Career and Technical Education

The Youth Policy Lab partnered with the Mayor’s Office, Connect Detroit, Detroit Employment Solutions Corporation (DESC), and other key stakeholders to evaluate the impact of the Grow Detroit’s Young Talent summer youth employment program on a variety of academic and non-academic...

In an effort to ensure all Michigan high school students are on paths to economic success, the Lab partnered with Michigan Department of Education’s Office of Career and Technical Education and the Michigan Department of Labor & Economic Opportunity to conduct research on the experiences and outcomes of young people that pursue career-focused educational pathways relative to peers who pursue other educational pathways. The team sought to understand the following questions:Who enrolls in secondary and post-secondary career pathway programs in Michigan?  What populations are not currently being...

Detroit Public Schools Community District, the Detroit Mayor’s Office, and the Youth Policy Lab have partnered to evaluate the impact of career technical education (CTE) and other career-focused education programs in Detroit on student outcomes. This evaluation seeks to understand which Detroit students participate in which are making a difference for participants, and how to best support continuous improvement in these...

Kalamazoo County passed a Career and Technical Education (CTE) millage in 2019 and wanted to use this new source of funding to restructure CTE delivery within the Kalamazoo Regional Education Service Agency (KRESA).   In addition to expanding career awareness and exploration opportunities among younger students, millage revenues were designated to build a new countywide technical center. KRESA approached YPL to ask for assistance identifying CTE programs the center should offer.  This project sought to answer the following research questions:Which occupations are projected to exhibit the...

After the publication of YPL’s statewide analyses of racial and socioeconomic inequities in access to Career and Technical Education (CTE), Washtenaw Intermediate School District (WISD) partnered with YPL to better understand CTE access in Washtenaw County. The research revealed that stark differences in CTE availability across districts led to many Washtenaw students having limited access to CTE, with especially unequal access to programs aligned with high-wage, high-demand occupations. Low-income, Black, and Hispanic students in Washtenaw County are less likely to attend schools that offer...

Once seen as an alternative to college, modern Career and Technical Education (CTE) is designed to be a pathway into postsecondary education and prosperous careers for all students. However, there is a lack of rigorous empirical research on the efficacy of high school CTE for preparing students for postsecondary education and the workforce.  Moreover, we do not know what factors may mediate these outcomes or whether CTE may benefit some students more than others. Through this project, the research team analyzed Michigan data to examine (a) the characteristics of CTE participants and...