Career Academies

The Career Academies are a program in the US to students from deprived areas to help. The program is particularly aimed at children with a migrant background , such as Hispanics .

Overview

A career academy is a special class within a state high school that prepares particularly intensively for college . Academic skills are particularly encouraged here. Career Academies often cover special subjects, such as health sciences or business administration . Participants also have English and math classes at a higher level than other students in the high schools concerned. The remaining subjects, however, are not taught in the Career Academy and the students have to fall back on the normal courses of their high school.

Not everyone can take part in the Career Academy ; the students have to be suggested by their teachers. In doing so, attention is also paid to social aspects. Furthermore, the students have to write a letter of motivation. Only a small percentage of applicants are ever admitted to the Career Academy, rarely more than 50–100 per year and school. In some cases there is a fee to attend the Career Academy , but the contribution rate is staggered so that the financial possibilities of the students' families are not exceeded. The majority of the students come from poor families . 24% live on food stamps.

In addition to the public ones, there are also private Career Academies that take place in the afternoons in addition to normal classes. They are financed by donations. The majority of students at these schools only have to pay a small part of the cost of their education through scholarships .

History of the Career Academies

The first Career Academy was founded in Philadelphia in 1969 and was called the Electrical Academy . It was founded at Thomas Edison High School, a school in a particularly difficult neighborhood. It turned out that students at the Career Academy were more successful than their classmates who did not attend the Career Academy. Today there are approximately 2,000 to 3,000 Career Academies in the United States . Exact figures are not available because some career academies are privately funded.

Career Academies successes

• Students who take part in the Career Academy are less likely to drop out of school (i.e., they are less likely to drop out of school) than students in a control group (students from the same neighborhoods and from similar family backgrounds)
• Career Academy students were more likely to graduate from college compared to control group students
• Career Academies students later earned more than control students. They made $ 1284 a year, or 10% more

Web links

• Information about Career Academies
• NCSET: Part III: What Works in Dropout Prevention?

literature

• Maxwell, NL, & Rubin, V. (2000): High school career academies: A pathway to educational reform in urban school districts? Kalamazoo, MI: WE Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.
• Stern, D., Dayton, C., Paik, IW, & Weisberg, A. (1989): Benefits and costs of dropout prevention in a high school program combining academic and vocational education: Third-year results from replications of the California Peninsula Academies . Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 11 (4), 405-416.
• Stern, D., Dayton, C., Paik, IW, Weisberg, A., & Evans, J. (1988): Combining academic and vocational courses in an integrated program to reduce high school dropout rates: Second-year results from replications of the California Peninsula Academies . Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 10 (2), 161-170.