A new breed of students has flooded into career-technical education, and they鈥檙e transforming a slice of the K-12 world that鈥檚 long suffered from stigma and disrespect.
These students are focusing on professions like engineering and health care instead of traditional trades like manufacturing and agriculture. They have higher grades and test scores, and more positive attitudes toward school. They come from better-educated families and are more likely to attend four-year colleges than their peers in old-school career-tech education or what was once known as 鈥渧ocational education.鈥�
Take Tony Peeler, for instance. The 18-year-old attends a career-tech-ed program at Yvonne A. Ewell Townview Center in Dallas. Under one roof, the program blends old and new: Students can dive into fields like automotive or dental assisting, or study fields like law or engineering that aren鈥檛 traditionally associated with vocational education.
Peeler comes from a professional family: Both his parents have bachelor鈥檚 degrees in accounting. He鈥檚 got his own plan mapped out: He鈥檚 immersing himself in law and criminal justice studies now, and he鈥檒l shift to biomedical engineering next fall, when he starts George Washington University in Washington D.C. Then it鈥檚 on to law school, so he can become a patent attorney.
With aspirations like his, Peeler says he fends off a good deal of confusion when he tells people he鈥檚 in a career-tech-ed program.
鈥淪ome people know it鈥檚 more than the traditional stuff like automotive and carpentry. But some of them, they say, isn鈥檛 that a way to have a career right out of high school? They don鈥檛 know,鈥� he said.
The expansion of the career-tech-ed tent, which appears to have taken shape in the last 10 to 15 years, marks a sea change in the world of students who choose career-oriented studies. And it carries the potential to ease the stigma that鈥檚 long dogged career-technical education.
Since the 1920s, when federal law first provided funding to states for programs in agriculture and the trades, students in vocational education have typically downplayed hefty academics鈥攁nd college鈥攊n favor of hands-on job preparation.
But makes the first data-based case that this could be changing as schools reshape their career-tech-ed programs and build their academic muscle. As a new breed of more academically inclined students flows into career-tech education, they could drive deep changes in those programs, and help erase the low-wage, blue-collar stigma that鈥檚 trailed them.
There鈥檚 risk in the new dynamics, too. The report notes that career-tech ed is 鈥渂ifurcating鈥� into distinctly different groups of students. That shift risks concealing, rather than solving, one of career-tech education鈥檚 key challenges: ensuring that students in traditional fields of study, like construction, are getting as good an education as their peers in white-collar CTE fields like computer science.
鈥淚f one of the real purposes of vocational education is to serve students who aren鈥檛 very academically inclined, and less likely to go to college, then an increasing share鈥� of the new kind of career-tech-ed student 鈥渃ould take the focus off the kids who need it the most,鈥� said Nat Malkus, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, and the author of the new report.
James Rosenbaum, who has long studied career-technical education as a professor of sociology and education at Northwestern University, said the changes outlined in the AEI study remind him of the dynamics he鈥檚 seen in racially integrated high schools.
鈥淵ou have this integrated school, but the lunch tables are almost always segregated,鈥� he said. 鈥淲ith CTE, you鈥檝e got all these kids falling under the career-tech-ed category, but they鈥檙e falling into two very separate kinds of occupational fields. The question is how to serve both of those groups well.鈥�
Finding A New Type of Career-Tech-Ed Student
Malkus analyzed student transcripts and several sets of federal data to document changes in the career-tech-ed student population and the courses they take, between 1982 and 2013.
He examined students who 鈥渃oncentrate,鈥� meaning they take three courses in one career field. He created two categories to describe the distinct student types that emerged: 鈥渢raditional vocational鈥� and 鈥渘ew era.鈥�
Traditional CTE students most often took courses in fields such as business, construction, manufacturing, and agriculture, while new-era students more often chose engineering, computer science, public service, communications, and health care.
The two groups鈥� family backgrounds and academic orientations show stark differences. Traditional vocational students鈥� math scores that hovered around the 38th percentile in 2013, while new-era students were averaging in the 51st percentile. Getting good grades was far more important to new-era students: 63 percent 鈥渟trongly agreed鈥� that this is important, compared to 46 percent of traditional CTE students.
Only one-quarter of traditional vocational-education students鈥� parents held bachelor鈥檚 degrees, compared to 4 in 10 of the new-era CTE students. Three years after high school graduation, nearly half of the new-era students were in four-year colleges; only one-quarter of the traditional CTE students were.
As the profile of the new career-tech-ed student has changed, so have the courses they鈥檝e chosen. A 75 percent drop in the volume of old-style business courses since 1982 reflects shifts in technology; few students take typing and office-procedure classes anymore.
But other course-taking shifts reflect changes in the job market and students鈥� priorities. Courses in the other popular CTE fields鈥攎anufacturing, human services, transportation, construction, and agriculture鈥攆ell in popularity by one-third between 1982 and 2013. The most-chosen new-era courses鈥攑ublic service, engineering, computer science, communications, health care, and hospitality鈥攎ore than doubled.
Forces Reshaping the Old 鈥榁oc Ed鈥�
A convergence of forces has produced these changes. The labor market鈥檚 demand for new skills has trickled into career-tech-ed programs.
The CTE field itself, too, has been working for years to shed its image as a route to low-paying jobs that require nothing more than a high school diploma. For decades, teachers and counselors funneled students they perceived as 鈥渘ot college material鈥濃�攄isproportionately low-income and minority students鈥攊nto voc-ed tracks.
But the rebranding of career-tech education appears to have worked, the AEI study says: New kinds of students are opting for career-tech-ed concentrations.
Rosenbaum noted that the Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Technical Education Act, the main federal law for career-tech education, drove that rebranding. In the past 15 years or so, Congress has rewritten Perkins to attract more academically inclined students, and better serve the labor market, he said. By outlining new career-tech-ed fields such as information technology, Perkins offered a roadmap that shaped schools鈥� programs, Rosenbaum said.
Because the new-era career-tech-ed students will 鈥渄isproportionately define CTE鈥檚 average characteristics,鈥� the AEI report says, policymakers could be tempted to conclude that career-tech-ed programs are improving. But that would 鈥渕ask鈥� an important truth, Malkus writes.
The 鈥渋mprovements鈥� are likely the result of adding more 鈥渁cademically oriented and otherwise college-going students to the CTE tent,鈥� rather than of broad improvements in the programs themselves, the study says.
Perkins now demands that schools conduct a much finer-grained analysis of how their CTE programs and students are doing, said Kate Kreamer, the deputy executive director of the group AdvanceCTE, which advocates for high-quality career-tech-ed programs. That data, which states must begin reporting in 2021, will help make the case for which programs are serving students well, and which ones aren鈥檛, she said.
The 鈥渂ig and important鈥� questions raised by the AEI report can spark valuable conversations as states and districts examine their programs, Kreamer said.
But she also cautioned against using Malkus鈥� two student groups鈥攐ne with higher academic achievements and aspirations than the other鈥攖o oversimplify career-tech ed.
鈥淲e run the risk of re-stigmatizing the more traditional CTE, and creating two new tracks, with 鈥楾hese are the programs we put these kids in, and these are the programs we put those kids in,鈥欌�� Kreamer said. 鈥淲e need to think about CTE as one system and figure out how to serve everyone well.鈥�
