A new policy brief makes a case that students learn more, are more engaged, and are better prepared for postsecondary life when they learn both academic and technical content in a contextualized way.
The brief by the Education Policy Research Unit at Arizona State University and the Education and the Public Interest Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder recommends specific changes to help meld technical and academic curricula. Those steps include restructuring coursework, modifying relationships between schools and community colleges, investing in curriculum development, and tweaking professional development.
Prepared by Marisa Saunders, a researcher at the Institute for Democracy, Education, and Access at the University of California, Los Angeles, and Christopher A. Chrisman, a lawyer at the Denver-based firm Holland & Hart LLP, the paper also includes proposed statutory language for states to consider.
