NRCCTE Reports

We examined the extent to which high school students are choosing to participate in work-related education after a decade of education reform in the United States. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997, we first examined the characteristics of students enrolled in alternative curriculum concentrations: career and technical, academic, dual (combining academic and CTE), and general. We then examined the characteristics of students who enroll in career pathways, tech prep, or any work-based learning activity (defined as cooperative education, job shadowing, mentoring, school-sponsored enterprise, and internship/apprenticeship).

Secondly, we analyzed socioeconomic, school experience, and CTE-related variables that could be predictors of participation in curriculum concentrations, career pathways, tech prep, and WBL activities; high school academic achievement; and risky behaviors. We concluded that CTE-related programs, supported by the school reforms, have helped in changing the coursetaking pattern of youth participating in those programs, and significantly contribute to students’ high school achievement.

This interim report presents selected preliminary findings from data collection and analysis conducted during the third year of a larger five-year study of South Carolina’s Personal Pathways to Success Initiative by the National Dropout Prevention Center at Clemson University, in conjunction with colleagues from the National Research Center for Career and Technical Education at the University of Louisville. This project is one of three NRCCTE studies that are intended to increase knowledge about Perkins IV-defined Programs of Study and their development, how best to organize a POS to meet the needs of students, parents, schools, and the community, and the impact of POS on student outcomes.

There is consensus from many fronts that high schools are not adequately preparing students for college or the workplace. Perkins IV introduced promising legislation to promote programs of study (POS) as one way to address this problem for career technical education (CTE) students. In response to the requirement that Perkins recipients offer at least one POS, many districts have begun to create them. However, research is needed on whether and how POS are benefitting students.

The purpose of this research study was to determine the impact of disciplinary literacy strategies on the reading comprehension and motivation to read for students enrolled in CTE courses. The objective was to compare the effects of literacy strategy instruction under a control condition and two models of content area reading interventions: a CTE framework and the MAX Teaching Framework.

The objective of this study is to evaluate the impact of programs of study, a federally mandated education reform that was part of the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Improvement Act of 2006 (otherwise known as Perkins IV), the legislation that funds career and technical education nationwide. This study seeks to measure the impact of POS on student academic and technical achievement. We are conducting this evaluation using two methodologies. First, we are conducting a set of randomized controlled trials in three sites in one large district. The second test of student outcomes uses rigorous quasi-experimental methods in another large district. Following Perkins law, the measures of effectiveness of POS include: (a) academic achievement, (b) technical skills achievement, c) high school completion, (d) placement in postsecondary education, work, or the military, (e) program participation and completion by nontraditional students, and (f) program participation and completion by students from special populations as defined by the law. In order to better understand student outcomes, the study also describes the context and practices that produced them.

Teacher preparation in vocational/career and technical education has a rich history dating back to the Smith-Hughes Act of 1917, which first defined qualifications for individuals involved in teaching in this field. Historically, there have been two pathways to teacher certification and licensure in career and technical education (CTE). The first follows a traditional teacher preparation model, using colleges and universities with degree programs consisting of general education, technical content, and teacher pedagogy, including student teaching. The second pathway, an alternative to the traditional model, relies more on work experience in the discipline in which certification/licensure is sought. These dissimilar pathways have co-existed for nearly 100 years.

High school engagement and achievement were measured using attendance, dropout, course-taking, and graduation data. High school transition was measured using responses to a senior survey, participation in Tech Prep and dual credit opportunities, and achievement data for the graduates who attended their local community college. All measures were compared to the comparison school students.

Dual enrollment programs enable high school students to enroll in college courses and earn college credit. Once limited to high-achieving students, such programs are increasingly seen as a means to support the postsecondary preparation of average-achieving students. Moreover, though dual enrollment programs typically have been reserved for academically-focused students, increasing numbers of career and technical education (CTE) programs are providing such opportunities to their students.

This study inventoried state policies and regulations on and financial support for noncredit occupational programming offered by community colleges. Information collected from state- and community college-level administrators and Web-based searches is organized by a range of issues related to noncredit occupational programming and funding, such as definitions for noncredit; categories of noncredit courses; development and delivery of programming, including content standards, instructor qualifications, and noncredit-to-credit course transfer; state-level collection of noncredit programming data; state funding mechanisms for noncredit courses; and contract training. The study also lays the groundwork for further research on the impact of community college noncredit programming policies and funding on course availability and accessibility, business and industry partnerships, and reporting mechanisms and data systems for noncredit programming.

This study examined the final program approval for new postsecondary Career and Technical Education (CTE) programs and program review policies and procedures for existing programs based on publicly available Web sites and on follow-up interviews with representatives in the final state approving agency. The purpose of the study was to inventory the various state-level policies and procedures and examine how occupational standards were being incorporated into approval processes.

Using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 (NLSY97) and its transcript component, we examine vocational education (now known as career and technical education, or CTE) for a recent cohort of youths. We describe and distinguish between CTE coursetaking and participation in particular career-related programs of courses and activities (career majors, Tech Prep, and work-based learning programs such as job shadowing and cooperative education). We find that the majority of American high school students participate in CTE courses and work-related activities, and this holds across demographic subgroups. Black students participate in career-related programs at higher rates than any other group, while males and females participate at similar rates. Students in the lowest income quartile are the least likely to report participation in career-related programs and activities, but the most likely to take proportionately more career and technical education courses than academic ones. Students who scored in the bottom half of the ASVAB Arithmetic Reasoning test distribution are also more likely to take high ratios of CTE-to-academic courses. We find that while 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.

This report describes the conduct and outcomes of an experimental pilot study conducted in Spring 2004 to develop and test a model that aimed to enhance career and technical education (CTE) instruction with the mathematics that is already embedded in the curricula of six occupational areas.

