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Preparing Students for College and Career in the United States: the Effects of Career-Themed Programs of Study on High School Performance

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Abstract

In the United States, education policy calls for every student to graduate from high school prepared for college and a career. National legislation has mandated programs of study (POS), which offer aligned course sequences spanning secondary and postsecondary education, blending standards-based academic and career and technical education (CTE) content and often including work-based learning opportunities. This study examined the effects of these career-themed POS on high school achievement outcomes in the United States. We used structural equations and an instrumental variable approach to test the effects of POS enrollment and participation in CTE course sequences on GPA and graduation. Results indicated that POS enrollment improved students’ probability of graduation by 11.3 % and that each additional CTE credit earned in POS increased their probability of graduation by 4 %. There were non-significant effects for high school GPA. These findings suggest that POS benefited students in terms of retention at no cost to their achievement.

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Notes

  1. All names are pseudonyms.

  2. Note that the estimated associations of gender and IEP with POS enrollment are no longer significant once the nested structure of the data is taken into account using the complex sampling function in MPlus 7.11.

  3. These are the key specifications that enable the SEM to produce instrumental variable estimates. This accomplishes the same thing as two-stage least squares (2SLS).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, IL, USA

    Marisa E. Castellano

  2. School of Human Services, College of Education, Criminal Justice, and Human Services, University of Cincinnati, 6305B Reccenter, Cincinnati, OH, USA

    George B. Richardson

  3. Southern Regional Education Board (SREB), Atlanta, GA, USA

    Kirsten Sundell

  4. National Research Center for Career and Technical Education at SREB, Atlanta, GA, USA

    James R. Stone III

Authors
  1. Marisa E. Castellano
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  4. James R. Stone III
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Correspondence to George B. Richardson.

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Funding

The work reported herein was supported under the National Research Center for Career and Technical Education, PR/Award (No. VO51A070003) as administered by the Office of Career, Technical, and Adult Education, U.S. Department of Education.

However, the contents do not necessarily represent the positions or policies of the Office of Career, Technical, and Adult Education or the U.S. Department of Education and you should not assume endorsement by the Federal Government.

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Castellano, M.E., Richardson, G.B., Sundell, K. et al. Preparing Students for College and Career in the United States: the Effects of Career-Themed Programs of Study on High School Performance. Vocations and Learning 10, 47–70 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12186-016-9162-7

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