Making the successful transition to adulthood has become increasingly difficult for many young people in the United States, particularly for those without a college education. Those without a high school degree face even tougher prospects, with especially high unemployment rates and falling wages. A typical worker without a high school diploma…

The second annual implementation report for the Accelerating Opportunity (AO) initiative in four states finds that: (1) colleges aligned pathways and supports with local needs; (2) students were satisfied with AO; (3) AO instructors grew more adept at team teaching; (4) colleges struggled to recruit adult education students; (5) states and…

In an American economy where the advancement of technology and globalization means that a high school diploma alone is no longer able to provide family-sustaining earnings to many, certificates represent one piece of a multi-pronged solution on the road to a workforce with 60 percent postsecondary attainment. Though certificates currently aren't…

Earlier work demonstrates that career and technical education (CTE) can provide long-term financial benefits to participants, yet few have explored potential academic impacts, with none in the era of high-stakes accountability. This paper investigates the causal impact of participating in a specialized high school-based CTE delivery system on high…

The passage of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation in 2001 brought about a multitude of education reform policies for education institutions that made the future of Career and Technical Education's (CTE) role in secondary educations unclear. These mandates forced educational leaders to emphasize student enrollment in tracks that prepare them…

To increase the rate at which adult basic skills students advance to and succeed in college-level occupational programs, the Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges (SBCTC) developed the Integrated Basic Education and Skills Training, or I-BEST. In the I-BEST model, a basic skills instructor and an occupational instructor team…

An evaluation was conducted of a 3-year demonstration program the purpose of which was to demonstrate the efficacy of projects that included vocational education as a key component in encouraging at-risk youth to remain in or return to school. Six of the 10 project grantees, funded under the Cooperative Demonstration Program of the Carl D. Perkins…

The Concurrent Courses Initiative (CCI), funded by The James Irvine Foundation from 2008 until 2011, comprised eight secondary/postsecondary partnerships across California that offered dual enrollment programs with supplemental student supports. The goal of the CCI was to expand access to supportive, career-focused dual enrollment for students…

This paper presents findings from a study conducted by the Community College Research Center (CCRC) at Teachers College, Columbia University, on the outcomes of the Integrated Basic Education and Skills Training program (I-BEST), developed by the community and technical colleges in Washington State to increase the rate at which adult basic skills…

During the 1987-88 school year, 12 academy programs were operating in California under state sponsorship, including the two original Peninsula Academies in operation since 1981, and 10 replications of these, called Partnership Academies. The academies are designed to reduce the number of dropouts among at-risk high school youth. They combine a…

This book examines the capacity of the career academy--one of the initiatives spawned by the school-to-work movement--to address academic reform in terms of increased education and workplace skills. Qualitative data collected as part of a 7-year local evaluation of career academies and a data set that contains transcript data on a population of…

A longitudinal study examined the college and career transitions of graduates of the Lansing Area Manufacturing Partnership (LAMP) program, which is a school-to-career (STC) program sponsored by the United Auto Workers, General Motors Corporation, and Michigan's Ingham County Intermediate School District. The progress of three cohorts of LAMP…