High-school based career and technical education (CTE) programs continue to grow, fueled by labor market demand and federal funding. Amid concerns over declining rates of economic mobility and stagnating earnings for low-wage workers, the academic landscape in America’s secondary schools now places extensive focus on workforce preparation as part of the curriculum. Nationally, CTE is the most popular type of elective taken by high school students, with roughly 80 percent of high school students taking at least one course. Using data from Massachusetts, researchers from the CTEx consortium estimated that students who participated in specialized CTE programs in high school had better attendance rates, were more likely to graduate from high school, were more likely to enroll in a two-year college, and earned more money in the seven years after leaving high school

Dougherty, Shaun

Ecton, Walter G.

Kreisman, Daniel

Macdonald, Isabel Harbaugh

English

Georgia State University

Increasing Individuals’ Economic Stability through Massachusetts’ Career and Technical Education

High-school based career and technical education (CTE) programs continue to grow, fueled by labor market demand and federal funding. Amid concerns over declining rates of economic mobility and stagnating earnings for low-wage workers, the academic landscape in America’s secondary schools now places extensive focus on workforce preparation as part of the curriculum. Nationally, CTE is the most popular type of elective taken by high school students, with roughly 80 percent of high school students taking at least one course. Using data from Massachusetts, researchers from the CTEx consortium estimated that students who participated in specialized CTE programs in high school had better attendance rates, were more likely to graduate from high school, were more likely to enroll in a two-year college, and earned more money in the seven years after leaving high school.https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/gpl_reports/1037/thumbnail.jp

ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University

Georgia State University ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University Georgia Policy Labs Reports Georgia Policy Labs 10-1-2020 Increasing Individuals’ Economic Stability through Massachusetts’ Career and Technical Education Shaun Dougherty Vanderbilt University, shaun.dougherty@vanderbilt.edu Isabel Harbaugh Macdonald Harvard University, iharbaugh@g.harvard.edu Walter G. Ecton Vanderbilt University, walter.g.ecton@vanderbilt.edu Daniel Kreisman Georgia State University, dkreisman@gsu.edu Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/gpl_reports  Part of the Education Policy Commons, Policy Design, Analysis, and Evaluation Commons, and the Public Policy Commons Recommended Citation Dougherty, Shaun; Macdonald, Isabel Harbaugh; Ecton, Walter G.; and Kreisman, Daniel, "Increasing Individuals’ Economic Stability through Massachusetts’ Career and Technical Education" (2020). Georgia Policy Labs Reports. 38. doi: https://doi.org/10.57709/30728988 This Report is brought to you for free and open access by the Georgia Policy Labs at ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Georgia Policy Labs Reports by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. For more information, please contact scholarworks@gsu.edu.          Increasing Individuals’ Economic Stability through Massachusetts’ Career and Technical Education  October 2020   Shaun M. Dougherty Vanderbilt University  Walter G. Ecton Vanderbilt University Isabel Harbaugh Macdonald Harvard University  Daniel Kreisman Georgia State University   DISCLAIMER: All opinions expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the opinions of the Massachusets Department of Elementary and Secondary Educa�on.   Career & Technical Education Policy Exchange Georgia Policy Labs Increasing Individuals’ Economic Stability through Massachusets’ Career and Technical Educa�on 2  CTEx | GEORGIA POLICY LABS HIGHLIGHTS • CTE par�cipa�on in high school improves student atendance in ninth grade and high school gradua�on rela�ve to peers with similar characteris�cs. • College enrollment is also higher among all students par�cipa�ng in CTE, compared to otherwise similar peers. • Higher-income students are more likely to enroll in a four-year college, whereas lower-income students are more likely to enroll in a two-year college than similar peers who did not atend a CTE-focused high school.MOTIVATIONHigh-school based career and technical educa�on (CTE) programs con�nue to grow, fueled by labor market demand and federal funding through the Perkins Act.1 Amid concerns over declining rates of economic mobility and stagna�ng earnings for low-wage workers, the academic landscape in America’s secondary schools now places extensive focus on workforce prepara�on as part of the curriculum. Na�onally, CTE is the most popular type of elec�ve taken by high school students, with roughly 80 percent of high school students taking at least one course.  CTE in the United States is organized into 16 career clusters, each of which has its own set of career pathways (e.g., the web development pathway within the Informa�on Technology cluster). Roughly 40 percent of students enrolling in a CTE course go on to become “completers,” finishing a three-course sequence and a capstone experience such as work-based learning or taking an industry cer�fica�on examina�on. Across the country, CTE delivery methods vary, with the majority of students taking courses in their comprehensive high school—some in cross-district regional centers and many others atending a career academy or dedicated technical high school. Further, course  1 The Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act, now in its fi�h itera�on, provides significant funding for secondary CTE and includes CTE guidelines. and pathway offerings vary widely across schools, even within a district.   The program offerings and educa�on delivery structures for CTE in Massachusets con�nue to be an example to other states. In addi�on to the standard offerings and structure described above, they also offer an addi�onal level of quality control for the majority of their programs. Specifically, nearly 75 percent of programs receive an addi�onal level of cer�fica�on (Chapter 74 approval), which indicates the purposeful alignment of programming with local labor markets and the inclusion of employers, colleges, workforce investment boards, and organized labor on advisory boards.2 These boards help regulate the supply of new labor in program areas and ensure that the equipment and training programs used in those programs align with the current state of the art in the corresponding industry. However, even in this exemplar state, there is limited evidence of the impact of these programs on student outcomes. (Dougherty, 2018; Dougherty, Grindal, & Hehir, 2018).   Hence, key ques�ons remain. For example, do CTE programs increase high school gradua�on (poten�ally by offering a non-2 Chapter 74 references the state code that authorizes addi�onal state funding for programs that meet these addi�onal standards. Increasing Individuals’ Economic Stability through Massachusets’ Career and Technical Educa�on 3  CTEx | GEORGIA POLICY LABS collegiate path to well-paying jobs)? Does CTE par�cipa�on come at the expense of college atendance? And paramount, does CTE par�cipa�on improve employment and earnings? Policymakers seek to understand the effects of these programs on student outcomes, especially for low-income students who may choose these pathways seeking economic mobility.  In the following policy brief, we focus on the effects of receiving admission to a Chapter 74 program in Massachusets. These programs are in high demand among students, leading to oversubscrip�ons for many programs. Further, oversubscribed programs use a formula with a defined cutoff for admissions (described below), allowing us to compare students just above the threshold with those just below. We use this research design to answer two main ques�ons concerning the effects of Chapter 74 CTE programs on later outcomes. RESEARCH QUESTIONS 1) What is the effect of being admited to (and atending) a Chapter 74 CTE program in Massachusets on short- and medium-term measures of academic success and labor market outcomes? 2) Are the effects different for students with different family incomes? DATA, CONTEXT, AND METHODOLOGY DATA Our primary data set comprises individual-level data on over 500,000 Massachusets students in middle and high school for school years 2002 through 2020. These administra�ve data are provided through a partnership with the state of Massachusets Department of Elementary and Secondary Educa�on. The data set includes all student registra�on and demographic informa�on as well as applica�on and admissions records to seven regional and voca�onal technical high schools that were collected in partnership with the state. We also use state-mandated test score data, high-school comple�on, atendance, and discipline data. We supplement this state educa�on data with college enrollment and comple�on data from the Na�onal Student Clearinghouse and Unemployment Insurance records that capture quarterly earnings and employer informa�on.  STATE CONTEXT In Massachusets, CTE programs are delivered through tradi�onal comprehensive high schools, 27 Regional Voca�onal Technical Schools (RVTS) that draw students from mul�ple surrounding middle-school districts, five Municipal (City) Voca�onal Technical Schools that are operated by city school districts, one educa�on coopera�ve, and two countywide and one statewide agricultural school that focus primarily on agricultural subjects. In each of these schools, students alternate on a weekly basis between full-�me study in a chosen CTE field and tradi�onal academic coursework. Gradua�on requirements in core subjects like history, English, math, and science are consistent across comprehensive (i.e., non-voca�onal) and voca�onal high schools such that students at voca�onal high schools must complete the same number of courses in these fields. CTE program op�ons are varied in voca�onal high schools, with the average RVTS offering 13 program op�ons and no school offering fewer than 10 programs.   Voca�onal high school programs are also more likely to receive a special statewide dis�nc�on as being "Chapter 74-approved Increasing Individuals’ Economic Stability through Massachusets’ Career and Technical Educa�on 4  CTEx | GEORGIA POLICY LABS programs," meaning they meet certain requirements around student-teacher ra�os, space and equipment guidelines, and maintain partnerships with local labor and industry groups. On average, about 75 percent of all CTE program par�cipants par�cipate in Chapter 74 programs. All Chapter 74-approved programs also have approved admissions policies, which allow for more internally valid comparisons of students who did and did not par�cipate in Chapter 74 CTE programs.  