Compton Unified School District Career Technical Education (CTE) /Regional Occupational Programs (ROP)
Proposed Career Pathway Academies (Career Technical Education)
2014-15
Compton Unified School District will begin implementation of Academies in the 2014-15 school year. We are creating a pathway structure beginning in the middle school. Career Academies have been in existence for approximately 40 years in the United States with the first identified academy at Edison High School in 1968 in Philadelphia, PA. Since that time, over 7,000 academies have been established along with major organizations to support career academy development. In California, over 500 College and Career Academies have been established. The have proven to provide exceptional outcomes for student performance on standardized tests, school attendance, graduation and post-secondary activity for student participants. Schools implementing academies have witnessed graduation and college-going rates improve 10-30%. This information can be found at the College and Career Academy Support Network, housed at UC Berkeley. Their website is http://casn.berkeley.edu. The State of California and US Departments of Education and Labor will be providing competitive funds to develop career pathway academies and programs. These academies would include feeder Career Pathways from the middle schools to college and career connections. Combining employment projections from the CA Employment Development Department, local area industry demographics and student interest, the following Career Technical Education Academies represent an INITIAL proposal for Compton Unified School District which will embrace the STEAM model for academic programming – Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math. The three structural elements of a career academy are: 1. A small learning community, comprising a group of students within the larger high school who take classes together for at least 2 years, taught by a team of teachers from different disciplines 2. A college-preparatory curriculum with a career theme, enabling students to see relationships among academic subjects and their applications to a broad field of work 3. Partnerships with employers, the community, and local colleges, bringing resources from outside the high school to improve student motivation and achievement Model Area Districts Downey Unified School District Hawthorne School District Long Beach Unified School District Norwalk-La Mirada Unified School District Information supporting the implementation of Career Academies: College and Career Academy Support Network http://casn.berkeley.edu California Department of Education
http://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/gs/hs/cpaoverview.asp Linked Learning http://linkedlearning.org/ ConnectED http://www.connectedcalifornia.org/ National Academy Foundation http://naf.org/ United States Department of Education http://www.ed.gov/highschool National Career Academy Coalition http://www.ncacinc.com/ California Labor Market information http://www.labormarketinfo.edd.ca.gov/
Why Compton Needs Career Academies:
Increase student achievement Reduce the dropout rate Increase postsecondary attainment Help industries hire highly skilled workers Improve the earning prospects of students Align with other efforts to ensure youth and adults have the skills and credential our economy demands Benefit the future of Compton CUSD graduation rate is 57.5% (2011-12), source: CA Dept. of Education DataQuest.
Career academies are a 40-year, proven model that works in increasing college and career readiness for students. Career academies bring together academic and career/technical education into one comprehensive experience for students.