The Michigan Career Preparation system is designed to prepare students for higher education and successful competition in the job market by giving students opportunities to explore a variety of careers throughout their K-12 education. Specific goals of the system include ensuring that: (1) Career preparation is fully integrated into the Michigan education system; (2) All students, with their parents, are prepared to make informed choices about their careers; and (3) All students have the types and levels of skills, knowledge, and performance valued and required in their education and career choices. School-to-work initiatives in Michigan have struggled to find broad-based support. One struggle of the early school-to-work initiative was communicating the mission of the initiative to parents and to some educators who feared that school-to-work was an occupational program and did not promote or support college-bound programs, high academic achievement, or professional careers. How local districts implemented school-to-work systems was largely left up to the districts themselves: in areas of the state where school and business relationships were strong, these initiatives received support; in other areas, educators and employers struggled to find common ground, and educators saw the initiative as a work-based program. As a way to share the best practices that came out of local districts, the state hosted an annual school-to-work conference: these best practices were used by the state in the implementation of the current Career Preparation System, which broadened the scope of activities, participants, and goals and calls for schools to provide curriculum that emphasizes application of academics, opportunities to provide all students with career exploration and guidance, and general employability and technology skills. As the development of the Career Preparation System was underway, there was an effort by the state to address the concerns of educators who saw past and current school-to-work efforts as work-based. The system of Workforce Development Boards was redesigned to include Education Advisory Groups, committees comprised of academic and career technical educators from intermediate and local school districts as well as representatives from business and industry. In terms of participation, the state efforts to build a Career Preparation System are succeeding, based on number of districts currently participating or implementing Career Preparation programs. However, additional evaluation and accountability are recommended. To effectively determine whether the Career Preparation System is producing better-prepared students who are making better career decisions and experiencing better career outcomes, evaluation studies should compare outcomes for students who have participated in these activities with outcomes for comparable students who have not participated in these activities. Using control groups to determine the cause of the effect will help educators and state policy makers understand the true impact of the Career Preparation System. Michigan has moved to create a structure for the implementation of school-to-work, and one that appears to be reaching many students. However, knowledge regarding the causal impact of the Career Preparation System is lacking. And based on the annual investment in the Career Preparation System, Michigan should not delay efforts to formally evaluate its efforts, including the development of more rigorous evaluations of career preparation activities in Michigan. (Contains 5 footnotes and 1 figure.).

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Help students be more focused and team-oriented, and become the true drivers of their own learning by centering learning and planning around one of several broad career avenues.