Math is abundant in the CTE curriculum, but it is largely implicit to both teachers and students. The impetus for the study is that many high school students, particularly those in enrolled in CTE courses, do not have the math skills necessary for today’s jobs or college entrance requirements. This research project was aimed at using an authentic context for teaching math skills. Preparation for the study began in the summer of 2003 with the nationwide recruitment of teacher-participants. CTE teachers who were interested in participating were required to identify teachers of mathematics who was willing to work with them during the course of the study. From a total of 274 CTE teachers who applied to participate, 114 were randomly assigned to and participated in the experimental group, whereas the other 122 served as controls.

The continued high visibility of occupational certification programs and their increasing presence in secondary and postsecondary educational institutions raises questions about the value of these credentials for those seeking entry into the workforce. Of particular interest is the message or signal an occupational certification sends to employers of entry-level workers, as compared to the more traditional qualification of a 2-year community/technical college degree. This study used a quasi-experimental research design, presenting 12 fictitious resumes to managers who make hiring decisions for entry-level jobs in the automotive service and information technology (IT) industries. The resumes reflected typical applicants for entry-level jobs with the treatment conditions of education (high school diploma only, 2-year degree, certification, and both degree and certification) and work experience (none, less than 2 years, and 2 to 4 years). A random sample of 202 managers was selected from three United States cities, chosen for geographic diversity. The managers were first given a 2-page, self-administered questionnaire, intended to gather information on their educational background and demographics, and the characteristics of their firm. They then reviewed and ranked the fictitious resumes and participated in a semi-structured interview to further explore the signaling power of certification versus the 2-year degree.

This study was designed to describe the frequency of professional development activities provided to part-time occupational and technical program faculty. Additionally, the perceptions of occupational education officers concerning the instructional professional development needs and their appropriate delivery method(s) for these faculty members within the community colleges in the United States were identified. Concerning the factors related to the amount of professional development activities provided to part-time faculty members, introduction to the policies and procedures of the college and/or department, introduction to other college faculty/staff, orientation to the course/classroom, and help in meeting administrative requirements were found to occur at least once a quarter or semester. Staff assistance at the program, division, or institutional level was shown to be the most common method of meeting the part-time faculty professional development needs by the respondents’ community colleges. The types of professional development help part-time faculty members were perceived to need most were concentrated in the following areas: (a) identifying the learning characteristics of students, (b) alternating teaching methods to accommodate different learning styles, © participation in web-based instruction, and (d) participation in distance learning. Information addressing the ways in which professional development should be delivered to part-time faculty indicated that they were perceived to be willing to participate in at least 1 activity per semester or quarter. Seminar discussions, group classroom activities, and computer-assisted instruction or multimedia interaction were perceived as the preferred ways part-time faculty would most like to learn. An evening/night format was stipulated as the best time of day, and the fall was indicated as the best time of year for providing professional development activities. Concerning the types of compensation that should be provided to part-time faculty for participation in professional development activities, per diem and travel expenses was selected as the most important, with personal growth being second. Other job commitments, travel distance, remuneration issues, personal motivation, and teaching experience or inexperience were also found to be factors that might interfere with part-time faculty member participation in professional development activities. 

While the number of nontraditional CTE programs offered through distance learning may still be small, “that number is increasing—a trend that should benefit both the students and the workplace of tomorrow” (Reese, 2002, p. 24). Lever-Duffy, Lemke, and Johnson (1996) compiled examples of model community college distance learning programs and concluded that distance education, while “once a fringe methodology, is fast becoming a fundamental methodology for the Information Age institution” (p. vii). In a 3-year trend study of the 700 member colleges of the League for Innovation in the Community College, Milliron and Miles (2000) identified expected trends for instructional technologies and distance learning in community colleges. All of the participating schools agreed that the trend towards the use of information technology in instruction would increase over the next 3 to 5 years, and fewer than 15% expected that the trend towards distance learning would decrease. According to the Campus Computing Survey, 74% of community colleges now offer online courses to students (Green, 2000). A recent study by the Florida State Board of Community Colleges (2000) gathered data about the use of distance courses—specifically those offered through two-way interactive video and the Internet.

The 2003 National Teacher Education Institute for Career and Technical Teacher Education was held in Scottsdale AZ on February 3–5, 2003. The theme of the Institute was Pathways to the Future: Preparing and Developing Secondary and Postsecondary Career and Technical Education Teachers. Participants included 118 individuals from 28 states and two foreign countries (Kenya and Singapore), and included representatives from entities such as: colleges and universities, community colleges, K–12 schools, regional education agencies, state education agencies, national organizations, state teaching certification/licensing agencies, labor groups, business and industry, community organizations, and educational consultants. The Institute was organized around four program strands: Increasing the Academic and Technical Achievement of Teacher Candidates, Designing Career and Technical Teacher Education Programs that Work, Increasing Collaboration and Flexibility, and Providing Options for Increasing the Supply of Teachers/Faculty.

The purpose of the study was to (a) determine the design features of the physical learning environment that support collaborative, project-based learning, and (b) to gain an understanding of the rationale for the selection of the features. The literature review indicated a need for changing learning expectations to prepare learners for rapidly changing roles and responsibilities for the 21st century. Collaborative, project-based learning was identified as a pedagogy that prepares learners for these new learning expectations. Data were collected in three phases using a phenomenological approach. Collection methods included site visits, observations, reflection, text, interviews, and designs. Architects and educators participated in the study. Thirty-two design features were identified and placed into six categories. Upon further reflection and analysis, it appears the essence of the findings is the interrelationship among spaces and people.

