Crain, R. L., Allen, A., Thaler, R., Sullivan, D., Zellman, G., Little, J. W., and Quigley, D. D. (1999). The Effects of Academic Career Magnet Education on High Schools and Their Graduates (MDS-779). Berkeley: National Center for Research in Vocational Education, University of California.

CHAPTER  4 ... continued

Support for Student Achievement

      Reformers have advocated greater "personalization" in high schools, arguing that student achievement will improve when school organization enables teachers to devote close attention to the academic progress, social development, future goals, and general well-being of students. To what extent are the good-fit and poor-fit cases differentiated by their experience of a "personalized" environment? Have teachers and other adults earned the trust, respect, and affection of these graduates? Are the programs designed to promote closer contact between students and teachers so that students' academic and career-related needs and goals are known and can be supported by teaching staff? What is the nature of guidance and support for postsecondary academic and career options? Table 4.3 summarizes the experiences of the good-fit and poor-fit graduates with respect to three broad categories of supports for student achievement: (1) adult-student relationships, (2) program design, and (3) postsecondary education and career advising practices.

      All of the good-fit cases spoke eloquently of program teachers who took a personal interest in them, pressed them hard to achieve, and recognized their accomplishments. Across cases, the themes were remarkably similar. Program teachers were "very caring . . . compared with the other teachers" (G4); they "went beyond what you had to learn . . . (they were) a lot more personal . . . a lot more interested in you" (G3); "they were more personal than other teachers" (G5); program teachers "make the students united . . . and they really show that extra caring" (G2). Although not every graduate recalled approaching a teacher about a specific personal problem or issue, as a group the good-fit graduates emphasized that students were able to talk to program teachers "about anything." Thus, Case G1 reported that her nursing program teacher was "like a mother . . . whatever troubles we had, we brought to her." Another good-fit graduate summed up a program adult's role as "teacher, grade advisor, mother . . . everything in one" (G6).

      The picture of "care" on the part of influential adults that emerges from the good-fit graduate encompasses not only personal support but academic encouragement and aid as well. One graduate recalled that his clerical procedures and social studies teachers were "constantly reminding" him that he had to do well in school (G3). The graduate said the academic encouragement he received from program teachers made him feel "important, exceptional." Another graduate (G4) said her program teacher was "always there . . . if I needed help in any subject." Case G5 remembered that the nursing program teachers "bothered us more to go to college" and were available "if we needed any help in that. . . . They knew what you were striving for, and they tried to help you." An accounting program graduate (G6) spoke of two program teachers who "always made time for me . . . when I needed to talk about schoolwork, especially accounting." She was strongly encouraged to stay in accounting because she was "so good at it."

      Interviews with the good-fit teachers parallel the graduates' accounts in important ways, underscoring relationships that combined academic pressure with a personal interest in students' lives and well-being. All six of the good-fit teachers spoke of pushing students to prepare for college or work and about responding to students' personal concerns or problems. Thus, the clerical procedures teacher (G3) reported that her conversations with the graduate revolved around "getting his education and moving on into a career." She is genuinely proud of the graduate's academic turnaround after entering the program in eleventh grade. After receiving his award for academic improvement she says, "he was so happy (to be) recognized . . . . [H]e had come a long way." Echoing the G6 graduate, an accounting teacher remembers telling her "to go into business because she was so good in accounting." This teacher speaks of a personal bond with the student as well: "She never had a problem coming to me with anything that was troubling her . . . and I have no problem with holding a kid." In other good-fit cases, nominated adults speak in terms of personal and academic support they provide for program students in general:

I let them know that they're capable of doing anything. [I'm] maybe a little closer to the travel & tourism students . . . because a lot of those kids . . . I've known for three and four years. [G4]

The advice I always give all my students in general [is] not to let anyone tell them what they cannot do, what they cannot be. I try to be a role model for them. . . . I also let them see another side of me. Many teachers are always afraid to let them see the other person, not the teacher. [G2]

I try to be a role model for them, not only in the classroom, but also I was her instructor in the clinical area at the clinical site. . . . It was a pretty cohesive group, and they felt that with me they could discuss almost anything. Not only schoolwork. Sometimes they would come in with a few personal problems. [G1]

      Of the poor-fit cases, only one (P1) experienced a strong constellation of support throughout her high school career. All of the adults she considered significant--academic teachers and counselors--were outside her law studies program. They pushed her hard to achieve high standards, "opened doors" to extracurricular opportunities and leadership roles, and gave her specific and wide-ranging advice on career and college planning. This case stands out as an anomaly; although the school she attended was a poor fit with the Magnet Model, P1 nonetheless enjoyed many of the same kinds of supports, outside of her career magnet program, that were characteristic of the good-fit group.

