Career and Technical Education

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...

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 grea...

With funding from Urban Institute's Student Upward Mobility Initiative (SUMI), YPL is analyzing the Industry Recognized Credentials (IRCs) earned by high school students in Michigan Career and Technical Education (CTE) programs. The project includes 3 major goals: Develop a classification of credentials and evaluate credential quality across CTE fields of study.Analyze patterns of credential attainment across student groups and assess fairness, alignment with specific occupations, and relationships with other measures of academic achievement.Explore relationships between credential attainment ...

The Livingston Educational Service Agency (LESA) has partnered with Youth Policy Lab to better understand the college and career opportunities available to students in the county’s school districts and charter schools.  Through an analysis of both quantitative and qualitative data, YPL is looking at various programs, including Career and Technical Education (CTE), Advanced Placement (AP), Dual Enrollment (DE), and Early Middle College (EMC).  The research team’s work also includes collecting insights from school staff and administrators about the main challenges to expanding access and partici...