In the foreword to his education plan for the nation, No Child Left Behind, President George W. Bush noted two student sentiments as key causes of academic failure. These sentiments were low expectations and self-doubt. This pilot study examines the relationship between participation in career development interventions and the inverse of these sentiments—academic motivation and academic self-efficacy. A nationwide sample of 293 youth from 20 high schools was assessed on a variety of variables including academic motivation, academic self-efficacy, and participation in 44 clearly defined career development interventions. Consistent with previous research, this pilot study found little or no predictive relationships between level of participation in the interventions and academic motivation or self-efficacy. However, unlike previous studies, the specific dosage of each of the 44 interventions was assessed. This assessment revealed very low dosage rates across all interventions and all students. The implications of this pilot study for an evidence-based research agenda concerning career development interventions was discussed.

Methods for achieving high quality teacher preparation have been one of the most contentious topics among all sectors of higher education in career and technical education (CTE). The goals of the present study were to determine the critical attributes of the nation’s exemplary, leading, and/or innovative (ELI) career-technical teacher preparation programs. Using a 3-round Delphi process (Lee, 1988), a national panel of experts identified 117 attributes of an ELI career-technical teacher preparation program. Thirteen of these attributes had means greater than 3.75 on a 4-point scale.

The Internet represents a new dimension of computer technology that is prompting rapid expansion of computer distribution throughout K–12 schools. The distribution of Internet access has very recently encompassed nearly all K–12 schools (98% in 2000) and most high school classrooms (79% in 2000; National Center for Education Statistics, 2000a, 2000b). Because it is now possible for many high schools to move toward integration of the Internet throughout the curriculum, data regarding Internet integration in schools are needed on multiple levels.  

Classroom-level data can further our understanding of how the Internet affects teachers’ practices, teaching and learning processes, and student learning. School-level data can give insights into what is entailed in school-wide Internet integration, what patterns emerge as schools move to this level of implementation, and the forces and conditions that support or impede it. Both classroom- and school-level data can illuminate how educators and schools mediate Internet access and use by students. Finally, data concerning schools’ contexts (both internal and external) can add to understanding of forces and conditions within and beyond schools that affect their Internet integration efforts.

This research report examines the integration of the Internet on a school-wide scale in five high schools in order to shed light on the patterns of Internet use, what affects it, and its consequences. The study summarized here was initiated in early 2000. It focused on high schools, where the concentration of Internet connections is highest and where career and technical education programs are focused.

This report provides second-year findings from a 5-year longitudinal study. The study examines diverse and promising programs for integrating career and technical education (CTE, previously called vocational education) with whole-school reforms in schools that serve predominantly disadvantaged students. We define disadvantaged students as those living in poverty (indexed by participation in the federal free and reduced-price lunch program), and those who are members of groups that have been historically discriminated against in U.S. society (African Americans, Hispanics, and immigrants groups for whom English is not their native language). This interim report begins the process of providing longitudinal descriptions of CTE-enhanced whole-school reforms that appear to have strong track records of improving the educational chances of concentrated groups of highly disadvantaged students.

The Virtual Teacher Training Center proposed within this paper relies on two major foundations; a flexible, dynamic re-configurable teacher education program of 27–33 credits that can be completed within 1 academic year, and is designed to train persons with industry and field experience into educated and licensed CTE teachers. The second major foundation of the proposed program is the usage of Internet technology to deliver the program to potential teachers in their homes and communities, while they continue engaging in practical experience and student teaching near their homes with cooperating or master teachers.

This document examines issues connected to the development of a conceptual framework for public career and technical education (CTE) in the United States. A viable conceptual framework for CTE or any other enterprise should represent consensus among its members concerning the scope, mission, and methods reflective of the profession. Such a framework should be dynamic, and subject to frequent debate and ongoing refinement. This paper, then, provides information to stimulate the debate about the present and future of CTE using the development of a conceptual framework as the vehicle for organizing and presenting critical issues.

The purpose of New Designs for Career and Technical Education at the Secondary and Postsecondary Levels was to develop new directions for career and technical education at the secondary and postsecondary levels in the United States. For this project, “new” designs means based on a coherent synthesis of the latest research, relevant policies, exemplary practices, and leading thinking on career and technical education (CTE) at the secondary and postsecondary levels. Building upon work accomplished through two earlier projects funded under the National Center for Research in Vocational Education at the University of California, Berkeley, New Designs for the Comprehensive High School (Copa & Pease, 1992), and New Designs for Learning: K–12 Schools (Copa, 1999), and New Designs for the Two-Year Institution of Higher Education (Copa & Ammentorp, 1998), this project identified design elements and specific recommended features to be considered in the design of CTE programs.

This study examines alternative teacher certification procedures and professional development opportunities available to secondary academic and career and technical education (CTE) teachers, and describes the teaching experiences and professional development needs of recently certified CTE teachers. On a national level, there is an increase in the number of states providing alternative certification routes differing from the traditional college teacher preparation program (Feistritzer & Chester, 2001). This increase in alternative certification routes raises concerns as to the quality of teachers entering the teaching profession. Thus, there may be a greater need to provide professional development opportunities that support new teachers and encourage them to continue in the teaching profession.

Often the terms licensure and certification are used interchangeably. In this study, certification is used broadly to refer to the entire range of procedures and practices used to award credentials (licenses and certificates) that allow individuals to serve as public school teachers.

