This is one in a series of 15 two-page, evidence-based framing memos on pressing education and social issues prepared by MDRC for the incoming Obama Administration and the new Congress.

Bottom Line

Too often, students in urban high schools are not adequately prepared for postsecondary employment and education. One approach to making high school more relevant to the world of work — career and technical education — has met with mixed results, often being criticized as inconsistent with the current emphasis on intense academics and preparation of students for postsecondary education.

However, a long-term study of Career Academies — a popular high school reform that combines core academics with career development opportunities — provides rigorous evidence confirming that the Academies can produce lasting employment and earnings gains, particularly for young men and at-risk students, without reducing the chances that students earn a postsecondary credential. These findings, along with an existing network of organizations already in place to strengthen local programs, provide the basis for engaging a broad range of students in high-quality Career Academies throughout the country.

What Are Career Academies?

Typically serving 150-200 students in grades 9 or 10 through grade 12, Career Academies have three distinguishing features: (1) they are organized as small learning communities to create a supportive, personalized learning environment for students ranging from high performers to youth at risk of dropping out; (2) moving beyond traditional vocational education, they combine academic and career and technical curricula around a career theme (such as business, computers, or health care) to make education relevant and increase student engagement; and (3) they establish partnerships with local employers to provide career awareness and work-based learning opportunities for students. Career Academies have a 40-year history, enduring through various iterations of vocational and career-technical education approaches. More than 2,500 Career Academies now operate across the country.

What Is the Evidence of Career Academies’ Effectiveness?

Career Academies were evaluated by MDRC in one of the first random assignment studies — the most reliable form of program evaluation — ever conducted in a high school setting. MDRC followed students in nine high schools around the country from when they entered ninth grade until eight years after their scheduled graduation. More than 80 percent of students were black or Hispanic. Specifically, the evaluation found that:

• Career Academies produced sustained earnings gains that averaged 11 percent (or $2,088) more per year for program participants than for individuals in the control group. The additional earnings roughly equaled the boost that two years of college would provide.
  
  
• These earnings effects were concentrated among young men and students at risk of academic failure. Young men, who have faced particular difficulty in the labor market, increased earnings by 17 percent (or $3,731) per year — for a total of nearly $30,000 more over eight years.
  
  
• More than 90 percent of the Career Academy students graduated from high school or received a General Educational Development (GED) certificate, and half earned a postsecondary degree or credential — rates that were similar to those of the control group and substantially higher than the national average for urban schools. Thus, Career Academies provided a solid foothold in the labor market without compromising students’ capacity to go on to postsecondary education.
  
  
• In their mid-20s, former Career Academies participants were more likely to be living independently with children and a spouse or a partner. Young men who participated in Career Academies were more likely to be married and to be custodial parents.

Thus, in an educational environment that has increasingly focused on academic testing and steered away from school-to-career transition, the Career Academy experience highlights the potential benefits of engaging interested high school students in academic and career-related activities that they see as directly relevant to their future. Workforce preparation and college readiness go hand in hand in this example.

What’s Next?

The challenge facing policymakers and practitioners is now to bring the promise of Career Academies to scale in a way that maintains — or increases — the positive impacts found in MDRC’s study. Specific opportunities include:

• Providing expanded resources for technical assistance and other support to local programs. A network of experienced organizations has helped develop the National Career Academy Standards of Practice, which promote consistently high-quality implementation of the full Career Academy model. Particular attention needs to be paid to: (1) integrating rigorous academic content with applied learning opportunities; and (2) effective implementation of enhanced career development and work-based learning opportunities, including structured partnerships with business groups at both the national and local levels.
  
  
• Ensuring that high-risk students are recruited and retained in Career Academies. Higher-risk students tended to benefit most from Career Academies, even though these students continued to have higher dropout rates than lower-risk students. Moreover, in many of today’s Academies, higher-risk students appear less likely than others to gain full access to the critical career exploration and work-based learning components. This underscores the need for special efforts to recruit and retain higher-risk students, whose extended program participation might lead to even larger impacts than those found in the MDRC study. It may also be beneficial to incorporate the principles of Career Academies into charter schools or alternative education programs for students who have dropped out.
  
  
• Conduct further research to refine the Career Academy model. It would be important to explore why higher-risk students in Academies initially had better school attendance and completed more core academic credits than their control group counterparts, even though these gains did not extend to higher graduation rates or more postsecondary education. In addition, the widespread replication of Career Academies would be aided by further evaluation of: (1) the extent to which each of the three program components contributed to the positive findings and (2) the most cost-effective technical assistance approaches to promoting and sustaining consistently high-quality implementation of the model.

Key Resources

MDRC's Career Academies Evaluation

Career Academy Support Network

National Academy Foundation

National Career Academy Coalition