P-TECH 9-14 Evaluation

Project

Overview

Project Overview

The idea for this high school model began in 2010 in New York City when then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced a public-private partnership of the New York City Department of Education, the City University of New York, the New York City College of Technology, and IBM to develop a new approach to secondary and postsecondary education. The result was P-TECH High School, which opened in Brooklyn in September 2011. The school provides students with an enriched curriculum that is aligned with actual employment opportunities with industry partner IBM and that enables them to earn both a high school diploma and a cost-free Associate in Applied Science degree in six years. Students have professional mentors, workplace experiences, and internships. Graduates are to be first in line for entry-level job openings at IBM.

Since the first P-TECH Grades 9-14 school opened in 2011, an additional six schools have opened in New York City, all with different sponsoring employers and themes. The model has also proliferated across New York State, nationally, and internationally.

The NYC P-TECH Grades 9-14 high school model is a multifaceted approach that represents a contemporary vision for career and technical education. It is a hybrid model, combining elements of several other models that have produced strong impacts, including New York City’s Small Schools of Choice, Career Academies, and Early College High Schools. By combining academic study with a strong career focus that begins in high school and extends into postsecondary education and the workforce, the model aims to prepare students for college and career ― not one or the other ― which is a different approach to contemporary high school reform. Employer partners support the schools in many ways, primarily by providing work-based learning experiences linked to real career opportunities. In addition, the high schools collaborate with local colleges to provide students with an opportunity to earn a college credential while simultaneously earning a high school diploma.

STATUS: Current

Basics

Issue: P-12 Education, At-Risk Young People

Focus Area: High School, Transition to Postsecondary, Instruction and Curricula, Institutional Reform, Youth Employment

Population: Children and Schools

Focus Population: High School Students

Locations: New York

Intervention: Classroom Services, Comprehensive School Reform, Career & Technical Education, Curricular/Instructional Reforms, Dual-Enrollment/Bridge Programs, Accelerated Programs

On Ramp to College

Dual Enrollment Impacts from the Evaluation of New York City’s P-TECH 9-14 Schools

The New York City P-TECH 9-14 model offers accelerated high school course work, early college, and work-based learning experiences. P-TECH students are 30 percentage points more likely to take college courses in high school than comparison group students. They also earn 6.4 more college credits by the end for their fourth year.

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Podcast

What Happens When You Combine an Accelerated Academic Program with Workplace Exposure and Career Skills?

Leigh Parise talks with Rachel Rosen, codirector of MDRC’s Center for Effective Career and Technical Education, about MDRC’s study of the P-TECH 9-14 school model, a six-year program where high schools collaborate with community colleges and industry partners. Interim results show the model boosts credits and state exam pass rates.

Infographic

An Overview of the NYC P-TECH Grades 9-14 Model

In NYC P-TECH Grades 9-14 schools, students take an integrated sequence of high school and college courses with the goal of completing both high school and college, while simultaneously being exposed to hands-on work experiences. This infographic describes the model and introduces MDRC’s evaluation of it.

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Agenda, Scope, <br> & Goals

Agenda, Scope, and Goals

A key feature of the NYC P-TECH Grades 9-14 model is the institutional partnership that exists among secondary education, postsecondary education, and industry. This partnership enables students to have a seamless experience in which high school, college, and career training are aligned. It also allows students to graduate with a high school diploma and an associate’s degree (or another industry-accepted two-year credential) in a high-skills, high-demand field.

MDRC is conducting an impact, implementation, and cost study of the NYC P-TECH Grades 9-14 school model, incorporating data from all seven of the New York City schools and a set of comparison schools.

The impact research is designed to answer four main questions:

What is the effect of being offered a seat in a P-TECH Grades 9-14 school on students’ high school success and college readiness?
What is the effect of being offered a seat in a P-TECH Grades 9-14 school on postsecondary enrollment, credit accumulation, and degree attainment?
What is the effect of enrolling in a P-TECH Grades 9-14 school on students’ high school success and college readiness?
What is the effect of enrolling in a P-TECH Grades 9-14 school on postsecondary enrollment, credit accumulation, and degree attainment?

The implementation research is designed to answer four main questions:

To what extent are the core components of the model implemented as designed?
What is the nature, intensity, and duration of programming offered to students and received by students?
How different are the experiences offered to students in P-TECH Grades 9-14 schools from those offered to students in non-P-TECH Grades 9-14 schools?
What are the conditions under which P-TECH Grades 9-14 schools are being implemented?

The cost study is designed to answer two questions:

What are the start-up and ongoing costs associated with the P-TECH Grades 9-14 program?
How cost-effective is the P-TECH Grades 9-14 model?

STATUS: Current

Basics

Issue: P-12 Education, At-Risk Young People

Focus Area: High School, Transition to Postsecondary, Instruction and Curricula, Institutional Reform, Youth Employment

Population: Children and Schools

Focus Population: High School Students

Locations: New York

Intervention: Classroom Services, Comprehensive School Reform, Career & Technical Education, Curricular/Instructional Reforms, Dual-Enrollment/Bridge Programs, Accelerated Programs

On Ramp to College

Dual Enrollment Impacts from the Evaluation of New York City’s P-TECH 9-14 Schools

Overview »

Full

Podcast

What Happens When You Combine an Accelerated Academic Program with Workplace Exposure and Career Skills?

Infographic

An Overview of the NYC P-TECH Grades 9-14 Model

Overview »

Full

Design, Sites, & <br> Data Sources

Design, Sites, and Data Sources

The impact study will take advantage of New York City’s lottery-based high school admissions process to define sets of students who randomly won and students who lost the opportunity to attend one of the P-TECH Grades 9-14 schools. The study will measure outcomes for multiple cohorts of students enrolled in the schools between the 2011-2012 school year and the 2020-2021 school year. Data for this piece of the study will be collected from the NYC Department of Education, the City University of New York, and the Research Alliance for New York City Schools.