Concern about the state of career and technical education (CTE) teacher preparation programs includes the declining capacity to adequately train teachers who are equipped to implement the new vocationalism in an atmosphere of educational reform. The present study was conducted to update a similar study by Lynch (1990) and to give insight into the status of CTE teacher preparation in the United States, especially into the capacity to prepare new CTE teachers and to determine the curricular emphasis. The CTE teacher preparation curriculum was compared to the areas outlined by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (1997) in Vocational Education Standards for National Board Certification. Participants in this study were teacher educators with administrative responsibilities in CTE teacher preparation programs at post-secondary institutions in the US. Data were collected via a survey designed to gather information about a program’s demographics, administration, curricular status, certification criteria, and methods of course delivery.

Tech Prep education programs play a vital role in the education of American youth. During the past decade, with funding from Perkins legislation, Tech Prep consortia have consolidated and developed programs for students. The Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Technical Education Act of 1998 requires each state to identify performance levels relevant to career and technical education. Seven essential program elements and four core indicators provide the foundation to evaluate Tech Prep education programs. The purpose of this guide is to assist those responsible for Tech Prep evaluation to report program and student outcomes data, and to integrate evaluation results with future Tech Prep education program planning efforts.

This literature review explores the intersection of several broad areas of education research. In the first section, we cover three areas within secondary education research: an examination of student risk factors in education; the state of the art in secondary vocational education, increasingly known as career and technical education (CTE); and the interplay of these new forms of CTE and other comprehensive school reform efforts in high schools. In the second section, we turn our attention to reforms and other trends in postsecondary CTE, usually located in community colleges. Our goal is to examine the effects that these reform efforts have had on outcomes for at-risk students. Because these are relatively independent strands in the literature, we have cast a wide net. We draw connections across the fields wherever possible, so as to explore ways to improve the education and life chances of students placed at risk of school failure or dropping out.

The purpose of this study was to describe the characteristics of teacher educators in Career and Technical Education programs, including the following: teacher educator demographics; professional development activities of teacher educators; and the methods, models, and approaches currently used within teacher preparation programs. In this time of educational reform, coupled with a changing workplace, the data showed that CTE teachers were being prepared for public schools in a very traditional manner. Additionally, the decline in the number of CTE teacher preparation programs across the nation contrasts sharply with the growing number of public-school and postsecondary teaching positions.

School-wide efforts to improve the education of American students have been implemented in many schools throughout the nation. The Southern Regional Education Board’s High Schools That Work network stands out as one of the few consortia to coordinate that effort and to collect and analyze data as part of a service to its participants. On a biannual basis, the participating schools assess their graduating vocational completers in science, mathematics, and reading using the HSTW Assessment. They also collect data on student course-taking patterns, student behaviors and attitudes, and teacher attitudes and characteristics. In addition to creating useful comparison data for benchmarking the progress of individual sites, the assessments enable SREB to test theories about basic associations between certain practices or attitudes and student outcome measures.

This project was part of a larger effort of the NCRVE to focus on high schools that were undergoing schoolwide reform and making use of their learning achievement results to further improve their schools. Accordingly, the study questions and procedures were designed to engage the stakeholders and staff of the schools in deciding what questions were important to them and what data would be required to answer these questions.

A comprehensive developmental career guidance and counseling program helps students understand themselves, explore the career options available to them today and in the future, and make realistic academic and career plans and decisions. It also results in an increased interest in learning. The purpose of this guide is to assist those who want to develop or improve their career development programs by adapting the best practices from exemplars and other models and using standards suggested by national groups. Relevant information includes the guidance and counseling framework that the National Center for Research in Vocational Education uses for identifying exemplary programs, benefits of comprehensive programs, national standards and state models, and an in-service model for improving career guidance programs. Finally, resources to help in the improvement process such as pertinent legislation, exemplary programs, references, and worksheets are included.

The purpose of this manual is to provide information and guidelines for community college faculty who are interested in working together in seminar format to bring general education and career-related education closer together. By career-related education, we mean programs that lead directly to entry or advancement in the labor force upon award of an associate’s degree, certificate, or diploma in a community college. The manual provides suggestions and resources for ten three-hour long professional development seminars in which faculty modify curriculum and instruction.

The 1990 Perkins Amendments and the 1994 School-to-Work Opportunities Act encouraged high schools and community colleges to combine academic with vocational curriculum in a program of study that included work-related applications and created clearer pathways from secondary to postsecondary education. Thousands of high schools and community colleges have now implemented some form of career academies, clusters, majors, Tech Prep, or a combination of these approaches. The result is a greater demand for teachers with new capabilities. Foremost among these is facility at integrating academic and vocational studies, coordinating school- and work-based learning, and articulating secondary and postsecondary studies. Teachers employed in these comprehensive reform settings are often expected to integrate, coordinate, and articulate on a regular basis.

Guided by the principles of the School-to-Work Opportunities Act of 1994, the school-to-work movement has become the cornerstone of an ambitious national initiative for systemic education reform. The school-to-work system was to include three components: (1) school-based learning, (2) work-based learning, and (3) connecting activities. In addition, the systems were to integrate academic and vocational education, link secondary and postsecondary education, and fully involve the private sector. The idea behind the strategy is that students learn best through the application of academic concepts to real-world situations. While igniting enthusiasm around the country, much of the effort surrounding the school-to-work movement has focused on the need to distance itself from the negative stigma of vocational education. To move the reform into the mainstream, proponents have made the case that school-to-work would benefit all students, including the college-bound.

