.................................................................................................................................... iii Does Career and Technical Education Affect College Enrollment?..............................................1 Theoretical Framework..........................................................................................................2 How CTE Might Affect Postsecondary Outcomes ...........................................................3 What Does the Present Study Contribute?........................................................................5 Data and Methods..................................................................................................................6 NLSY97 Description .......................................................................................................6 Measurement ...................................................................................................................7 CTE—Career-Related Programs/Activities ......................................................................7 Career and Technical Education—Coursetaking ..............................................................9 Control Variables...........................................................................................................10 Missing Data .................................................................................................................11 Analytic Plan.......................................................................................................................12 Results ................................................................................................................................12 What Were the Participation Rates for High School Vocational Education (CTE)? ....................................................................................................12 Which Students Participated in Career-Related Activities and Programs? ......................14 Which Students Took a Higher Ratio of CTE-to-Academic Courses? ............................16 Which Students Were More Likely to be Academic, CTE, or Dual Concentrators? .........................................................................................................17 Did Students Participating in Career-Related Activities Go on to Attend College? .......................................................................................................19 After Controlling for Differences in Students’ Backgrounds, What was the Relationship Between Participation in Career-Related Programs and College Enrollment?..........................................................................................20 Were Students in Career-Related Programs More Likely to Attend 2-Year Versus 4-Year Colleges?..........................................................................................23 Discussion ...........................................................................................................................29 Conclusion ..........................................................................................................................30 References ................................................................................................................................33 Appendix 1. Use and Preparation of NLSY97 High School Transcript Data ..............................39 Appendix 2. Unweighted Descriptive Statistics: NLSY97 Youths Born in 1980 and Transcript Subsample....................................................................................................43 Does Career and Technical Education Affect College Enrollment? vi National Research Center for Career and Technical Education List of Tables Table 1. Trends in Vocational Coursetaking (Selected Years, 1982–2000) ................................13 Table 2. Demographic Characteristics & Participation in Career-Related Activities and Programs (1980 Cohort, Weighted; N = 1,691)..............................................................14 Table 3. Participation Rates for Specific CTE Programs (1980 Cohort, Weighted) ....................15 Table 4. Demographic Characteristics by Coursetaking Ratios (1980 Cohort, Transcript Data; n = 873).....................................................................................................17 Table 5. Descriptives for Transcript Analyses (1980 Birth Cohort; N = 1,691)...........................18 Table 6. Means for Participation in Career-Related Activities/Programs, Demographic Characteristics, and College Enrollment (by 2001, Student-Reported; N = 1,691) ...........................................................................................................................20 Table 7. Logistic Regression Models Predicting First Postsecondary College Enrollment With Participation in Career-Related Activities and Programs (Odds Ratios; Student-Reported; N = 1,691)........................................................................22 Table 8. Multinomial Logistic Regression Models Predicting First Postsecondary College Enrollment With Participation in Career-Related Activities and Programs (Odds Ratios; Student-Reported; N = 1,691) ........................................................24 Table 9. Logistic Regression Models Predicting First Postsecondary College Enrollment With CTE Coursetaking (Odds Ratios; n = 873) ................................................26 Table 10. Logistic Regression Models Predicting First Postsecondary College Enrollment With CTE Coursetaking (Odds Ratios; N = 1,691) ............................................28 Does Career and Technical Education Affect College Enrollment? National Research Center for Career and Technical Education 1 DOES CAREER AND TECHNICAL EDUCATION AFFECT COLLEGE ENROLLMENT? Currently, there are visible efforts in American public education to increase academic standards and college attendance. This is evident in the recent federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, as well as efforts of individual states to increase graduation requirements, improve student academic test score performance, and raise high school graduation rates. Recently, there has also been much debate about efforts to improve the academic preparation and outcomes for students who do not traditionally participate in college preparation programs (Ravitch, 2005; “High School Reform,” 2005; Hoachlander, 2005). Between 1990 and 1998, several pieces of legislation were passed that intended to directly affect the high school experience of students who participated in what has been known as vocational programs and curricula. The Perkins Amendments (of 1990, also known as Perkins II; and of 1998, also known as Perkins III) and the School-to -Work Opportunities Act (School-to-Work Opportunities Act [STWOA], 1994) supported career preparation through an integration of academic and vocational training, the targeting of special populations (such as disabled students and minorities), and an emphasis on nontraditional gender pathways to work. The rhetoric behind these efforts has been to “provide students with broader preparation so they have a greater choice of careers and postsecondary educational pathways” (National Center for Education Statistics [NCES], 2000). In our study, we examine what coursetaking patterns look like in an era of “de-tracking” and the integration of academic and vocational courses. We also explore whether career and technical education is associated with postsecondary enrollment, in light of recent efforts to revitalize vocational education. We employ the most recent panel data available, the National Longitudinal Study of Youth 1997 (NLSY97) to examine these outcomes. We describe how our current work adds to the existing research base, present basic descriptive statistics, and assess whether career and technical education (CTE) experiences affect college attendance, net of background characteristics. The study has implications for what we know about the ways in which social structure and school organization affect educational attainment. We explore the following questions: 1) What does CTE look like for a recent cohort of students? 2) Which students participate in career-related programs of study and work-based activities? 3) Which students take a higher ratio of CTE-to-academic courses? 4) Which students are more likely to be academic, vocational, or dual concentrators? Specifically, we are referring to the following pieces of legislation: the Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Applied Technology Education Amendments of 1990 (Publ. L. No. 101-392; also known as Perkins II); the School-to-Work Opportunities Act of 1994 (Publ. L. No. 103-239); and the Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Applied Technology Education Amendments of 1998 (Publ. L. No. 105-332; also known as Perkins III). Throughout the text, we will be referring to what has been known as school-to-work or vocational education as career and technical education, or CTE. This is the result of changes in the way the federal government and vocational associations have conceptualized such high school experiences in light of recent legislation (Lynch, 2000). Does Career and Technical Education Affect College Enrollment? 2 National Research Center for Career and Technical Education 5) Do students participating in career-related programs and CTE courses go on to attend college? 6) Are specific career-related programs and CTE courses associated with college enrollment? 7) Are career-related programs and CTE courses associated with enrollment in 2-year or 4year colleges? Theoretical Framework To date, researchers have paid a great deal of attention to curricular differentiation in high school. Known as “tracking” research, the empirical examination of students’ curricular programs has told us much about the links between family background and schooling, and the links between a program of study in secondary schooling and later life