What the Research Says about the Effectiveness of Career and Technical Education

1. What the Research Says about the Effectiveness of Career and Technical Education John Mulcahy Administrator for Career and Technical Education Peoria Unified School District

2. What do we know:CTE in High School Today NOTE: these data are provided in the NAVE and drawn from transcript studies done in 2000 – PRE NCLB. Anecdotal evidence suggests these numbers may be reduced because schools are scrambling to meet test score needs (courses are zero-sum).NOTE: these data are provided in the NAVE and drawn from transcript studies done in 2000 – PRE NCLB. Anecdotal evidence suggests these numbers may be reduced because schools are scrambling to meet test score needs (courses are zero-sum).

3. What we know: CTE in High Schools Today According to the U.S. Department of Education, enrollment in CTE has shot up in the past decade by 57% from 9.6 million students in 1999 to 15.1 million in 2004.

4. Engagement

5. Percent of 9th Graders who complete High School

7. Why do they leave?

8. Carnegie Units Is more the answer?

9. Carnegie Grows!

10. Reading Performance17 year olds

12. Science Performance

13. Is more the answer?

14. Student Transition

15. Transition to college: the Challenge

16. College for All – The Reality

17. Finishing college – The Reality After 10 years, 37% had obtained degree (14% of lower academic half)1 43% of graduates report underemployment two years later2 Rosenbaum, 2002 Gray, 2002 NOTE: Refer to Grubb’s analysis of the value of “some college”Rosenbaum, 2002 Gray, 2002 NOTE: Refer to Grubb’s analysis of the value of “some college”

19. Associate Degree There will be a 35% increase in the number of jobs requiring an associate degree between 2000 and 2010. Compensation for graduates with technical degrees is rising faster than that for graduates of four year programs.

20. Four Year Degrees On average, workers with associate degrees earn less than those with bachelor’s degrees, but 83 percent of workers with associated degrees earn the same as workers with bachelor's degrees. Camevale and Desrochers, Standards for What?, 2003

21. So, why not CTE?

22. Earnings - CTE Works! CTE leads to higher short term and medium term earnings for students who complete CTE programs (Castellano, Stone, Stringfield, Farley and Wayman, 2004). Each high school CTE course taken is associated with an almost two percent increase in annual earnings (Silverberg, Warner, Goodwin and Fong, 2004).

23. Earnings - CTE Works! A literature review conducted by Harvey in 2001 concluded that students with disabilities showed significant improvement in post school employment as a result of their involvement in CTE (2001).

24. Student Engagement Can we do better?

26. Strategies: CTE Based Students with Career Majors are 16% more likely to graduate from high school. Students in Tech Prep are 30% more likely to complete high school. Students who participated in specific STW activities are 18% more likely to complete high school Stone & Aliaga’s analysis of NLSY97 data. Need find the precise citation. Student report data (not transcript)Stone & Aliaga’s analysis of NLSY97 data. Need find the precise citation. Student report data (not transcript)

27. Predicted Probability of Dropping Out, as CTE/Academic Course-Taking Ratio Varies, for a White Male of Average Family SES

28. Dropout Reduction Plank found that the risk of dropping out was four times higher when students were not involved in CTE than when students completed three Carnegie units of CTE courses for every four units of academic subjects (2001).

29. The Research Says: Casual vocational exploration is not enough Major concentration in a CTE program is more helpful in student retention Source: Jim Stone, National Center for Research in Career Technical Education JohnJohn

30. CTE Reduces Dropouts Boesel Studies (1994) High Schools That Work Sites (1992-1998) Career Academy Studies (2000) Plank’s Study (2001)

31. CTE Works! Students involved in CTE are less likely to drop out of school.

33. CTE Works! CTE concentrators are more likely to graduate from high school and go on to college in larger numbers (Schargel and Smink, 2001).

34. College Attendance Hughes, Bailey and Mechur have found that CTE concentrators are likely to go on to college in higher numbers than their non-CTE peers (2001).

35. College Attendance Participation in career-related programs does not generally impede college attendance, higher ratios of CTE-to-academic courses are associated with reductions in the chances of college attendance, even after adjusting for selection characteristics often associated with course trajectories. (NRCCTE, 2006)

36. College Attendance and Completion

37. Credential Acquisition

38. CTE Works! While it is not conclusively proven that involvement in CTE sends students on to college in larger numbers it does result in greater acquisition of credentials.

39. Academic Achievement

40. Academic Achievement The National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 showed that CTE courses neither add to nor detract from achievement gains (Rasinski and Pedlow, 1994).

41. Academic Achievement A National Research Center for Career and Technical Education study in 2001 concluded that CTE course-taking had no positive impact on academic performance. In fact, the report noted that “1992 graduates with only a vocational concentration showed significantly lower test scores gains in reading, math and science than those with only college preparatory curriculum” (Plank, 2001;Wonacott, 2001).

42. Academic Achievement Students who combine a college-preparatory academic curriculum with a specific CTE sequence had gains in math, reading and science test scores during high school that were similar to the gains of students who took only the college-prep curriculum (Levesque, et al. 2000)

43. Academic Achievement Students with both a CTE concentration and a college preparatory curriculum not only outperformed CTE concentrators, but were also statistically indistinguishable from those who completed a college preparatory curriculum only (National Center for Educational Statistics [NCES], 2000)

44. Academic Achievement 2004 NAVE concludes, “there is little evidence that vocational courses contribute to improving academic outcomes” (Silverberg et al., p. 7). However, it is well to note that CTE concentrators did make substantial progress on academic achievement

45. NAVE Conclusions Students who take both a strong academic curriculum and a vocational program of study—still only 13 percent of high school graduates—may have better outcomes than those who pursue one or the other.

46. There’s still more CTE and non-CTE students are equally college ready. There is no significant difference in college-readiness between CTE and non-CTE students as measured by the ACT Test (Mulcahy, 2007).

47. CTE Students are Improving: Adding more rigor to the school day and the results:

48. But wait, there’s more . . . A study of Arizona high school students’ Stanford-9 scores, found that when they statistically controlled for extraneous variables (e.g., disproportionately large numbers of students from special population groups in CTE programs), apparent test score deficits for CTE students were negligible. The same is true for the AIMS test.

49. HSTW Data - Students who complete upgraded academic core and a career concentration Equal or exceed scores of college prep students on HSTW assessments Continue studies after high school at a higher rate Have a higher grade point average and more likely to remain in college

50. CTSO ResearchCTE Works! Camp, Navaratnum and Jeffreys (1987) concluded that CTSOs produce a positive contribution to student achievement as measured by student grades. Camp (1990) found that academic achievement is generally enhanced by participation in extracurricular activities.

51. Work-Based Learning CTE Works! Studies have found increases in academic achievement as measured by standardized tests (Bailey & Merritt, 1997; Phelps, 1998; Steinberg, 1998).

52. Conclusions: CTE leads to higher short term and medium term earnings for students who complete CTE programs. Each high school CTE course taken is associated with an almost two percent increase in annual earnings. Students with disabilities showed significant improvement in post school employment as a result of their involvement in CTE

53. More conclusions: Involvement in CTE reduces the risk of dropping out of high school. Involvement in CTE increases the likelihood that a student will graduate from high school. Involvement in CTE increases the chances of obtaining postsecondary credentials.

54. Still more conclusions: Students who take both a strong academic curriculum and a vocational program of study may have better outcomes than those who pursue one or the other. CTE students are equally college ready as non-CTE students. Involvement in CTSOs increases academic achievement. Involvement in work-based learning increases academic achievement

55. CTE Works!