The implementation study is focused on describing and documenting the P-TECH Grades 9-14 model in New York City and understanding how P-TECH schools differ from a set of comparison high schools in New York City. Specifically, it will describe the model’s components as implemented during the study period, will describe what happened in a set of comparison schools, and will help explain the impact findings.

The implementation study will use data collected from surveys, focus groups, and interviews with a variety of stakeholders, including students, staff, and school leaders from the high school and college systems in New York City and from industry partners.

The cost study will be conducted using the “ingredients” method: Cost data will be collected for the P-TECH Grades 9-14 schools and for the comparison schools. The cost study will use a combination of publicly available cost data and other cost data collected from participating partner organizations.

STATUS: Current

Basics

Issue: P-12 Education, At-Risk Young People

Focus Area: High School, Transition to Postsecondary, Instruction and Curricula, Institutional Reform, Youth Employment

Population: Children and Schools

Focus Population: High School Students

Locations: New York

Intervention: Classroom Services, Comprehensive School Reform, Career & Technical Education, Curricular/Instructional Reforms, Dual-Enrollment/Bridge Programs, Accelerated Programs

On Ramp to College

Dual Enrollment Impacts from the Evaluation of New York City’s P-TECH 9-14 Schools

Overview »

Full

Podcast

What Happens When You Combine an Accelerated Academic Program with Workplace Exposure and Career Skills?

Infographic

An Overview of the NYC P-TECH Grades 9-14 Model

Overview »

Full

Funders & <br />Partners

Funders

Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education

Carnegie Corporation of New York

Partners

The City University of New York

The New York City Department of Education

Research Alliance for New York City Schools

MDRC Staff

Rachel Rosen
Senior Associate, K-12 Education
Rosen joined MDRC in 2014 and is currently co-director of MDRC’s Center for Effective Career and Technical Education (CTE), which incubates new ideas, synthesizes findings and lessons learned, and disseminates this knowledge to policymakers, practitioners, and other researchers to ensure that expansion and scale-up of CTE programs are informed by a growing evidence base.

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D. Crystal Byndloss
Director, Outreach, Diversity, and Inclusion
Byndloss holds dual roles at MDRC. She is the organization’s first director of outreach, diversity, and inclusion, working with MDRC’s leadership team, the human resources department, the Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Advocacy Council, and other organizational stakeholders.
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Sonia Drohojowska
Operating Director, K-12 Education
Since joining MDRC in 2014, Drohojowska has been involved in project management and research for several large-scale projects.
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Leigh Parise
Deputy Director of Program Development and Senior Research Associate
Parise plays a lead role in MDRC’s education-focused program-development efforts and conducts mixed-methods education research. Her program-development work focuses on incubating and launching new projects and draws on her expertise in and knowledge of education policy and the associated evidence base.
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Rebecca Unterman
Senior Associate, K-12 Education
Unterman joined MDRC in 2006 and is a research associate in the K-12 Education Policy Area.
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Emma Alterman
Research Associate, K-12 Education
Alterman is an implementation, qualitative methods, and operations specialist whose expertise includes stakeholder interviews, qualitative analysis, and large-scale, multisite implementation data collection. Her work largely focuses on high school structures and supports and the transition to college and career.
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Jedediah J. Teres
Senior Associate, K-12 Education
Teres is a senior data manager in MDRC’s K-12 Education policy area.
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Michelle Dixon
Research Associate, K-12 Education
Dixon is a research associate in MDRC’s K-12 Education policy area, specializing in data processing, data management, and analysis.
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Project Director/Principal Investigator

Publications & Resources

COMPLETE LIST OF PUBLICATIONS

Commentary

New York State Should Invest in a Pipeline for Green Jobs

11/2022

Rachel Rosen

In this commentary originally published in the Albany Times-Union, Rachel Rosen makes the case that New York State should build on its investment in P-TECH 9-14 schools to help young people launch careers in the growing green-energy economy.

Overview »

Toolkit

Establishing Effective Employer-School Partnerships

Lessons from Employers and Schools in NYC’s Original P-TECH Grades 9-14 Schools

07/2022

Emma Alterman, Fernando Medina, Leigh Parise

New York City P-TECH Grades 9-14 schools partner directly with employers to provide work-based learning experiences for students, including internships, mentoring, and job shadowing, that align with the career and technical education curricula the schools offer. This brief describes four important strategies for forming and maintaining productive partnerships.

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Brief

On Ramp to College

Dual Enrollment Impacts from the Evaluation of New York City’s P-TECH 9-14 Schools

04/2022

Michelle Dixon, Rachel Rosen

Overview »

Full

Podcast

What Happens When You Combine an Accelerated Academic Program with Workplace Exposure and Career Skills?

06/2020

Report

Bridging the School-to-Work Divide

Interim Implementation and Impact Findings from New York City’s P-TECH 9-14 Schools

05/2020

Rachel Rosen, D. Crystal Byndloss, Leigh Parise, Emma Alterman, Michelle Dixon

This report evaluates a program focused on preparing students for college and career. Based on partnerships among high schools, community colleges, and employers, the program offers accelerated high school course work, early college, and work-based learning experiences. The findings suggest that students are meeting the benchmarks they need to succeed.

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Project

STATUS: Current

Basics

STATUS: Current

Basics

STATUS: Current

Basics

COMPLETE LIST OF PUBLICATIONS

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