DESIGN We use two analy�c approaches to generate es�mates of program effects. Using the applicants to oversubscribed technical high schools, we apply a fuzzy regression discon�nuity design where we compare outcomes for students who just cleared the admission threshold to students who just missed being admited. We use applica�on data to schools, along with a student’s posi�on rela�ve to a cutoff imposed by space limita�ons, to es�mate the impact of receiving an offer of admission. This approach allows us to conclude that differences in outcomes we observe are due to the causal effect of atending voca�onal school, rather than underlying differences between students who do and do not apply to voca�onal high schools. We then use ordinary least squares (OLS) regression models that control for proxy measures of applica�on data elements, as well as measures of town-of-residence, to approximate an average treatment effect. In both approaches, we es�mate heterogeneous impacts by eligibility for federally subsidized meals to determine whether there are differences in impacts for students of different income levels. RESULTS In this policy brief, we show impacts of CTE programs at seven RVTS that received more applicants than they could accommodate. For three of these schools, we observe students up to seven years a�er high school gradua�on, including both college and workforce outcomes. For the four schools, we lack data on long-term outcomes, but we find similar impacts on short-term outcomes, which we describe as a leading indicator of poten�al future impacts. We pay par�cular aten�on to differen�al impacts on students who are eligible for federally subsidized meals (Free- and Reduced-Price Lunch, an imprecise but best available measure of low-income status) to determine if impacts are larger or smaller across this dimension. Extending this analysis to the larger sample of students who were eligible to apply to one of these schools and to the state as a whole, we demonstrate that impacts es�mated in the oversubscribed, specialized schools appear similar to impacts across the rest of the state.  We find that rela�ve to otherwise similar applicants who were (just) not admited, students who are (just) admited to oversubscribed technical high schools • are more likely to pass both the English language arts and math tests required to earn a high school diploma; • have higher ninth-grade atendance, regardless of family income; • are more likely to graduate from high school on �me; and • are more likely to enroll in two-year college, though four-year college going differs by family income.   Increasing Individuals’ Economic Stability through Massachusets’ Career and Technical Educa�on 5  CTEx | GEORGIA POLICY LABS • Higher-income students are more likely and lower income students are less likely to atend a four-year college if they had received an offer to atend a technical high school. • While a rela�vely small sample led to imprecise measures of labor market effects, our results are sugges�ve of posi�ve returns to atending a technical high school at one, three, five, and seven years a�er gradua�ng. • Results do not vary meaningfully by loca�on.  IMPLICATIONS FOR POLICY AND PRACTICE Our results suggest that, on average, par�cipa�ng in high-quality and focused CTE programming in Massachusets high schools provides academic and workforce prepara�on benefits. Atendance and test score impacts suggest that CTE programs may impart similar math and English language arts skills while improving engagement and smoothing transi�on to college or the workforce. One area of poten�al concern is the lower rate of four-year college going among lower-income students—all else equal. Understanding whether perceived college costs, differences in the college-level programming aligned with CTE programs in high school, or some other mechanism explains this is an important next step in understanding the effects of CTE for low-income students.   Increasing Individuals’ Economic Stability through Massachusets’ Career and Technical Educa�on 6  CTEx | GEORGIA POLICY LABS REFERENCES Dougherty, S.M. (2018). The Effect of Career and Technical Educa�on on Human Capital Accumula�on: Causal Evidence from Massachusets, Education Finance & Policy, 13(2), www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/EDFP_a_00224  Dougherty, S.M., Grindal, T., & Hehir, T. (2018). The Impact of Career and Technical Educa�on on Students with Disabili�es, Journal of Disability Policy Studies, 29(2), 108-118.                    ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We acknowledge the generous support of the JPB Founda�on and Arnold Ventures and the partnership of the Massachusets Department of Elementary and Secondary Educa�on for crea�ng the condi�ons to complete this work.   Increasing Individuals’ Economic Stability through Massachusets’ Career and Technical Educa�on 7  CTEx | GEORGIA POLICY LABS ABOUT THE AUTHORSShaun M. Dougherty is an associate professor of public policy and educa�on at Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College of Educa�on & Human Development. His work focuses on educa�on policy analysis, causal program evalua�on and cost analysis, and the economics of educa�on, with an emphasis on career and technical educa�on. He is a co-founding member of the Career & Technical Educa�on Policy Exchange (CTEx)—a consor�um of researchers and state partners working to inform the future of CTE policy—and co-PI on the IES-funded CTE Research Network. Shaun has a Bachelor of Science in mathema�cs from the University of Massachusets, a master’s degree in educa�onal leadership from Gwynedd Mercy University, and a Doctor of Educa�on in quan�ta�ve policy analysis from Harvard University.  Walter G. Ecton is a Ph.D. candidate in educa�onal leadership, policy, and organiza�ons at Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College. His research focuses on the intersec�ons between high school, higher educa�on, and the workforce and the pathways students take as they navigate those sectors. His work primarily explores career and technical educa�on, both in the K-12 and higher educa�on spaces. Prior to his doctoral work, he taught high school social studies at Booker T. Washington High School in the Atlanta Public School system and served as associate director of new business development at the Educa�on Advisory Board. He holds a bachelor’s in poli�cal science and theater studies from Emory University and a master’s in peace and conflict studies from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.  Isabel Harbaugh Macdonald is a doctoral candidate in public policy at Harvard University, with a focus on labor and development economics. Her research focuses on educa�on and financial inclusion, both domes�cally and in countries like Pakistan and Kenya. Prior to her graduate studies, Isabel worked as a consultant for private businesses on their human capital and talent challenges. Isabel graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in economics and interna�onal rela�ons from Claremont McKenna College.  Daniel Kreisman is an associate professor of economics at Georgia State University. His research addresses topics at the intersec�on of public economics, labor economics, and educa�on policy. Dan is the founding director of the Career & Technical Educa�on Policy Exchange (CTEx)—a consor�um of researchers and state partners working to inform the future of CTE policy. Dan holds a Ph.D. in public policy from the University of Chicago and a B.A. in history and philosophy from Tulane University. Before graduate school, Dan taught high school English in New Orleans.           Increasing Individuals’ Economic Stability through Massachusets’ Career and Technical Educa�on 8  CTEx | GEORGIA POLICY LABS ABOUT THE GEORGIA POLICY LABS The Georgia Policy Labs (GPL) is a collabora�on between Georgia State University and a variety of government agencies to promote evidence-based policy development and implementa�on. Housed in the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, GPL works to create an environment where policymakers have the informa�on and tools available to improve the effec�veness of exis�ng government policies and programs, try out new ideas for addressing pressing issues, and decide what new ini�a�ves to scale. The goal is to help government en��es more effec�vely use scarce resources and make a posi�ve difference in people’s lives. GPL has three components: The Metro Atlanta Policy Lab for Educa�on works to improve K-12 educa�onal outcomes; the Career & Technical Educa�on Policy Exchange focuses on high-school-based career and technical educa�on in mul�ple U.S. states; and the Child & Family Policy Lab examines how Georgia’s state agencies support the whole child and the whole family. In addi�on to conduc�ng evidence-based policy research, GPL serves as a teaching and learning resource for state officials and policymakers, students, and other cons�tuents. See more at gpl.gsu.edu. 