The purpose of this project was to develop guidelines for teaching employment-related office technology skills, particularly those offered in office technology, based on the practices in schools already judged to be exemplary in their program design and teaching practices.   A key assumption in asking about effective teaching practices was that teachers and students would need to balance three elements in learning to use desktop software applications:

• How the technology operates
• Business concepts being applied
• Expectations of a given work setting

While there is general agreement on the need to invest more in the continuing education and training of American workers, our knowledge about the importance of such investments and the relative value of various types of training is not well-formed. In this monograph, I attempt to improve our understanding of the importance of continuing education and job training. In particular, I undertake three tasks: (1) to identify trends in the patterns and value of training during the past three decades; (2) to examine whether certain types of training have become particularly valuable; and (3) to assess trends in access to training among groups of workers with different levels of education.

I think it is important for both faculty and students to feel as if what they are doing is important. Students especially need to know that they are being evaluated in many ways and what they do everywhere matters–not just in core academic courses, but everywhere. When their goal is being admitted into college, it’s important for them to know that they need to be competent writers in their English classes, as well as in their agriscience courses. -High School Agriscience Teacher

This study investigated the institutional and social and psychological effects of attending an urban career magnet high school. It was designed specifically to examine the differential impact of the curriculum and instruction in the school, students’ extracurricular experience, work experience while in school after graduation, peer relationships while in school, and family attitudes toward schooling on the postsecondary education potential and career development of the graduates of both career magnet and comprehensive high schools. To determine these effects, the study used a random assignment database, which was created by a lottery mechanism used to assign seats in oversubscribed career magnet high schools.

Mathematics is the key to many of the most secure and financially rewarding careers in every sector of the economy. The impact of computers and information technology can be seen not just in engineering and science, but in such diverse areas as manufacturing, agriculture, health care, and advertising. To be prepared for careers in virtually any industry, and especially for changing careers during a lifetime, secondary school students need to learn a substantial core of mathematics. However, this core is not like either the abstract pre-engineering mathematics of the academic curriculum or the restricted topics of the discredited “vocational math.” New approaches are needed to meet today’s challenges.

This study has identified a group of career magnet high school programs that have had some success in educating low and moderate income minority and immigrant students. The study has also identified ways in which these programs have not succeeded. The programs used an academic curriculum accompanied by coursework (and sometimes internships) to prepare students for specific careers. These career magnet programs–located either in regular comprehensive high schools or combined with other magnet programs to fill up an entire building–usually have the same budget as the regular comprehensive schools.

This document has been prepared by the National Center for Research in Vocational Education (NCRVE) as a guide to resources supporting the development of educational standards for students. Standards for what all students should know and be able to do have become a hallmark of educational reform that spans knowledge of academic subject areas, general workforce preparation competencies, and more specific industry and occupational qualifications.

The last decade has witnessed a plethora of research on significant restructuring and reform efforts within schools. Yet, for the most part, this research has tended to focus on the fate of a singular reform initiative, ignoring the larger reality of the school site that almost inevitably encompasses multiple and simultaneous change efforts. Thus, little is known about how substantive and systemic reform initiatives interact within schools or what consequences one may hold for the other. This study examined two traditional, comprehensive high schools, both of which have been involved with the school restructuring efforts advocated by the Coalition of Essential Schools. Shortly after their commitment to essential school changes, the schools also became involved in the series of vocational education reforms loosely referred to as “Tech Prep.”

Change is not an option–it is an inevitability. The tremendous changes in the culture that surrounds and impacts higher education have created both crisis and opportunity. As presently organized and delivered, higher education is no longer sustainable pedagogically, technologically, or economically.

The consequence of culture change is most evident in our common lifeplaces–work, family, and community. Within higher education, the two-year institution is closest to these lifeplaces and therefore to the challenges and opportunities they hold. We must begin an earnest search for the synergies that will better connect our educational institutions to our culture in ways that free and create resources and multiply desired results. This is the challenge and the opportunity of New Designs for the Two-Year Institution of Higher Education (NDTYI).

Successful implementation of work-related education reforms in the United States requires educators to understand both reform principles and the ways in which work-based and school-based learning can be used to enhance curriculum and instruction. This document is part of Teacher learning in the workplace and community, which contains four educational briefs and five case studies that describe innovative teacher education and professional development programs that support school-to-work and related reforms.

Successful implementation of work-related education reforms in the United States requires educators to understand both reform principles and the ways in which work-based and school-based learning can be used to enhance curriculum and instruction. This document is part of ‘Teacher learning in the workplace and community’ which contains four educational briefs and five case studies that describe innovative teacher education and professional development programs that support school-to-work and related reforms.

Successful implementation of work-related education reforms in the United States requires educators to understand both reform principles and the ways in which work-based and school-based learning can be used to enhance curriculum and instruction. This document is part of ‘Teacher learning in the workplace and community’ which contains four educational briefs and five case studies that describe innovative teacher education and professional development programs that support school-to-work and related reforms.

Successful implementation of work-related education reforms in the United States requires educators to understand both reform principles and the ways in which work-based and school-based learning can be used to enhance curriculum and instruction. This document is part of Teacher learning in the workplace and community, which contains four educational briefs and five case studies that describe innovative teacher education and professional development programs that support school-to-work and related reforms.

This document reports in some detail on a policy exercise on education and the new economy held in Aspen, Colorado, June 23-25, 1997. The exercise was intended to help the National Center for Research in Vocational Education (NCRVE) understand the development of education and training in the near future. The exercise took advantage of expertise in social gaming developed at RAND, one of the Center’s host sites. Participants included about two dozen education researchers and decisionmakers from across the United States. Here, we report on the motivation for the exercise, its structure and outcomes, and potential implications for educational policy and further gaming. An issue paper summarizes the policy implications alone.

This is the first report in the Diversity in the Workforce Series sponsored by the National Center for Research in Vocational Education (NCRVE). This series is intended to inform the readers of the dynamics and breadth of workforce diversity issues. In addition, it provides information to educators and people from business and industry. They can use this information to develop practices and guidelines to follow when selecting or assessing workplace environments that are conducive to maximizing the contributions of all workers.

