Programs of Study, College, and Career Readiness: CTE and Making High School Matter

Publication April 2013

This roundtable discussion, held at AERA 2013 in San Francisco, addressed how high schools have become increasingly narrow in focus – a new middle school; useful only to prepare youth for the next level of education: college. The net result is a system that ill-serves the 60% of students who start ninth grade and who will never complete a college degree. This argues for structuring opportunities to provide all young people multiple pathways to a productive adulthood by addressing the three domains of knowledge/skill required for success: occupational expression of academics, generalizable workplace skills and specific technical skills. One policy approach to addressing this challenge has been programs of study and more recently college and career readiness. This discussion addressed the current research and future possibilities of these policy initiatives.

Because no presentation was made during this roundtable, working notes (in PDF) may be downloaded below.

Stone, J. R., III. (2013, April). Programs of study, college, and career readiness: CTE and making high school matter. Roundtable presentation made at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, San Francisco, CA.

Download the presentation notes (PDF)