      The remaining poor-fit cases experienced much more varied and idiosyncratic kinds and sources of support. In two cases, interactions with the nominated teacher were so infrequent as to be virtually ineffectual (P2, P3). In two other cases, students at serious risk of failure experienced islands of personal support and academic assistance outside their program. A counselor's campaign to see Case P8 graduate led her to arrange tutoring, insist on attendance at night school, and structure an in-school internship experience--all interventions that appear to have been made absent any coordination with the graduate's teachers. A graduate who had floundered throughout his first three years of high school (P5), recalled an English teacher who expressed faith in him and who helped him with assignments even after he had completed his only class with her. Although his counselor had attempted to talk with him about his poor grades, he admitted having paid little heed to her warnings (though he did consider them an attempt to help). By contrast, he responded to the English teacher's constant encouragement and help:

I just loved her `cause she was there for me. And . . . whenever I did have a problem in the class with a assignment or whatever I would go to her, and she would explain it to me much better . . . [make] certain that I could understand it. [After that class] she still didn't stop. She still was on me. My job wasn't done until I finished school. Yeah, she still was on me, which is special though. . . . She never let me down and . . . I didn't let her down. [P5]

      In the remaining poor-fit cases, the graduates' personal relationships with an adult made high school a more congenial place on a day-to-day basis, but did little to help the student with school achievement or future planning (P4, P6, P7). Athletics formed the sole shared interest for two of these students and the adults they named as influential. In the final case, a work co-op coordinator provided a potential dropout with an unexpected sense of accomplishment by arranging a successful work placement during twelfth grade. The coordinator asserts that by virtue of his role as co-op coordinator he knew "her exact academic average, her exact attendance record. And if she had any problems with any of the personnel here at the school--any teachers, did she have any problems with the dean, was she ever suspended." However, there is no indication from him or from the graduate that they ever actually discussed her school record, despite the fact that the student was surprised she had qualified for work co-op. She explained, "My grades were horrible. To this day, I can't understand why they contacted me, `cause you had to have grades. That's what I was told, you had to have good grades to be in co-op. I couldn't understand; my grades were horrible." By both accounts, the focus of this relationship was the co-op job placement, workplace attitude, and demeanor, rather than personal support or academic encouragement:

[With] all the students . . . I have a similar theme throughout the school year, that you have to be able to deal with all the problems that you have on the job and be able to adjust to the various situations, that you can't start something, quit, get into problems right away. . . . And she was able to adjust. She was very successful. [P6]

      Compared to the teachers identified by the good-fit graduates, the adults considered significant by the poor-fit graduates were either less available as strong role models or were less comprehensive and consistent in the direction they set for students. For instance, a dean (P4) sends a graduate mixed messages by encouraging him academically, while making it easy for him to cut classes; an English teacher (P5) opposes the academic career focus of her school, saying "high school should be a time for personal discovery;" a basketball coach (P7) is seen as offering information, recognition, and leadership roles that are absent in the rest of the school experience.

Student Cohort
      By student cohort, we mean a group of students who identify with the program, take at least their program courses together, and complete a common set of requirements. At its best, a cohort design may help to reinforce the program's focus, enhance motivation, and broaden the kinds of support available to students. It may also reduce flexibility, leaving some students locked in to programs in which they are not thriving and others closed out of programs to which they are attracted in their junior or senior year.

      The good-fit graduates more frequently described themselves as belonging to a distinct group of students who were taught and counseled as members of a program. Thus, G1 was able to recount the way in which her cohort moved as a group through a series of courses: "body structure, the nutrition, our nursing class." She and other students in her cohort often wore uniforms to school and thus were visibly distinct as well. With the introduction of the classroom/clinical rotation sequence in eleventh grade, students became part of a ten-student "cohort within a cohort." An assistant principal responsible for a variety of health career programs at the school explains that all students, regardless of their specialization, take both their clinical and academic courses as a cohort in their eleventh- and twelfth-grade years:

All of the students that are in Health Careers [including] the dental assist, medical assist, nurse assist, they all go as a cohort in the eleventh and twelfth grade. . . . They have to do it that way because they are in and out. They're in [school] two weeks, out two weeks, so that's why they stay with their own particular little group. [G1]

      Similarly, students in the travel and tourism program (G4) took most of their classes together during eleventh and twelfth grade, went on field trips together, reviewed applications of tenth-grade students who applied to the program, and engaged in other program-based activities that marked them as a group.

