A growing number of districts are shifting away from a near-exclusive focus on college preparedness and instead providing opportunities for students to explore and engage with various career pathways.
The shift comes as more families are questioning the return on investment from a traditional, four-year college education. Policymakers and industry leaders are also working to ensure there is a pipeline for students to end up in high-demand jobs.
Districts are offering more career and technical education courses, work-based learning experiences, and dual-enrollment opportunities. One increasingly popular approach is the career academy model, where students can earn college credit, industry credentials, and work-based learning experiences within a pathway.
“It’s been around since the ‘60s,” said Jay Steele, the president of the National Career Academy Coalition, a nonprofit that supports schools in transition to a career academy model. “It has resurfaced as communities are looking for some type of economic strategy in education that provides kids opportunities within their own communities.”
Steele spoke with Education Week about what educators need to know about career academies, what it takes to start them, and what makes them successful.
The interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
What do districts need to think about before starting a career academy?
It’s very important, when we’re working with the school or community, that we look at their regional or local workforce data published by the federal government every year from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. We can focus on three things: What are the high-skill jobs? What are the high-wage jobs? And what are the in-demand jobs? Those dictate to that particular community what their pathways should be.
What does a career academy look like?
At the elementary level, we use the term expose. So we’re exposing kids to college and career experiences. It could be simple things like a Career Day, where you dress as your favorite career person. It could be [bringing in guest] speakers. It could be short units of problem-based units, or project-based units for kids to start exploring: What are the possible careers outside of being a football player, a doctor, a nurse? They know those things, but what are some of the others?
Once they get into middle school, we use the term explore. They’ll take a little bit of everything, but it has to be aligned with the high school that they feed into. They’ll do things like take a college interest inventory, a personality interest inventory, and career assessments. They’ll start learning about themselves, what their strengths are, and then how to apply that in different courses as they have those experiences. They might take a yearlong elective course or a semester that’s designed as an introduction into that particular area.
When they go to high school, we use the term engage, because now you’re going deeper with the curriculum. You’re going to career fairs, you’re going to college visits, but those are aligned to what you’re studying. They’re starting to engage through college credit, through college experiences, through industry experiences. So by the time they graduate, they have a whole portfolio, from [industry] credentials to college credit, and they know companies and universities that offer opportunities for them after they leave high school so they can see a clear pathway. Or they’ve ruled something out which is just as important.
What’s a challenge that schools face in transitioning to this kind of model?
We all went to high school, we know what that looks like, and to change that model to something different takes a visionary leader. It takes someone who can rally their faculty and get them on board and let them see the importance of the model and why it’s beneficial for kids. It’s not an easy change, but we do partner with school districts to help facilitate that change, to educate their team and prepare their school for master scheduling, all the way to the student experience and curriculum design. It is a challenge, but it is a challenge that many communities are seeing [will] benefit their kids.
What do districts need to make this model work?
I definitely think having community partners is key because we cannot do this work in isolation. The business community, the postsecondary community, they provide the experiences for kids to make the curriculum come alive. They support the teachers in curriculum development and delivery. That’s important. They’re co-teaching alongside the teachers when and where possible, but they’re also opening up their doors for kids to come in.
What have been the effects in districts where this model was put in place?
It does take about three to five years for full transformation of a high school. But the research shows that the model leads to higher rates of attendance, higher rates of graduation, and lower rates of discipline issues.
What it does not show is an improvement in achievement in academics. You have to focus on teaching and learning within the academy structure [to see academic gains]. So project-based learning, move the didactic-style lecturing to more active learning, work on authentic, real-world projects. That’s where you’re going to start seeing the achievement numbers move. That takes time, and it takes a really dedicated focus by the instructional leaders within the school to focus on transforming teaching and learning.
Preparing Students for What’s Next
The pathways to college, internships, and work have changed. What does that mean for secondary education? Explore the series.