This is a publication about schools and institutions from our nation’s largest cities. It captures, in one place, the collective lessons learned as a national network of schools and institutions engaged in reform around the idea of school-to-work. But it didn’t start out this way. We began as a two-week residential summer institute for the development of integrated curriculum and Tech Prep programs. We became a five-year national network united by the desire to make schools better for all students. During this time our ideas about what it takes to do so have evolved significantly. And our ambitions have soared as well. Whereas we began with an interest in programs like integration and Tech Prep that often serve only some students, our thinking continues to evolve as we consider school-to-work efforts that involve all students.

During the 1990s, work-based learning has gained prominence as one element of local, state, and federal school reform strategies. Federal legislation passed as the School to Work Opportunities Act (STWOA) of 1994, for example, calls for redesigning educational programs to include both school-based and work-based learning (WBL). STWOA defines work-based learning as a planned program of work experience linked to school. It further specifies that WBL include training on the job, supervision by workplace mentors, and instruction in general workplace competencies and “all aspects of the industry.” Successful completion of paid or unpaid work experiences (paid experiences are preferable under STWOA) should lead to a portable certificate. A recent evaluation of states receiving funds under STWOA indicates that developing work-based activities are the top priority.

During the 1990s, educators and employers have been reconceptualizing the relationship between education and work. As a result, school programs that more explicitly link school and work have been expanded and developed, and many are supported by federal funds through the School-to-Work Opportunities Act of 1994. In order to realize the curriculum and pedagogical reforms that underlie these programs, teachers need appropriate staff development.

Over the past decade, increasing numbers of senior high school educators have provided comprehensive and meaningful school-to-work (STW) opportunities for their students. Unfortunately, these opportunities may be offered too late in some high school students’ studies to have much impact on them. By the ninth or tenth grade, many students have already become turned off to education and made up their minds to quit school or just comply with minimum requirements for graduation. Other students may not have received much parental and peer encouragement to study and/or do not view schooling as an avenue to future occupational and career success (Kennedy, 1996; Lichtenstein & Blackorby, 1995). In response to these and other concerns, a number of school districts across the United States have created STW opportunities for middle school students. Examples range from including career exploration activities in individual middle school courses to school- and school-district-wide incorporation of STW opportunities in the curriculum. In some school districts, educators are providing middle school students with meaningful experiential learning related to occupations and careers.

Described in this document are various ways the professional development needs of vocational and academic teachers who are preparing to engage in school-to-work transition activities can be met. Neither a prescribed set of tasks to be followed nor specific steps to be taken are provided. Instead, details are given about various professional development activities and their impact from the perspective of school personnel and workplace representatives. During our visits to eleven exemplary school-to-work community sites in 11 different states, we rapidly recognized that teachers’ professional development needs in school-to-work transition environments are much more complex than what is needed in traditional educational settings. We also observed that each of the sites visited had its own context, agendas, and policies. This meant teachers’ professional development needs in different communities might vary as a function of the particular setting. Thus, professional development activities focusing on school-to-work transition are often unique to a given locale.

In Volume 1 we identified seven Domains, or types of knowledge and skills, that encompass both the demands of employers and the needs of community college students attempting to meet educational and employment goals. We also briefly described innovative ways in which colleges and technical institutes are imparting these competencies, based on our research of a random sample of one-third of public, two year postsecondary institutions (see “Sources of Information,” Appendix, Volume I). We observed, however, that integrating career preparation into all components of the community college is such a novel approach that faculty and administrators often have difficulty imagining how this might be accomplished. And so, in this Volume, we have gathered actual samples of course outlines, case studies and other learning activities, project/authentic assessment methods, and organizational arrangements to clarify how large and small, urban and rural colleges have integrated academic and career preparation.

The U.S. Department of Education in collaboration with the National Center for Research in Vocational Education’s (NCRVE) Office of Student Services conducted a national search for exemplary career guidance programs in 1996. The search was supported by the National Association of State Career Development/Guidance Supervisors and the American Vocational Association. The exemplary programs recognized in 1996 can serve as models for schools in responding to the career development needs of the growing diverse student population through comprehensive career guidance programs.

This document is a guide for teachers and trainers participating in the initial experimental offering of a six-week “mini-sabbatical,” “Designing Classrooms that Work.” The mini-sabbatical is designed to help teachers learn how to make the kinds of curricular and pedagogical changes implied by reforms to integrate vocational and academic education and to improve the school-to-career transition.

Student assessment has always played an important role in vocational education, and recent changes in assessment practices may hold great promise for vocational educators. A RAND study was conducted to examine alternative forms of assessment from the perspective of vocational educators. Two products resulted. The first is this report, which describes a variety of assessment alternatives, reviews examples from extended case studies, and discusses criteria for choosing among the alternatives. This report should be of interest to vocational educators at the state and local level, particularly those responsible for decisions about the form and use of assessment systems. The second product is a set of training materials to help vocational educators make effective decisions about assessments. These materials are to be offered as a supplement to Getting to Work: A Guide for Better Schools (Rahn et al., 1995), a recent National Center for Research in Vocational Education (NCRVE) training package.

While other fields at the secondary level have rapidly embraced national curriculum standards and goals, school-to-work programs continue to vary widely in content, scope, and methodology across the nation. At present, the notion of establishing “national standards” in this content area has focused largely on developing industry skill standards.

