ASCD believes a comprehensive approach to learning recognizes that successful young people are knowledgeable, emotionally and physically healthy, motivated, civically inspired, engaged in the arts, prepared for work and economic self-sufficiency, and ready for the world beyond their own borders. . . .

— ASCD Adopted Position on the Whole Child (2004)

Over the past decade, preschool initiatives, reading reform, and class size reduction efforts have helped focus attention on improving education at the elementary school level. Policy attention has also been paid to middle schools as educators have tried to figure out how best to reach students who are no longer children, but not yet adults. However, in all this activity, improving the high school experience for students has been lost.

High school reform efforts have generally taken two related approaches to improvement: a structural approach and a conceptual approach. The structural approach has focused on changing the school structures through which students experience high school. For example, through block scheduling, reformers have attempted to lengthen the concentrated time students have to experience various subject areas. Block scheduling has allowed more intensive, unified, and efficient course experiences, rather than forcing teachers to break complex learning activities into 50-minute segments—significant portions of which are spent on nonlearning activities (e.g., taking role, collecting and assigning homework, setting up the learning environment, etc.). Other structural reform efforts have included a focus on building smaller learning environments—either by creating new, small schools, such as through the Gates Foundation's work, or through breaking large, comprehensive high schools into smaller communities, as in the U.S. Department of Education's Smaller Learning Communities (SLC) Program.

The conceptual approach to high school reform works to revise the content and curriculum that students experience. This approach has focused on two related efforts: reconceptualizing education as an 18+ year continuum and increasing the rigor of the curriculum available to students. State Higher Education Executive Officers, a nonprofit association, has been particularly active in the P–16 movement—an attempt to redefine public education as a continuum that stretches from preK through college (Blanco et al., 2003). Other reformers have focused on strengthening the academic ability of students through increasingly advanced academic curricula (Barth, 2003), including the International Baccalaureate (IB) and Advanced Placement (AP) programs. The Washington Post has created the Challenge Index, which ranks schools based on access to AP/IB classes and the number of students graduating each year (“2004 Challenge Index,” 2004).

High school reforms are based on two important assumptions: the structures of high school frequently get in the way of educating students, and educational content should be more strongly focused on academics, with an emphasis on mathematics, literacy, and science. The fundamental goal of policymakers has become preparing students for the content they are likely to face in postsecondary education—particularly in colleges and universities.

This transition to a policy goal of sending all students to college is the culmination of many years of effort to change public perspective, particularly for at-risk students, related to the value and accessibility of postsecondary education. Federal initiatives like GEAR UP (Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs) have worked hard to increase higher education accessibility for poor and historically underserved students. The emphasis on making higher education ubiquitous has resulted in a tremendous increase in the number of students entering college after high school, from 45 percent of high school graduates in 1960 to 63 percent in 2000 (Blanco et al., 2003). The difference in earnings potential between high school and college graduates has also led to increased student demand for postsecondary education.

Despite the many positive aspects of strengthening academic instruction and increasing student access to postsecondary education, these policy changes have had a significant negative impact. Research findings suggest that the emphasis on academic achievement and the use of high-stakes barriers to graduation have led to a narrowing of the curriculum and many students' increased disengagement from education, resulting in higher dropout rates and off-the-record push-out of low-performing students (Amrein & Berliner, 2002; Clarke, Haney, & Madaus, 2000; Lewin & Medina, 2003; Nichols & Berliner, 2005).

Schools should give students a general education, which includes basic skills but goes beyond a narrow interpretation of “the basics.” A balanced curriculum includes music and fine arts, the humanities, vocational education, and student activities. The curriculum should be broad enough to serve students with differing academic, social, psychological, and health needs and abilities.  —ASCD Adopted Position on Curriculum Balance (1959, 1973, 1975, 1978, 1989, 1991)

Recent reform initiatives, such as No Child Left Behind (NCLB), have focused almost exclusively on the narrow academic purposes of schooling and largely ignored workforce preparation and vocational-technical education. In fact, the 2006 budget proposal that President Bush submitted to Congress would eliminate federal funding for vocational education (Budget of the U.S. Government, FY06, 2005), despite evidence that students and employers feel that new graduates do not have the skills necessary for entry-level positions (Peter D. Hart Research Associates & Public Opinion Strategies, 2005). According to a survey sponsored by Achieve, Inc., almost half of recent graduates and 39 percent of employers report that high school graduates do not have the workforce skills (including work habits and oral speaking, analytical thinking, and real-world problem-solving abilities) needed for entry-level success and career advancement.

