MAKING IT HAPPEN How Career Academies Can Build College and Career Exploration Programs
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MAKING IT HAPPEN How Career Academies Can Build College and Career Exploration Programs Mary G. Visher Jacklyn N. Altuna Stephanie Safran January 2013 Making It Happen How Career Academies Can Build College and Career Exploration Programs Mary G. Visher Jacklyn N. Altuna Stephanie Safran with Marie-Andrée Somers January 2013 Funding for this report was provided by the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education, under grant number PR/Award R305B070702, and by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Dissemination of MDRC publications is supported by the following funders that help finance MDRC’s public policy outreach and expanding efforts to communicate the results and implica- tions of our work to policymakers, practitioners, and others: The Annie E. Casey Foundation, The George Gund Foundation, Sandler Foundation, and The Starr Foundation. In addition, earnings from the MDRC Endowment help sustain our dissemination efforts. Contrib- utors to the MDRC Endowment include Alcoa Foundation, The Ambrose Monell Foundation, Anheuser-Busch Foundation, Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation, Charles Stewart Mott Founda- tion, Ford Foundation, The George Gund Foundation, The Grable Foundation, The Lizabeth and Frank Newman Charitable Foundation, The New York Times Company Foundation, Jan Nichol- son, Paul H. O’Neill Charitable Foundation, John S. Reed, Sandler Foundation, and The Stupski Family Fund, as well as other individual contributors. The findings and conclusions in this report do not necessarily represent the official positions or policies of the funders. For information about MDRC and copies of our publications, see our Web site: www.mdrc.org. Copyright © 2013 by MDRC.® All rights reserved. Overview Preparing high school students for both college and career is a goal that few can disagree with. But while much attention has focused on how to prepare students academically for life after high school, less has been directed at the nonacademic skills and knowledge that students need to succeed in college and the workplace. Schools are expected to teach these skills and knowledge, but they are rarely given the support, guidance, and tools needed to do so. Career academies — small schools within schools that are organized by a career theme — are particularly well positioned to provide these “21st-century skills.” Indeed, work-based learning experiences, such as internships, are a central, possibly an instrumental, component of the career academy model. Yet even career academies struggle to make college and career exploration and awareness-building curricula a central part of every student’s experience. With a grant from the Institute of Education Sciences in the U.S. Department of Education, MDRC and its project partner Bloom Associates piloted a program to help academies build college and career exploration programs. Called “Exploring Career and College Options (ECCO),” the program consists of a series of one-hour in-class lessons, visits to local work sites and college campuses, and a six-week internship with a concurrent weekly seminar that is offered in the summer before or during the senior year. If the program is fully implemented, by the time students graduate from an ECCO career academy, they will have received up to 44 lessons, participated in at least two visits to work sites and two to college campuses, and completed a six-week compensated internship. This report summarizes findings from a three-year study of 18 academies in three states — Califor- nia, Florida, and Georgia — that implemented ECCO from 2009 through 2012. Key Findings • ECCO significantly improved the capacity of career academies to offer college and career exploration curricula and activities. Academies with little or no existing capacity were able to launch all the components of the ECCO program within the first year. • As a consequence of this increased capacity, students in ECCO academies participated in career and college exploration activities at substantially higher rates than students who were enrolled in the same academies before ECCO was implemented. • The ECCO academies were successful in placing into internships most of the students who were interested in and available for them. The internship component of the academy model is often viewed as the most challenging aspect of implementation. Surprisingly, when students did not participate in the internship program, they more likely opted out of it, rather than what has commonly been cited as the reason for low take-up rates — that not enough employers choose to host interns. The students’ reasons for opting out of an internship included mandatory sum- mer school and already having a