Yet, in today’s changing world of work, critical evaluation of curriculum is a helpful step toward realizing national goals for education (such as those outlined in Goals 2000) and in fulfilling the vision of new and emerging vocationalism (e.g., Tech Prep, youth apprenticeship, and career academies). Standards for curriculum and instructional products, encompassing appropriate student outcomes and highly effective instruction, would establish important benchmarks for products used by schools and postsecondary institutions in implementing school-to-work initiatives.

A study was conducted to identify, classify, and prioritize student outcomes to help to build a foundation for evaluating Tech Prep programs. The study involved three stakeholder groups: educators, students, and employers. All of these stakeholders were actively engaged in planning and implementing Tech Prep programs affiliated with the Urban Schools Network sponsored by the National Center for Research in Vocational Education (NCRVE).

The reauthorization of the Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Applied Technology Act (Perkins II), and most recently the School-to-Work Opportunities Act (STWOA), give schools the opportunity to reverse the seventy-year gulf between vocational and academic education created by the Smith Hughes Act in 1917. Perkins II and STWOA call for a new design of education centered around four categories of integration. First, they require the integration of vocational and academic education. Second, they call for integration among educational institutions through Tech Prep and other programs. Third, they call for a fusion of school and work experiences through key connecting activities. And fourth, they advocate that all students be provided with “strong experience and understanding of all aspects of the industry” (i.e., planning; management; finances; technical and production skills; underlying principles of technology; labor and community issues; and health, safety, and environmental issues).

Proposals to reshape the relationship between academic and vocational preparation coincide with other challenges to the prevailing curriculum, pedagogy, and social organization of secondary schools. Despite certain broad areas of agreement among these various reforms, however, they tend to differ in the emphasis they give to work preparation among the remedies for the present failings of high schools. In this report, we draw upon the experiences of teachers and students in two “restructuring” high schools to examine the place of vocational reform amid the evolving purposes and content of secondary schooling.

This is the third in a series of three reports on the role and prospects of two-year colleges in promoting community development through business incubation and related services. This report presents a summary of opportunities to expand the contribution of community colleges in economic development through business incubation and related services. The research base for this guidebook derived from a national survey of entrepreneurs and managers in business incubators operating under different sponsorship arrangements, including support from two-year colleges, and from case studies featuring business incubators operating under contrasting settings and organization schemes.

Although the role of parents in children’s academic achievement has featured prominently in recent national debates and policies, little is understood about the contributions of families in their children’s preparation for work. This national study of 1,266 high school seniors and 879 adult two-year college students asked whether family plays a role in developing readiness for school-to-work transition and whether the family role differs for adolescent and adult learners. School-to-work transition readiness indicators in the study included measures of career maturity and selected work effectiveness skills.

Interest in school-to-work programs combining school-based learning and work-based learning has expanded substantially in the past few years, particularly because of the passage of the School-to-Work Opportunities Act of 1994. However, there are relatively few examples of school-to-work programs in this country from which individuals attempting to develop new programs might learn; many of the recent experimental efforts are too new or too special to provide much guidance. This monograph describes a naturally occurring “experiment” in work-based learning that is quite long-lived and widespread: the cooperative education programs that take place in the two-year colleges of the Cincinnati area. For special historical reasons, co-op was first established in that region and has persisted. Every two-year college in the area offers co-op, and a large number of employers hire co-op students. The results provide a variety of lessons for others attempting to develop school-to-work programs.

There is a growing national sentiment to educate all students in programs which reflect the diversity of the local general student population. This resource guide is directed towards professionals and practitioners who are interested in strategies, resources, programs, and research concerning inclusion, detracking, ability grouping, mainstreaming, and cooperative learning. It contains descriptions, cost, and contact information for selected (1) references, including newsletters and journal articles; (2) educational information centers; and (3) organizations. To the extent possible, the resources listed address students in vocational education and integrated programs.

The 46 cases provided in this publication focus on developing effective vocational and academic education integration strategies. An instructor using the cases can search for examples of successful integration strategies, and inversely, the absence of such strategies in a variety of instructional and school settings. Case study use in education and other fields has revealed that students enjoy cases and, in the process of using them, appear to improve their problem-solving and decision-making skills. In addition, these cases set the stage for team building, a component essential in the implementation of vocational and academic education integration.

High schools today face the challenge of ensuring success for all students. To prepare all high school students for rewarding careers, schools must offer essential student services in addition to sound curricular offerings. An efficient, coordinated, and comprehensive student services system is a key component in enhancing the chances of success for every student. The authors define student services as those services provided by an educational institution to facilitate learning and the purposeful, successful transition of students from school to the world of work and/or further education. This document is designed to provide high school student services personnel, administrators, and teachers with information on student services that they can use in addressing the needs of the nation’s increasingly diverse student population. Topics discussed include (1) background information on student services; (2) a discussion of the wide array of student services needed to facilitate student success; (3) general guidelines in building a comprehensive, coordinated student services system; (4) various components of a comprehensive student services system; and (5) the roles of the student services team.

This pilot study represents the first phase of a two-year study of individual teachers who provide integrated instruction for their students, with the goal of uncovering genuinely innovative tips and techniques which may be emulated by others. The pilot study sought to identify individual teachers who recognized the advantages of integrating the vocational and academic aspects of their instruction prior to the influence of state or national initiatives such as Tech Prep. By examining these “early innovators,” the project is seeking to locate and describe strategies that truly work and that lie outside of (or augment) the current body of knowledge on the subject. The instruments and procedures developed and refined in this pilot study will be used to collect data from a larger sample of teachers in several midwestern states during the second phase of the study.

The pilot study concentrated on the process of identifying the right subjects to study. A multiple-stage procedure was developed which involved (1) having state-level staff nominate exemplary vocational teachers and/or programs, (2) conducting telephone interviews with nominees to determine if they were “early” integrators along with their current level of integration, and (3) selecting a small number of subjects for further study based on telephone interview results. This identification procedure yielded three detailed interviews.