      Altogether, four of the six good-fit cases reported membership in a well-defined group or grade-level cohort. In these cases, the cohort design enabled not only closer relationships between adults and students, but also among the students themselves. Thus, a graduate of the practical nursing program (G1) recalled, "So that was your nine best friends, that was it. That was just about you and these other people, so you did everything to look out for yourself and them." These good-fit graduates talked about the academic support they received by virtue of their cohort membership. For instance, G2 contrasted students in her academic classes who were "always making jokes and being clowns" with secretarial program students who were "really geared toward doing our work." A health careers graduate (G5) recalled the importance she attached to passing all of her program classes: "It was like a competition with everybody, so . . . you had to do good."

      Only one of the eight poor-fit cases described such a cohort. A dental tech program graduate (P4) attended the same school as G1, and, like her, found himself in a small cohort of students who completed classroom and clinical work together in the eleventh and twelfth grades. Unlike G1, however, he found the small cohort confining. A highly social student, indifferent to the career theme of his program and expressing little attachment to it, Case P4 felt more constrained than supported by a small cohort.

Teacher Team
      A teacher team is a group of teachers who consider themselves affiliated with a career magnet program; who take deliberate steps to plan, coordinate, and possibly teach elements of the program together; and who work together to monitor the academic progress of program students.

       While all of the good-fit graduates recalled a specific group of teachers responsible for teaching program classes, in only one case (G4) did we find an "ideal" teacher team as described above. In the travel and tourism program, a four-teacher team (including two teachers assigned exclusively to the program and two teachers who also taught English or social studies) shared a common prep period each day, which facilitated curriculum planning and program coordination. Students took all of their classes together during eleventh and twelfth grades, enabling team-teaching in the program. For instance, the program's social studies teacher and English teacher (who also served as program coordinator) would sometimes "make it a double period (with) both classes in the room working on something together. . . . [I]t gives them some type of continuity, connection." During common planning periods, this team regularly reviewed academic transcripts of program students and discussed ways to assist students "who [were] having problems."

      In three other good-fit cases, we find some evidence of team-initiated curriculum coordination and academic monitoring. Case G1's program teachers met weekly to monitor students' grades and discuss curriculum. Case G2's teachers met as a group three times each term to maintain curriculum alignment, and Case G6's teachers worked together to coordinate curriculum so that a teacher "may have been a day or two ahead of another teacher . . . but it was still within the same framework." Beyond these limited examples, our visions of tightly coordinated program teaching teams did not materialize even among the good-fit cases.

      Because none of the poor-fit case graduates nominated teachers from their programs as influential, program teachers were not interviewed in poor-fit cases. Thus, we cannot comment on the status of teacher teams in the programs to which poor-fit graduates were assigned.

Monitoring Student Progress
      We speculated that one way career magnet programs and teachers might provide support for academic success was through individual and collective monitoring of program students' grades and attendance. The good-fit and poor-fit cases differ in the degree to which teachers appeared to know about the graduates' performance in classes other than their own. Again, because we did not interview poor-fit program teachers, we have no reliable way of determining the degree to which these programs attended to the academic progress of program students; however, even among the good-fit cases, evidence of systematic monitoring of grades and attendance is found only in the three programs with academic eligibility requirements (G1, G4, G5).

      Travel and tourism program teachers (G4) routinely reviewed transcripts together, "So if [a program student] was having a problem in another class, I would know about it." While the teacher did not mention the "gatekeeping" function related to this review process, the graduate reported that only students with good academic records were admitted and retained in the program. In two other cases (both nursing programs), grades were also monitored regularly because "they have to maintain a certain average in order to stay in the program" (G1). A counselor was assigned exclusively to program students, and she "keeps them informed about . . . things they must do before they graduate, and if they're deficient in whatever, they must see her to get it taken care of." In the other nursing program (G5), teachers maintained close contact with all of the students' grade advisors and obtained their grades in all courses. A program teacher reported that if a student was not doing well in classes, "part of my job was to go and find out why." In all three cases where we found systematic monitoring of student records, we also found that students were aware of their program teachers' knowledge and interest in their performance in both program and academic classes. For instance, Case G1's nursing teachers often reminded students that "we talk with your teachers so we know exactly what's going on and what you're doing," and the Case G5 nursing program graduate recalled that at report-card time her program teacher "would be right there . . . into everybody's report card."

      Cases G2 and G3's program teachers confessed that there was no structured mechanism for monitoring student progress but said they sometimes seek out information about program students' academic standing and encourage them to do better if they are not doing well in their classes. Both of these programs (secretarial studies and clerical procedures) accept students without regard to their academic standing. Consequently, monitoring for eligibility is not required in these programs. In the accounting program (G6), teachers held weekly "conferences" during which they would "throw out a name of a kid that a teacher was having a problem with, and discuss certain things to try to get that kid back on the right track." This within-program monitoring did not extend to program students' academic classes nor include any academic teachers.