A Broader Vision: Career and Technical Education

High schools have historically served multiple purposes; in addition to academic preparation, they have focused on career and vocational education and on preparing students for the responsibilities of adulthood and civic engagement. The recent push to academic excellence, however, has largely failed to include these broader purposes. While much of this shift has been an unintended consequence of the high-stakes testing movement (Laitch, Lewallen, & McCloskey, 2005), the turn away from the broader purposes of high school education proposed in President Bush's 2006 budget is intentional. Claiming that vocational education does not contribute to academic achievement, the proposed budget would eliminate all of the $1.3 billion in funding previously allocated to the Office for Vocational and Adult Education—including all financial support for the Perkins Vocational-Technical Education Act (Association for Career and Technical Education, 2005). The claim was based on a report from the National Assessment of Vocational Education (NAVE) that suggested that “secondary vocational education itself is not likely to be a widely effective strategy for improving academic achievement or college attendance” (Silverberg, Warner, Fong, & Goodwin, 2004). However, selective emphasis of this one finding ignores two other critical findings highlighted in the report:

• Vocational education has important short- and medium-run earning benefits for most students at both the secondary and postsecondary levels; these benefits extend to those who are economically disadvantaged.
• Over the last decade of academic reforms, secondary students who have participated in vocational programs have increased their academic course taking and achievement, making them better prepared for both college and careers than their peers in past decades. In fact, students who take both a strong academic curriculum and a vocational program of study—only 13 percent of high school graduates—may have better outcomes than those who pursue one or the other (Silverberg et al., 2004).

Despite the budget proposal's selective use of the findings, an independent advisory panel established by Congress to help interpret the NAVE data emphasized the broader range of findings (NAVE Independent Advisory Panel, 2004). The panel highlighted the positive effect that vocational and technical education has on earnings (graduates who took four vocational or technical classes in high school earn $1,200–1,800 more annually than their peers who did not take such classes), as well as a sharp rise in academic course taking since 1982 without a drop in the number of vocational courses taken (the percentage of vocational students completing a core academic curriculum rose from 5 percent in 1982 to 46 percent in 1998).

Vocational and technical education has also evolved significantly over the past two decades and is much different from the traditional wood shop, auto shop, and typing classes offered by high schools 20 years ago. Today's vocational programs have even left behind their old moniker for a new name: career and technical education (CTE). The focus is on exposing students to a broad range of career options that help bring relevance and meaning to education and that concentrate as much on college and academic preparation as technical training. By focusing on building relevance and strengthening engagement, reforms like CTE help swing the focus of education from impersonal, standardized efficiency back to the individual student (see Putting a Face on High School Reform).

