Promising Practice – Career Clusters – CART
Career clusters are groups of similar occupations and industries, developed for the purpose of organizing career planning. The Center for Advanced Research and Technology (CART), a high school in Clovis, California, has adopted the Linked Learning approach to combine rigorous academics with career clusters. Linked Learning offers secondary students a multi-year course of study that combines academic and technical learning organized around broad industry sectors, such as biomedical and health sciences; finance and business; information technology; public services; and arts, media and entertainment. Within each cluster are several career-specific laboratories in which students complete industry-based projects and receive academic credit for advanced English, science, social science, and technology.
CART’s mission is to “collaborate with businesses and community agencies to educate students in a cross curricular, project-based environment that is academically rigorous, and facilitated through a business-based instructional model.” CART’s goals include increasing student achievement by offering students a curriculum that provides application of academics through real-world projects and experiences such as job shadowing and internships. CART seeks to prepare students for entry-level technological positions, certifications, and/or university admission.