Absence of conflict of interest.
Citation
Sepanik, S., Nguyen, K., & Marshall, B. (2024). An evaluation of California Partnership Academies: Charting the path from high school to postsecondary enrollment. MDRC.
Highlights
- The study's objective was to examine the impact of California Partnership Academies (CPAs) on education and skills gains.
- The study was a randomized controlled trial that used California Department of Education student administrative data from the 2017-2018 through 2022-2023 school years survey data to compare education and skills gain outcomes of students offered a CPA spot to a control group of students not offered a spot.
- The study did not find statistically significant effects of CPAs on high school graduation, meeting California’s college readiness requirements at four or five years after the start of high school; the study also did not find statistically significant effects on or postsecondary enrollment in the first year after expected high school graduation.
- The quality of causal evidence presented in this report is high because it was based on a well-implemented RCT. This means we would be confident that any estimated effects would be attributable to California Partnership Academies (CPAs) and not to other factors. However, the study did not find statistically significant effects.
Intervention Examined
California Partnership Academies (CPAs)
Features of the Intervention
CPAs are state-supported high school career academies that operate a model with state requirements, which include serving students who are potentially at risk of not graduating, project-based learning, and aligning curricula with state-sanctioned industry sectors. The CPA model is delivered within traditional high schools, each as a small “school within a school,” where cohorts take most classes together and receive support from a dedicated counselor and a teacher team. CPAs integrate rigorous college-preparatory academics with sequenced career technical education and include employer partnerships that provide guidance and work-based learning activities such as speakers, mentoring, job shadowing, and internships.
Features of the Study
The study is a student-level randomized controlled trial that used lotteries to assign eligible applicants to a treatment group (n = 884) or a control group (n = 241). Study participants were students who applied to CPAs and were eligible based on the academies’ entry grade (typically entering in 9th or 10th grade, depending on the CPA). Students were recruited across three entry cohorts (2018–2020), and expected graduation years spanned 2020–2021 through 2023–2024, depending on entry grade and academy length. Students applied to an academy in the spring prior to entry, and because all participating academies were oversubscribed, the study used lotteries within academies to randomly assign students to a treatment group or a control group. The study treated each CPA lottery as a random assignment “block” to balance the sample.
The study included 15 CPAs. About half of the students in the analytic sample were of Hispanic descent and approximately 60% were identified as economically disadvantaged. Students in the treatment condition were offered a spot in a CPA. Students in the comparison condition were not offered a spot in the CPA.
The authors used California Department of Education student data from the 2017-2018 through 2022-2023 school years to measure key outcomes. The authors used statistical models, regression-adjusted for block random assignment and selected baseline characteristics, to compare the outcomes of students offered a CPA spot to students not offered a spot.
Findings
Education and skills gain
- The study did not find statistically significant effects of CPAs on high school graduation or meeting California’s college readiness requirements at four or five years after the start of high school; the study also did not find statistically significant effects on postsecondary enrollment in the first year after expected high school graduation.
Considerations for Interpreting the Findings
While most students complied with their random assignment by attending or not attending a CPA, there was the possibility for non-CPA-assigned students to cross over and attend a CPA or participate in activities with the same core components as CPAs. The authors report a low incidence of crossing over and contend that, even with participation in similar activities, the treatment and control conditions were still substantially different.
Causal Evidence Rating
The quality of causal evidence presented in this report is high because it was based on a well-implemented RCT. This means we would be confident that any estimated effects would be attributable to California Partnership Academies (CPAs) and not to other factors. However, the study did not find statistically significant effects.