Millions of high school students who take an Advanced Placement (AP) course in one of over 30 subjects can earn college credit by performing well on the corresponding AP exam. Using data from four metro-Atlanta public school districts, we find that 15 percent of students’ AP courses do not result in an AP exam. We estimate that up to 32 percent of the AP courses that do not result in an AP exam would result in a score of 3 or higher, which generally commands college credit at colleges and universities across the United States. We then examine disparities in AP exam-taking rates and have three main takeaways. First, we find evidence consistent with the positive impact of school district exam subsidies on AP exam-taking rates. In fact, students on free and reduced-price lunch (FRL) in the districts that provide a higher subsidy to FRL students than non-FRL students are more likely to take an AP exam than their non-FRL counterparts, after controlling for demographic and academic covariates. Second, Black students are 4 percentage points less likely to take an AP exam than their White peers, even among those with the same academic credentials and from the same high school. Third, we find no evidence that a female student paired with a female AP course teacher takes the AP exam at a higher rate as compared to being paired with a male teacher, even in courses that are underrepresented by females

Fazlul, Ishtiaque

Jones, Todd R.

Smith, Jonathan

College Credit on the Table? Advanced Placement Course and Exam Taking

https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1024&amp;context=gpl_policybriefs

Increasing Individuals’ Economic Stability through Massachusetts’ Career and Technical Education

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