Putting a Face on High School Reform

Rather than focus solely on high-stakes tests at the expense of educating the whole child, we must ensure our students are civically engaged; motivated; and emotionally, physically, and socially healthy. Each of these aspects of a student's learning and development is crucial to preparing students for their future success as employees, college students, citizens, and healthy, productive adults.  The experiences of individual students are lost in our efforts to reform schools through testing. By their nature, tests reduce a student to a number completely devoid of the rich context of that individual's life. The real-life story of “John Smith” is an excellent example of the importance of understanding the context of a student's life, and the importance of engaging students through relevant, challenging high school experiences—not through the threat of high-stakes assessment. As a sophomore in high school, John was an uninspired student whose journalism teacher had to chase him down on the football field to remind him that his newspaper story was overdue. Just two years later, as a senior, John not only was the editor of the school newspaper but also won scholarships as the state high school journalist of the year and as runner-up for the national award.  More important than achieving success on a high-stakes test, John had found his passion. As he grew connected to his journalism teacher, he also became more engaged in his school and community. When a police officer erased digital pictures he had taken of his fellow students being questioned by the police, this young man defended his First Amendment right of freedom of the press. He relied on his journalism teacher and his school for support and, ultimately, made a difference in his community and at the police department, where they decided to use his story as a training tool. Currently, he is a successful college freshman planning to major in journalism.  This student illustrates what we can achieve when we provide students with challenging learning experiences that are relevant and valuable to them—and what we lose when we rely on simplistic evaluations of complex individuals. Rather than search for a one-size-fits-all approach or add more standardized tests, we must encourage innovative ways to engage and challenge high school students by meeting their individual learning needs and interests.  Many innovative schools are working toward this goal by connecting students with internships, college coursework, and service learning in their communities. At the Met School in Rhode Island, for example, Dennis Littky has created a school that gives students individualized, real-world experience through internships and personalized learning. The result is that 100 percent of the school's seniors are accepted to college each year. Said one 8th grader, quoted in Littky's book, “I am more interested in school because school is more interested in me.”  Students like this 8th grader and John Smith—who are challenged to learn more about the things they are passionate about—are students who are more likely to be engaged and successful not only in high school, but also long after graduation day.  Source: Adapted from “What Our High School Students Need,” by G. R. Carter, February 2005, Is It Good for the Kids? Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Current CTE activities cover broad categories of careers, including agriculture, business, family and consumer sciences, health, marketing, technology, and trade and industrial. Specific careers run from nursing to carpentry, business administration, and agribusiness. Coursework in these fields can range from individual classes to entire courses of study and is targeted to students exploring various career options as well as students focused on in-depth study of specific careers (see CTE Programs in Action).

CTE Programs in Action

Tech Directions, a journal focusing on career and technical education, recently highlighted two aspects of the new wave of CTE programs.  In Montgomery County, Md., many of the high schools have divided the student body into smaller learning communities organized around career academies. The career academies in these schools-within-schools emphasize a holistic education. Both core academic teachers and technical teachers work within the academies. Academy themes are based on student interest and faculty expertise, reflecting a broad level of buy-in from stakeholders.  The career academy approach takes advantage of several theories of education: Small communities support high-quality education. Students benefit when they can explore a variety of career options. Integration of academics and career experiences adds to education (Peckham, 2004).   Pekin High School, an Illinois school of approximately 2,300 students, offers another model. The Career and Technical Education Department serves approximately 1,000 students each day, providing instruction targeted to a wide variety of achievement levels in fields as diverse as architecture and building trades; accounting, business, and marketing; engineering, welding, and machining; computer programming and repair; video production and photography; automotive technology; and construction trades. Students in the architecture and construction trades design and build a house each year, the sale of which helps provide operating funds to support the CTE programs.  The program also seeks to engage resources within the community through strategic partnerships with Businesses, which provide job-site experiences and trade certifications. Colleges (such as Central Illinois College), which help with dual enrollment and college credit programs. The local Education for Employment office, which helps coordinate services and provides funding, student assistance, and professional development.   The CTE courses are flexibly organized around student interests. Students can work both within and across career clusters; they have the opportunity to take a sampling of courses or complete detailed study that leads to industry certification. The curriculum is designed to prepare students for both career engagement and further education (e.g., four-year college or university, community college, technical college, military training, or apprenticeships).  It is largely the result of these efforts to engage all students in a variety of learning experiences that attendance at Pekins is almost 97 percent, and the school has a rising graduation rate—and a correspondingly falling dropout rate (Brewer, 2004).

In the efforts to build smaller learning communities focused on engaging student interests, many high schools have initiated career academies focused on preparing students for a career once they leave high school and providing the skills and competencies they will need for additional career coursework should they choose to continue their studies beyond high school. Federal SLC grants—eliminated in the budget proposal—have given thousands of students access to smaller, more personal learning experiences in high school. Community technology center (CTC) grants—also slated for elimination—have helped high-need high schools and communities strengthen career programs and the technical skills of students and community members through in-school and after-hours instruction focused on academic and employment skills.

