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High school Career and Technical Education (CTE) has received increased attention from policymakers and researchers in recent years. This study fills a needed gap in the growing research base by examining heterogeneity within the wide range of programs falling under the broad moniker of CTE, highlighting the need for nuance in research and policy conversations that often consider CTE as monolithic. Using student-level course-taking records, unemployment insurance, and National Student Clearinghouse data, we examine outcomes including earnings, postsecondary education, and poverty avoidance. We find substantial differences for students in fields as diverse as health care, Information Technology (IT), and construction. We also highlight heterogeneity for student populations historically overrepresented in CTE, and we find large differences in outcomes for CTE students, particularly by gender.

Policy makers have taken more interest in career and technical education (CTE) in recent years, but evidence regarding what kinds of programs produce the most important outcomes is still emerging. Shaun M. Dougherty summarizes what recent research tells us about the impact of these programs. Evidence has shown that CTE-dedicated schools, career academies, and programs linked to workforce needs can improve high school graduation rates and workforce earnings, but research is still emerging on how well CTE programs prepare students for postsecondary education. Most of the recent research has not focused on equity in CTE programs, and educators must remain vigilant to ensure equitable access and outcomes.

A growing body of research recognizes the critical role of the school principal, demonstrating that school principals' effects on student outcomes are second only to those of teachers. Yet policy makers have often paid little attention to principals, choosing instead to focus policy reform on teachers. In the last decade, this pattern has shifted somewhat. Federal policies such as Race to the Top (RTTT) and Elementary and Secondary Education Act waivers emphasized principal quality and prompted many states to overhaul principal evaluation as a means to develop principals' leadership practices and hold them accountable for the performance of their schools. The development and dissemination of principal evaluation policies has proceeded rapidly, however, it is unclear whether focusing on principal evaluation has targeted the most impactful policy lever. In this policy brief, we describe where policy makers have placed their bets in post-RTTT principal evaluation systems and comment on the wisdom of these wagers. We describe the degree to which principal evaluation components, processes, and consequences vary across the fifty states and the District of Columbia, and review evidence on which aspects of principal evaluation policies are most likely to improve principals' practice and hold them accountable.

Prior research demonstrates the important role that financial considerations play in prospective students' decision making when applying to and enrolling in graduate school. Racially/ethnically minoritized students, in particular, face persistent challenges during the graduate application and enrollment process. Capitalizing on a natural experiment, we identify the effects of introducing a PhD fellowship on the composition of applicants and enrolling students in PhD programs at a large public university's graduate school of education. Using administrative data from 9 years of applications, we use difference-in-differences and event study analyses to show that the fellowship increased the number of applicants overall, as well as the share of Black applicants and enrollees in impacted cohorts, with no significant effects on academic preparation. To better understand why and how a PhD fellowship might impact students' application behaviors and experiences once in graduate school, we supplement our primary findings with survey responses from current PhD students at the graduate school of education.

Purpose: This mixed-methods study examined the association between the degree to which principal evaluation systems include intrinsic and extrinsic sources of motivation and principals' perceptions of whether their district's evaluation system promotes leadership change and improvement. We also investigated how principals experience intrinsic sources of motivation in the context of principal evaluation. Research Methods/Approach: For our quantitative analysis, we administered surveys to 82 elementary and middle school principals in 21 districts in Connecticut, Michigan, and Tennessee. We used multiple regression analysis to identify factors associated with principals' perceptions of their district evaluation systems. For our qualitative analysis, we selected six principals from the 82 survey participants. We used the constant comparative method and a consensus approach to coding the interview data; this enabled us to identify linkages between key codes and broader themes. Findings: Our quantitative analyses indicated that principals' perceptions of whether their evaluation system promoted leadership improvement were strongly associated with the degree to which they reported that their evaluation system included intrinsic sources of motivation. Our qualitative analysis revealed clear differences among principals with regard to their interactions with district administrators, the nature of their principal professional development activities, and their experiences with autonomy, feedback, and district expectations. Implications: Principal evaluation and professional development are under-researched topics. This study identified mechanisms through which principals seem to find evaluation intrinsically motivating. This is one of the first studies to empirically test Firestone's argument that evaluation systems that support intrinsic motivation are more effective than those that emphasize extrinsic motivation.

