Absence of conflict of interest.
Citation
Highlights
- The study's objective was to examine the impact of Career and Technical Education (CTE) high schools on receipt of the Regents diploma.
- The study used a nonexperimental design to compare the outcomes of students who attended CTE-Dedicated high schools to a matched group of students who attended traditional high schools. Using student records, the authors conducted statistical models to compare differences between the groups.
- The study did not find a significant relationship between attending CTE-Dedicated high schools and graduation rates with a Regents diploma.
- This study receives a low evidence rating. This means we would not be confident that any estimated effects were attributable to CTE-Dedicated high schools; other factors would have likely contributed. However, the study did not find statistically significant effects.
Intervention Examined
Career and Technical Education (CTE)
Features of the Intervention
New York City offered both Career and Technical Education (CTE) dedicated schools and traditional schools to incoming high school students. Before starting ninth grade, students applied to CTE-Dedicated high schools to have better access to the job market following graduation while still being prepared for college. New York City's CTE-Dedicated schools exposed students to a range of career and technical topics by offering different CTE programs of study with at least three years of career-focused courses (e.g., construction, IT, health services). CTE-dedicated high schools partnered with employers and post-secondary institutions to offer work-based learning opportunities and college-level courses to students.
Features of the Study
The study used a matched comparison group design to examine the impact of the CTE-Dedicated high schools on receipt of the Regents diploma, a New York City high school diploma that shows extra skills in math, science, and foreign language skills. The treatment group included 16,623 students who applied and were selected to attend one of the 37 CTE-Dedicated high schools in the city. The comparison group included 16,303 students who applied to CTE-Dedicated high schools but were not accepted and attended traditional high schools. Students who attended traditional high schools took a comprehensive range of classes and had the option to enroll in CTE courses, but these were not required. The authors matched the treatment and comparison students on demographic and educational characteristics.
The primary data source was student records from the New York City Department of Education (NYCDOE). The authors used statistical models to compare the percent of treatment and comparison students who received a Regents diploma upon graduation from high school while controlling for students’ race/ethnicity, gender, and past school grades and experiences.
Findings
Education and skill gains
- The study did not find a significant relationship between attending a CTE-dedicated high school and graduation rates with a Regents diploma.
Considerations for Interpreting the Findings
Although the authors created a matched comparison group, they did not account for all preexisting differences between the groups before program participation. The authors matched on gender, race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and academic characteristics but did not match the students on age or control for it in their analyses as required by CLEAR. Therefore, the study is not eligible for a moderate causal evidence rating, the highest rating available for nonexperimental designs.
Causal Evidence Rating
The quality of causal evidence presented in this study is low because the authors did not ensure that the groups being compared were similar before program participation. This means we are not confident that any estimated effects would be attributable to CTE-Dedicated high schools; other factors would have likely contributed. However, the study did not find any statistically significant effects.