This book explains the unique design and functioning of the career academy - a vigorous school-within-a-school that focuses on career preparation - and shows how it goes beyond traditional vocational programs to integrate academic and vocational curriculum, raise student ambitions, increase career options, and provide a meaningful learning context for both potential dropouts and college-bound youth. The authors provide education policy makers, administrators, and teachers with step-by-step guidance for setting up career academies. Drawing on their extensive experience in researching, administering, and evaluating career academies over the past decade, the authors offer advice on handling staffing, budgeting, student selection, and parental involvement. They explain how to build effective school-business partnerships by recruiting employers to serve as curriculum advisers, speakers, field trip hosts, and student job supervisors. And they use examples of thriving academy programs to illustrate how career academies are leading the way in bringing rigor and relevance back to the classroom.

An estimated 30% of California's entering 9th graders do not finish high school. In L.A. County the dropout rate, estimated at 55%, is higher than the graduation rate. The current focus on career tech. ed. (CTE) is a measure of the intensity of the search for solutions. CTE -- with its real world relevance and project-based learning -- is a way to engage students in education that is different than a purely academic approach. This study of CTE found encouraging evidence that CTE -- in its modern, academically demanding form -- can deliver an alternative approach to learning that can keep students engaged, help improve grade point averages and prepare students for both the work world and higher education. Illustrations.

Exploring the unique challenges of vocational education, this book provides simple and straightforward advice on how to teach English Language Learners in today's Career and Technical Education programs. The authors' teaching framework and case studies draw from common settings in which career and technical educators find themselves working with ELLs—in the classroom, in the laboratory or workshop, and in work-based learning settings. By integrating CTE and academic instruction, and embedding career development activities across the curriculum, readers will gain a better understanding of the challenges of teaching occupationally-oriented content to a diverse group of learners in multiples settings.