School closings in response to COVID-19 reduced the opportunity for students to engage in all learning including career and technical education (CTE). As a result of the COVID-19 disruption student opportunities for work-based learning and completion of hours required for professional certification was severely reduced. The absence of these experiences had the potential to create disruptions in the skill and experience accumulation for youth and their transition to the labor market. Prior research demonstrated that CTE training and certifications in high school improve earnings and employment outcomes for students, particularly those from marginalized communities. This paper uses administrative data from Massachusetts to investigate whether COVID-19 disruptions differentially influenced outcomes for CTE students relative to non-CTE students. We find graduation rates fell for all students, but students in specialized CTE high schools experienced smaller declines. These smaller differences were apparent for CTE students from lower-income families and those with disabilities. In contrast, students in large cities where the influence of COVID-19 was elevated fared less well, even among CTE participants. In contrast to educational attainment, graduating seniors continued earning industry credentials comparably to pre-COVID-19 rates. This work illuminates how the pandemic disrupted youth transitions to adulthood, particularly in marginalized communities.

In the United States, high school career and technical education (CTE) is the primary source of vocational training at the secondary level, and is similar in goal if not form to vocational education and training (VET) worldwide. CTE has evolved in the past decade to place greater emphasis on programmes in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM), mirroring parallel changes in the economy. Little is known, however, about how the rise of STEM CTE programmes have affected participation for students of different backgrounds, and how changes in participation interact with changes in programme offerings. In this paper, we use administrative data from the state of Massachusetts to first document the expansion of CTE and STEM CTE programmes over a decade. We then estimate what student-level factors are associated with participation, including gender, race, socioeconomic status, first language, and disability. We identify important variation in programme participation, particularly among groups historically overrepresented in CTE, and underrepresented in STEM. Leveraging Massachusetts as a case study, we discuss implications for the STEM pipeline and other state and local contexts. Similarly, as VET programmes across many nations consider who has access to what programmes, lessons from Massachusetts may inform policies to ensure equitable access.

Using data from Rhode Island, and deploying a fuzzy regression-discontinuity design, this study capitalizes on a natural experiment in which schools, in accordance with the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) waivers, were sorted into performance categories based on a continuous performance measure. The lowest performing schools were then mandated to implement interventions. We find that schools implementing fewer interventions perform no differently than comparable schools without such requirements. Additionally, schools just required to implement more interventions performed worse than comparable schools implementing fewer. Finally, we find differences in the probability of student mobility from lower performing schools.

A large body of research supports the efficacy of small group reading interventions for students in Grades K through 3. However, there are few studies evaluating the effects of supplemental Tier-2 intervention implemented within a response to intervention (RTI) or multitiered systems of support (MTSS) framework. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of providing Tier-2 supplemental intervention to students in Grades 1 through 3 identified as experiencing reading difficulties (n = 318) in four elementary schools across four different school districts that were selected to participate in a state MTSS initiative. The supplemental intervention was evaluated using a regression discontinuity design, and results indicated statistically significant overall effects on measures of phonemic awareness and word decoding and no discernable effects on reading fluency and comprehension. Results suggest that supplemental reading intervention implemented within MTSS frameworks can impact key reading outcomes when intervention significantly increases instructional intensity.

Each iteration of high stakes accountability has included requirements to include measures of attendance in their accountability programs, thereby increasing the salience of this measure. Researchers too have turned to attendance and chronic absence as important outcomes in evaluations and policy studies. Often, too little attention is paid to the implications of measurement or statistical modeling decisions employed in these studies. Such lack of attention to measurement and modeling can obscure important differences in these measures across the educational life cycle, as well as between the outcomes of higher income students and their lower-income peers. Using longitudinal data from a representative state, this paper demonstrates how measurement and modeling choices can influence model estimates and undermine the quality of inferences. These considerations have important implications for researchers and practitioners who wish to use attendance data to understand policy impacts and guide practice, particularly when focused on chronic absence.

Earlier work demonstrates that career and technical education (CTE) can provide long-term financial benefits to participants, yet few have explored potential academic impacts, with none in the era of high-stakes accountability. This paper investigates the causal impact of participating in a specialized high school-based CTE delivery system on high school persistence, completion, earning professional certifications, and standardized test scores, with a focus on individuals from low-income families, a group that is overrepresented in CTE and high school noncompleters. Using administrative data from Massachusetts, I combine ordinary least squares with a regression discontinuity design that capitalizes on admissions data at three schools that are oversubscribed. All estimates suggest that participation in a high-quality CTE program boosts the probability of on-time graduation from high school by 7 to 10 percentage points for higher income students, and suggestively larger effects for their lower-income peers and students on the margin of being admitted to oversubscribed schools. This work informs an understanding of the potential impact of specific CTE program participation on the accumulation of human capital even in a high-stakes policy environment. This evidence of a productive CTE model in Massachusetts may inform the current policy dialog related to improving career pathways and readiness.