Although the President's attention is rightly focused [on high school improvement], high-stakes testing is insufficient to solve the problems high schools face, including high dropout rates, low student engagement, and poor college and work preparation. . . . Rather than search for a one-size-fits-all approach or add more standardized tests, we must encourage innovative ways to engage and challenge high school students by meeting their individual learning needs and interests.  — Gene R. Carter, Executive Director, ASCD (Is It Good for the Kids?, February 2005)

Programs like the SLC and CTC grants are structured specifically to benefit high-need high schools and communities (those facing the challenges of high poverty and low student achievement) by strengthening engagement in education and building relevance and value into the curriculum before students begin to lose interest and detach from school. The value of student engagement in education is well established in research (Menezes, 2003; Alexander, Entwisle, & Kabbani, 2001; Roderick & Engel, 2001). The elimination of CTE programs and the proposed efforts to reform high schools through NCLB-like high-stakes testing (Winter, 2005) could have serious unintended consequences: increasing student disengagement—particularly among at-risk students—and further narrowing the curriculum in the short run, and discarding the economic benefits to students associated with CTE in the long run.

The Future of Career and Technical Education

President Bush and the U.S. Secretary of Education have made clear their desire to extend the high-stakes testing and punitive accountability mechanisms of NCLB to U.S. high schools. As mentioned earlier, they have also proposed the elimination of federal funding for CTE and related programs.

High-stakes testing and accountability policies are also being put into place—or already exist—in many other countries around the world. In Canada, for example, the provincial government of British Columbia recently announced new high school exit tests that have generated significant controversy, and the premier of Ottawa, Dalton McGuinty, identified raising test scores as one of his administration's top priorities (Adam, 2004; Cameron, 2004; Ince, 2004). In the United States, the National Governor's Association and representatives from business groups recently proposed adopting strict new standards and testing systems at the high school level (Winter, 2005). On many fronts, CTE faces significant challenges from advocates of a standardized, academic, high-stakes approach to reform.

Preparation for employment is a legitimate purpose of schooling. Schools should offer programs to help students learn about and prepare for careers. Career education programs should serve all types of students, including those who have traditionally gone to college. The programs should avoid complete separation of college preparatory and vocational students, enabling both groups to learn how academic and technical knowledge is used in the adult world and helping them make informed plans for their own careers.  —ASCD Adopted Position on Career Education (1969, 1993)

Despite these challenges, some policy activists are working to protect the broader values and purposes of education. The National Council of State Legislatures (NCSL) recently released the results of an intensive, 10-month examination of the effects of NCLB on state education systems (National Conference of State Legislatures, 2005). The report identifies many concerns, including curriculum narrowing, the loss of local control, and the negative impact the law has had on resource availability. NCSL's recommendations include the

• Increase of federal funding and flexibility so that states can try innovative approaches to reform;
• Removal of requirements for a one-size-fits-all assessment system; and
• Recognition of the complex nature of education, including the context-specific challenges of rural, urban, and suburban schools, as well as schools with diverse student bodies, students in poverty, and students with multilingual backgrounds.

State legislatures around the country have challenged the narrow approach to education represented by NCLB (Cobb, 2005). Utah has led the challenge this year, with legislation expected to pass this session dictating that the state's education priorities preempt federal NCLB mandates. Last year almost 30 states considered similar challenges.

At the federal level, legislators who once supported NCLB are now considering attempts to repeal it (Warden, 2005). As President Bush announced his intention to expand high-stakes testing to high schools and eliminate funding for CTE programs, federal and state policymakers expressed concerns, with many activists predicting an uphill struggle for the proposals (Robelen, 2005). Before the President released his budget proposal, the House and Senate took steps to protect federal CTE assistance, introducing legislation to reauthorize the Perkins vocational education programs and protect the emphasis on career and technical education (National Association of State Boards of Education, 2005).

Business groups have also begun to emphasize the need for a broad education and a focus on CTE coursework. A recent resolution emphasizing the importance of CTE to the nation's students and economy garnered 5,000 signatures from businesses and employers—representing 4 million employees and accounting for $4.2 trillion in annual revenue (Lewis, 2004).

The work to support CTE in Montgomery County, Md., and the powerful programs at Pekins High School, Ill., provide evidence to support the NAVE data; career and technical education is keeping students engaged, adding relevance to their education, and giving many at-risk students the support they need to succeed in their future careers or postsecondary education experiences.

Turmoil will likely surround federal policy and high school reform efforts in the coming years. Education stakeholders who are concerned about the whole child and are involved with CTE and broader approaches to education will need to actively engage policymakers in this debate—and challenge the assumption that education should be about only those subjects that are easy to test.

Dan Laitsch is the former senior policy analyst, educational issues, at ASCD.