Data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth were analyzed to identify patterns in the early labor market and employment experience of a sample of 12,781 U.S. youths who were first interviewed in 1979 (at ages 14 through 21) and last interviewed in 1990 (at ages 25 through 32 years). School-to-work transition patterns were classified by school-leaving group (SLG) (no high school diploma, high school diploma, some college, college diploma, or some postcollege education). SLGs were analyzed in terms of the following factors: percentage of sample members employed, percentage in school, number of jobs held, and age at entrance into first job. While the median high school graduate entered his “three-year job” while he was 22, the median high school dropout, who first entered the labor force several years earlier, did not enter that job until he was 23. In contrast, the median college graduate–who entered the labor force four years later than the high school graduate–entered his “three-year job” shortly after turning 23. Although racial/ethnic groups and women manifested different employment, school attendance, and job stability patterns, the patterns of school-to-work transition by male high school graduates were surprisingly similarly across the three racial/ethnic groups.

The value of formal schooling’s power to increase employment opportunities, wages, and earnings has been apparent for a long time. However, conventional wisdom regarding the economic benefits of education may not hold true for every type of education or for every group of students. In particular, the value of education in community colleges and technical institutes and, more generally, the effects of accumulating some education beyond the high school diploma but short of a baccalaureate have been unclear due to a lack of appropriate data. Since a slight majority of students receiving postsecondary education are enrolled in community colleges and technical institutes, and since about one quarter of the labor force could be included in a group described as having “some college,” the lack of information about the economic effects of a college education below the baccalaureate level is serious for both students and policymakers.

Encouraged by federal legislation, localities and states are designing new school-to-work systems. This report is intended to assist these design efforts by presenting the results of research on existing school-to-work programs in the United States. Section 404(b)(2) of the 1990 Amendments to the Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Applied Technology Education Act requires that the National Center for Research in Vocational Education (NCRVE) “shall annually prepare a study on the research conducted on approaches that lead to effective articulation for the education-to-work transition, including tech-prep programs, cooperative education or other work-based programs, such as innovative apprenticeship or mentoring approaches, and shall submit copies of such study to the Secretary of Education, the Secretary of Labor, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, the Committee on Labor and Human Resources of the Senate, and the Committee on Education and Labor of the House of Representatives.” This report fulfills that requirement.

This report documents the second of two studies on teaching and learning generic skills in high school. The studies were sponsored by the National Center for Research in Vocational Education (NCRVE), University of California, Berkeley. The initial exploratory study (Stasz et al., 1990) examined the teaching and learning of generic skills in vocational classrooms. The study reported here extends the earlier work by providing a model for designing classroom instruction in both academic and vocational classrooms where teaching generic skills is an instructional goal. The authors hope this study will contribute to future thinking about teaching generic skills and provide a starting point for designing curricula and courses that teach these important skills. The study should be of interest to educators, policymakers, and researchers who are involved in efforts to reform secondary schools in ways that better prepare students for education, work, and lifelong learning.

This study, conducted as a project of the National Center for Research on Vocational Education (NCRVE), examines how three comprehensive high schools make decisions about what courses to offer and which courses are appropriate for various students. The study was guided initially by a desire to understand the range and quality of vocational offerings at comprehensive high schools that serve different types of student bodies and the student needs that secondary school educators hope their vocational programs will meet. The focus of the study shifted quickly when it became apparent that vocational course offerings and course-taking were not a salient part of curriculum decision-making at any of the three schools. Instead, curriculum decisions centered almost exclusively on the schools’ academic offerings and on mechanisms for placing students of different academic abilities into classes at the “right” level; decisions about vocational offerings and placements clearly took a back seat.

Consequently, the authors spent two years observing and interviewing at the three schools and analyzing the transcripts of a recent graduating class to shed light on the broader process of curriculum tracking; in particular, what factors guide decisions about which academic and vocational classes students take. The information was used to suggest how the culture of comprehensive high schools may pose challenges for reformers wishing to institute curricula that integrate academic and vocational topics, skills, and staff.

Recently there has been a shift in favor of emphasizing more general or “academic” skills over the specialized or “vocational.” Partly this has come from the business community, pressing for certain competencies it thinks necessary for a more productive workforce. Within occupational education, recent federal legislation requiring the integration of vocational and academic education has reinforced the trend. However, there has been little guidance about what such integration might be, especially for community colleges and technical institutes. To fill the gap, this monograph describes various approaches to curriculum integration at the postsecondary level and is based on a survey of practices in community colleges and technical institutes across the United States.

Interviewer: What about reading and writing? People are always saying that you need reading and writing for whatever you do. Do you need reading and writing skills in banking?

Jackie: I don’t think so, ’cause, say, if you don’t know how to spell somebody’s name, when they first come up to you, they have to give you their California ID. So you could look on there and put it in the computer like that . . . push it in on those buttons.

Alma: But you still gonna have to look at it and read and write. . . . You’ve got to read those numbers when you cash their money; that’s reading and writing. . . . If you can’t read and write, you’re not going to get hired no way.

Jackie: That’s true.

A furor has erupted in this country over basic skills. Complaints from the business community about the deficiencies of the labor force, criticism of the educational system, and alarm about high levels of illiteracy have all increased concerns about skill levels. Deficiencies in basic skills are also problems for the work-related education and job training programs, as many have felt unable to proceed with relatively job-specific training without first wrestling with the problem of underprepared individuals. Most postsecondary educational institutions and job training programs have increased the remedial education they provide, and most of them agree that the problem will become worse.