This study capitalizes on the performance identification system under the No Child Left Behind waivers to estimate the school-level impact of just missing formal state recognition as a high-performing school. Using a fuzzy regression-discontinuity design and data from the early years of waiver implementation in Rhode Island, we find that, when schools that just missed achieving status as a high-performing school (i.e., leading) were located in districts with a large proportion of schools achieving this status, they performed better in subsequent years. Alternatively, when similar schools were in districts with few leading schools, we find no effects.

A long-standing debate has been waged over the past century or more about the purpose of education. Is the primary purpose to provide for the general edification of the individual, or must education have a pragmatic application that relates to one's intended role in the workforce? Public education's focus on these ends has evolved over time, often in relation to changing economic demands. Using a broad historical lens to examine recent developments, incorporating salient historical debates and social forces, the authors attempt to better understand how the relationship between education and preparation for the workforce has changed over time. They focus on the proliferation of federal innovations in this area over the past 100 years and consider persistent themes in philosophical and policy debates. They supplement this broad history and context with the results of a more focused survey of the literature in career and technical education, with search terms that yielded scholarship from the past 50 years. Drawing themes from this more recent literature, and in light of historical foci, the authors make recommendations for future directions of scholarship.

This study investigates how recent policies employed under states' waivers to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) intersect with charter schools' purpose and functioning. By collecting and analyzing all ESEA waivers granted in 2013, we find that charter schools are disproportionately represented among schools as identified in the priority and focus areas in ESEA waiver states. Additionally, we find that the elements often argued to enable charters to be innovative are the very same ones being challenged by the ESEA waiver interventions associated with poor performance. Taken together, these findings suggest a need for further consideration of both how low performing charter schools come to persist as well as how states and districts may best intervene when such low performance occurs.

Taking algebra by eighth grade is considered an important milestone on the pathway to college readiness. We highlight a collaboration to investigate one district's effort to increase middle school algebra course-taking. In 2010, the Wake County Public Schools began assigning middle school students to accelerated math and eighth-grade algebra based on a defined prior achievement metric. This policy reduced the relationship between course assignment and student characteristics such as income and race/ethnicity, while increasing its relationship to academic skill. The policy increased the share of students on track for algebra by eighth grade. Students placed in accelerated math were exposed to higher-skilled peers but larger classes. Future work will assess impacts on subsequent achievement and course-taking outcomes.

Strong literacy skills are crucial to ensuring an individual's future educational and economic success. Existing evidence suggests the transition from elementary to middle school is a decisive period for literacy development. In this paper I investigate the impact of extended learning time in literacy instruction on subsequent cognitive outcomes. I capitalize on the existence of a natural experiment born out of a district's use of an exogenously-determined cutoff in Iowa Test scores in fifth grade to assign students to an additional literacy course in middle school. My findings suggest that exposure to this intervention generates strong negative impacts for black students, and noisy positive impacts for white, Latino, and Asian students. My findings suggest that additional literacy instruction in middle school can have markedly different effects on students, and program differentiation or augmentation may be necessary to prevent harm for students of average literacy ability in fifth grade.

In this study, we evaluate the efficacy of teacher communication with parents and students as a means of increasing student engagement. We estimate the causal effect of teacher communication by conducting a randomized field experiment in which sixth- and ninth-grade students were assigned to receive a daily phone call home and a text/written message during a mandatory summer school program. We find that frequent teacher-family communication immediately increased student engagement as measured by homework completion rates, on-task behavior, and class participation. On average, teacher-family communication increased the odds that students completed their homework by 40%, decreased instances in which teachers had to redirect students' attention to the task at hand by 25%, and increased class participation rates by 15%. Drawing upon surveys and interviews with participating teachers and students, we identify three primary mechanisms through which communication likely affected engagement: stronger teacher-student relationships, expanded parental involvement, and increased student motivation.

We examine the effect of attending stand-alone technical high schools in Connecticut using regression discontinuity. Male students are 10 percentage points more likely to graduate from high school and have half a semester less time enrolled in college. Male students have 32% higher average quarterly earnings. Earnings effects may in part reflect general skills: male students have higher attendance rates and test scores, industry fixed effects explain less than one-third of earnings gains, and large earnings gains persist past traditional college going years. Attending a technical high school does not affect the outcomes of female students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Collaborative governance research examines the role of individuals, organizations, and partnerships within a community to understand why particular interorganizational networks emerge. We take a different tact, arguing that communities adopt collaborative governance models based upon exposure to the models and the individual and organizational resources in a community. We conducted a web-based national-level scan of communities in the United States (N = 1,162) for the presence of one model of collaborative governance, education-focused collective impact. We found that spatial proximity, poverty rate, and individual resources each predicted the existence of collective impact in a U.S. county. Implications for collaborative governance research are drawn from the results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]