began by reflecting on where they
  were and where they wanted reform to take them
• student achievement was central for all of them
• but also a collegial atmosphere for staff
• a professional development community
• participatory decision making
• They selected reforms and elements of reforms
  that fit their vision and context

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Implementing Reform - First Steps

• One school chose a Total Quality approach. Some
  principles
• bring all stakeholders together--involve everyone
• identify and focus on problems, not on blame
• measure everything (pre-test, post-test) to
  document improvement
• Use results as feedback for further improvement

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Curriculum Integration General

• Start with the teachers who want to collaborate
• Provide them with common planning time
• Provide them with an extra stipend for their time
  developing curriculum
• Circulate the stipend to other teachers as one
  group has implemented and refined, and another is
  becoming interested

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Curriculum Integration Computer Literacy and
Health

• Almost any other subject matter will work
• Reports for the subject matter class become the
  content for learning word processing and Internet
  researching in the computer literacy class
• Students complete the course requirements while
  at the same time learning to use the computer for
  two common school tasks

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Curriculum Integration English and Health

• Teachers discuss some aspects of required
  literature through public health issues
• Issues relevant to teens are in Romeo and Juliet
  premarital sex, gang violence
• Differences between then and now lend themselves
  to compare and contrast papers

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Curriculum Integration Math and Carpentry I

• Math teachers introduce concepts of area and
  perimeter through activity of redecorating
  students bedrooms
• students measure the area of their bedroom to
  determine the amount of paint needed to paint it
• students measure windows to determine type and
  size of window coverings desired
• students dont actually redecorate their rooms

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Curriculum Integration Math and Carpentry II

• Trebuchet Contest
• Three high schools competed to create the best
  working version of this medieval war machine
• Kids learned the math concepts behind it
  relationship between mass and angle of release
• At the high school in our study, kids made theirs
  adjustable because they understood the math
• They used the adjustment to beat the other
  schools

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Curriculum Integration - in Academies I

• Academic teachers still cover their topics but
  bring in issues and themes from their academy
• Finance, Social Studies, and English
• in World History discussion of era of colonialism
  and slavery, discuss doctrine of mercantilism and
  how it could lead to trade in human beings
• in World Lit, read Machiavellis The Prince

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Curriculum Integration - in Academies II

• It is not critical that your teachers have
  Masters degrees in Finance, etc.
• They must be educators willing to work on
  refining the curriculum
• The technology academy teachers have moved the
  curriculum down year after year as students come
  in more sophisticated, and as the teacher becomes
  more sophisticated

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Which Career Academies Should We Offer?

• Find out what jobs are available in the local
  labor market
• One theory holds that it hardly matters which
  academies are offered the goal is to provide
  smallness and connectedness for students and
  teaming opportunities for teachers
• Students are sophisticated enough to choose among
  the academies offered

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Which Career Pathways Should We Offer?

• The U.S. Dept. of Education identified 16 career
  clusters that high schools can choose from in
  developing their pathways, depending on local
  labor market opportunities. Look for clusters
  at http//www.ed.gov/offices/OVAE
• Schools tend to select 5 or 6 total
• Again, all students can work within the options
  provided

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Building Partnerships with Business

• A good way to begin is with civic or cultural
  institutions like museums or symphonies
• These organizations have boards of trustees made
  up of local businesspeople
• They will hear of the good works your students
  are doing for the organization
• This can open the door to businesses that would
  otherwise not participate in school partnerships

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The Role of the Middle School

• CTEs primary focus is in the high school and
  beyond. But middle schools can help kids explore
  careers through
• job shadowing (at this age, their parents
  workplace is often easiest and best place)
• self-directed modular labs on the computer as one
  unit of technology education/industrial arts that
  kids cycle through, along with more traditional
  units
• Career awareness courses/units

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Making Tech Prep Work

• Articulation agreements with high schools are not
  yet yielding a greater flow of students to
  community colleges. To address this, high schools
  in our study are
• granting college credit upon completion of the
  course in high school, rather than waiting until
  student enrolls at CC
• tracking student progress through the tech prep
  sequence, inviting these students to visit CC
  campus and work with students and faculty

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Thank You!

• Our work is continuing for three more years
• We hope to be back to report further findings and
  suggestions to take back to your schools
• If you have any questions, contact us at
  marisa_at_csos.jhu.edu sstringfield_at_csos.jhu.edu