summer job lined up. iii Contents Overview iii List of Exhibits vii Preface xi Acknowledgments xiii Executive Summary ES-1 1 Introduction 1 Overview of the ECCO Program 1 Key Findings from the Project 2 Career Academies: A Durable and Effective Model for High School Reform 3 The Challenges of Offering Work-Based Learning Experiences 4 A Theory of Change 5 A Note on 21st-Century Skills 6 What This Study Can — and Cannot — Conclude About the Promise of ECCO to Affect Student Outcomes 9 A Project in Three Phases 10 Data Sources 15 Overview of the Report 15 2 The ECCO Model 17 Overview of the ECCO Program 17 A Closer Look at the ECCO Program Components 18 3 The Implementation Experiences of the Four Pilot Academies 25 Introduction 25 Key Findings 25 Overview of the Pilot Academies 26 The Implementation of ECCO’s Core Components 27 Resources: A Critical Factor in High-Fidelity Implementation 44 Looking Ahead 44 4 The Implementation Experiences of the Scale-Up Districts and Academies 47 Overview of the Scale-Up Phase 47 The Scale-Up Academies: Recruitment and Attrition 50 The Implementation of ECCO’s Core Components 50 Training and Support 56 Conclusions 57 v 5 Exploring the Potential of ECCO for Improving Short-Term Student Outcomes 59 Introduction 59 Research Questions and Methods 59 Findings 64 Interpreting the Findings 77 6 Conclusions 79 Appendix A Data Sources and Survey Response Analysis 83 B Additional Findings About Implementation 95 C Additional Analyses of Student Outcomes and Methodological Explanations 99 References 131 Earlier MDRC Publications on Career Academies 133 vi List of Exhibits Table ES.1 ECCO Components, by Grade Level ES-2 1.1 Selected Characteristics of the Pilot Academies 12 1.2 Selected Characteristics of Enrolled Students and Survey Respondents, Pilot Academies 13 1.3 Characteristics of the Three Scale-Up Districts 15 2.1 ECCO Components, by Grade Level 19 2.2 ECCO Topic Lessons, by Grade Level 20 3.1 Internship Program Development, from Initial Contacts with Employers to Internship Placement, Pilot Academies 34 3.2 Students’ Plans for Participating in Summer Internships, Pilot Academies 37 3.3 Characteristics of Students Participating in Summer Internships (Among Survey Respondents), Pilot Academies 38 3.4 Implementation of Internship Program Practices as Reported by Interns and Supervisors, Pilot Academies 41 3.5 Perceptions of Internship Program Quality as Reported by Interns and Supervisors, Pilot Academies 43 4.1 Training, Support, and Site Payments in the Pilot and Scale-Up Sites 49 4.2 ECCO Coordinators’ Views on Lessons and Career Exploration Visits, Scale-Up Academies 52 5.1 Changes in Average Scores on Scales Measuring Short-Term Outcomes from Spring 2010 to Spring 2011, First-Year Academies (AOAT and HTM)1 70 5.2 Changes in Average Scores on Scales Measuring Short-Term Outcomes from Spring 2010 to Spring 2011, Second-Year Academies (COA and DSA) 72 1The findings result from comparing participation rates at three points in time: the year prior to the academy’s implementing ECCO, one year after implementation started, and two years after implementation. The first comparison (before and after one year of implementation) uses data on students in two academies: the Academy of Art and Technology (AOAT) and the Center for Hospitality, Tourism, and Marketing (HTM). The second comparison (between one and two years of implementation) uses data on students in two other academies: the Culinary Operations Academy (COA) and the Digital Safari Academy (DSA). vii Table 5.3 Beliefs About Connections Between School and Future: Changes Over Time Across Consecutive Cohorts of Students (Tenth and Eleventh Grades), First-Year Academies (AOAT and HTM) 73 5.4 Students’ Perceptions of Learning Outcomes from Internship Program, Pilot Academies 74 5.5 Percentages of Interns and Supervisors Who Reported Growth in Interns’ 21st-Century Skills, Pilot Academies 75 A.1 Quantitative Data Sources for Student Characteristics and Outcomes, Pilot Academies 86 A.2 Student Survey Response Rates, by Year and Grade Level, Pilot Academies 89 A.3 Selected Characteristics of Survey Respondents, by Survey Year, Pilot Academies 90 A.4 Selected Characteristics of Survey Respondents and Nonrespondents, Pilot Academies 91 A.5 Selected Characteristics of Survey Respondents, by Academy, Pilot Academies 93 B.1 Number of Students Who Participated in Summer Internships, by Academy, 2010 and 2011 Combined, Pilot Academies 97 B.2 Time Spent by ECCO Coordinators, Pilot Academies 98 C.1 Short-Term Student Outcomes: Constructs and Survey Items 101 C.2 Beliefs About Connections Between School and Future: Changes Over Time Across Consecutive Cohorts of Students, Second-Year Academies (COA and DSA) 102 C.3 Selected Characteristics of Students Who Responded to Both Surveys, Compared with Students Who Responded in Spring 2010 Only,