      Among the poor-fit cases, we found evidence of only one program with a provision for monitoring student performance--another health careers program with academic eligibility requirements for continued enrollment. Overall, in the poor-fit cases, communication among adults about student progress was apparently rare, and students were largely unaware of what knowledge their teachers had or shared about their school performance:

I never knew what the process was. If they give me a grade, do they see what the other teachers who have me before them graded me? . . . I never knew if it was because it pertains to their class or the whole thing in general. I wouldn't know what they knew. (P2)

College and Career Counseling
      College and career counseling services, both formal and informal, constitute another source of support for student achievement. In neither the good- nor the poor-fit cases do we find examples of program teachers or counselors working with students on college applications and essays or advising them about financial aid possibilities. From both good- and poor-fit graduates, we hear about introductory occupational classes that addressed general employment issues such as résumé writing, interview etiquette, workplace demeanor, dress codes, and employer expectations. Overall, however, good-fit graduates were more likely than poor-fit graduates to encounter varied sources of information about possible postsecondary college majors and careers, as well as frequent encouragement to continue their education after high school.

      All of the good-fit graduates recalled program teachers who "pushed" them to go to college. Thus, Case G3 reported that his clerical procedures teacher "always had me thinking about college, even though I was in the eleventh grade . . . constantly!" An accounting program graduate (G6) recalled discussions with two program teachers and her grade counselor regarding college majors. They all strongly encouraged her to continue in accounting because she was "so good at it," and advised her against taking time off between high school and college. Referring to the adult she nominated as influential, the graduate said, "She was like, `you're GOING to college.'" Even Case G1, who confessed that she did not heed the advice of program teachers who "pushed" her to get her college applications in during her senior year, remembered program teachers talking about college "all the time." She also recalled "college information days" specifically focused on colleges with nursing programs. Outside speakers provided information about college programs and industry opportunities in the travel and tourism program as well (G4).

      For some poor-fit graduates, the images of college verged on caricature. Case P4 is a good example of this. Unlike Case G5, who "pretty much imagined how (college) would be" because program teachers talked about it "all the time," Case P4 was shocked to find that college was unlike the image he had gleaned from popular media:

I expected it to be like, you know college you see on TV. TV, I'm like "Wow, this is college." It's like this big room with one professor and like 2001 students. I'm saying "Like college looks good." I get into this school, sit in a little rinky dink room. There's this Professor, blah, blah, blah. I'm your teacher. "Like, all right, fine. Maybe this is just one section. It was the whole health program. Maybe like five rooms. I'm like, "Nah, this ain't for me."

      Each of the good-fit graduates remembered class assignments aimed at acquainting them with possible jobs in their program's field of focus. In half of the cases (G1, G4, G5), graduates recalled researching and reporting on various careers they were interested in or for which their programs were preparing them--"the salary, the benefits, the goods, the bads" (G1). The secretarial studies program graduate (G2) remembered a class assignment requiring her to develop career paths projecting ten and twenty years into the future. Program students also completed "goal sheets," which were displayed on walls around the classroom. "The whole wall was all different types of goals from different people," which the students then discussed as a group. In the clerical procedures program (G3), the teacher acquainted students with a range of careers and college majors and encouraged them to take an interest inventory. The graduate explained, "She let us know all the stuff we could do in business, that the stuff she taught us we could apply." The teacher told them about a computer program at the employment office "that if you type in all the stuff, you know, all your skills . . . and your personality, it will give you a list of all the careers you can go into. . . . That's how I found the (college) major I'm in now, which is hotel management."

      Half of the good-fit graduates were acquainted with possible program-related jobs through a series of field trips. The travel and tourism program (G4) organized field trips to airlines, travel agencies, and hotels in order to expose students to various occupations in the field. During hotel tours, for example, "kids would actually see the different phases . . . housekeeping . . . general manager, front manager, what engineers do." The secretarial studies program graduate (G2) also recalled "a lot of field trips . . . to get an idea of what it's like to work for an insurance company . . . [or] into courts for court stenographers." Nursing program students (G1) participated in a semester-long "Life Cycles" class, which amounted to a series of field trips to pediatric units, day care centers, rehabilitation clinics, and retirement homes.

      Poor-fit graduates recalled little or no guidance or information about postsecondary career options. Case P1 asserted, "I never got that, to be honest with you. And throughout high school, I'm not gonna say I was ignorant, but we weren't really given a big overview of what the world had to offer in terms of occupations. . . . It would have helped." In three poor-fit cases, adults mentioned field trips and outside speakers as features of some of the schools' occupational programs, but program graduates did not recall such activities.

Crain, R. L., Allen, A., Thaler, R., Sullivan, D., Zellman, G., Little, J. W., and Quigley, D. D. (1999). The Effects of Academic Career Magnet Education on High Schools and Their Graduates (MDS-779). Berkeley: National Center for Research in Vocational Education, University of California.