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

How the Graduates Fared: High School Performance and Postsecondary Directions

      The high school experiences of good-fit and poor-fit cases differed in clear and visible ways. The two groups encountered quite different levels of program focus and coherence. They formed different relationships with teachers and other adults, and had access to different sources and types of support and guidance. Good-fit graduates enjoyed meaningful program-related work placements; poor-fits did not. Do these differences in context and design matter? Although our data do not permit us to demonstrate a causal relationship between organizational features and student outcomes, they do show that the two groups performed differently in high school, attached different values to their high school experience, and seem to have launched on different paths in the years immediately following graduation. Table 4.4 summarizes the findings in this section.

Cumulative Grade Point Average and Grade Point Trajectory
      At the end of ninth grade, good-fit graduates had a mean GPA of 73.8; poor-fits averaged 69.3. By the time they graduated, the mean GPA of the good-fit cases was up 3.5 points to 77.3; the poor-fit average improved as well, up 2.7 points to 71.0. As a group, the good-fit graduates had entered high school with a slightly higher standardized reading test score average (58 vs. 56.9) and a higher math score average (75.8 vs. 70.6). The higher average GPA for the good-fits may be partially explained by their higher tested ability. Nonetheless, the GPA gap of 4.5 grade points that existed between the two groups at the end of ninth grade had widened to over 6 points by the end of twelfth grade. Both groups showed a dip in GPA during ninth grade, but the poor-fit cases dropped more and recovered less over a four-year period.

      At the individual level, GPA proved relatively stable over the four years of high school. Half of the good-fit cases and five of the eight poor-fit cases show almost no GPA fluctuation after ninth grade. None of the graduates had a marked decline in GPA after ninth grade.

      Of the four low-achieving students in the poor-fit group, two showed some modest improvements in their grade point averages after ninth grade, but neither would attribute this gain to the influence of their career magnet program. The single "at-risk" student in the good-fit group (G3) achieved a dramatic gain following a program change from accounting to a highly defined, but less academically demanding program in clerical office procedures. In the absence of sufficient cases, it is not possible to consider whether students with a record of academic failure in the ninth grade might be substantially helped by affiliation with a well-designed career magnet program.

Record of Failed Classes
      The graduates' record of failed classes reveals an interesting distinction between the good- and poor-fit cases (see Appendix 3, this chapter). One good-fit graduate (G3) failed 13 classes, 12 before joining the clerical procedures program during eleventh grade. Three graduates (G4, G5, G6) failed four classes each, with Case G4 failing all four classes before joining the travel and tourism program in eleventh grade. Cases G1 and G2 failed no classes during high school. Among the poor-fit cases, three graduates (P2, P5, P8) failed between 22 and 25 classes, including several program classes. Some failed the same course twice (see Appendix 2, this chapter). Cases P3 and P4 each failed nine classes, Case P1 failed 4.5 (all science labs), Case P6 failed two classes, and Case P7 failed one.

On-Time Graduation
      The graduates all began high school in the fall semester of 1988. In all six good-fit cases, graduates completed high school in the four years conventionally allotted, although Case G3, who had failed 13 classes during ninth and tenth grades, needed both night and summer classes to graduate on time. Not surprisingly, two of the three poor-fit graduates who failed over 20 classes (P5, P8) took a full five years to graduate, and Case P2, who failed 25 classes, required summer and night school classes to graduate six months after her class. The two poor-fit graduates who failed nine classes also attended summer or night school to graduate on time.[8]

      Overall, we did not find a meaningful difference in achievement between the two groups. While the good-fit graduates as a group had a slightly higher GPA than the poor-fit graduates, 12 of the 14 cases were low to mid-range achievers, including five students who were at-risk of failing by the end of ninth grade. However, the difference in the number of classes failed by the two groups may be related to the striking difference we detected in the value that the two groups attached to what they learned in high school.

Seriousness of Purpose
      Looking back on their high school years, the graduates talked about how they had approached class assignments and tests, whether they took class attendance seriously, and how they judged the work they were being asked to do. Of the six good-fit cases, two (G2, G4) reported taking their school seriously throughout their high school years. Thus, Case G2 rarely cut a class and said she was "there to learn." Case G4 reported that she "never cut classes" and "would go over my notes, like, every night." Both of these graduates mentioned the importance they attached to doing well, particularly in their program classes. While Case G6 missed a large part of ninth grade and had trouble focusing on classwork, hers was a special case--her mother was dying of cancer, and the graduate recalled spending most of her time at home that year. Her mother died early in her sophomore year. The graduate began a counseling program and studied "a lot" that year "`cause I knew my grades were bad in my freshman year. . . . I knew it was gonna be hard work and less time for myself."

      The other three good-fit graduates (G1, G3, G5) had spotty records of attendance during ninth grade and, with the exception of Case G1, paid little attention to homework or test preparation. Thus, Case G1 recalled that during ninth grade "I was in so much trouble. . . . I would cut, but . . . I always came back and caught up; and if there were tests, I'd pass the tests." Case G5 exemplified the attitude both she and Case G3 had about school and schoolwork during ninth grade: "I always started out saying `I'm gonna study, I'm gonna study,' but I never really did." She said she was pretty good about doing her homework, "if not I would like copy from somebody, which wasn't good." Case G3 recalled that after being held back in ninth grade for failing eight classes, he was "disappointed in myself. . . . I actually got mad at myself. I was angry." During tenth grade, he started getting "back on track" and credited the clerical procedures program (which he entered during eleventh grade) with his academic "turn-around." During twelfth grade, he redoubled his effort in school: "Time was a big factor. . . . (There) was no more next year." Case G1 also noted the role her career magnet program played in curbing her cutting and increasing her attention to schoolwork. She reported that she was accepted into the nursing program in tenth grade, but was placed on probation, which meant that her attendance and grades were monitored by the program coordinator. While she "hated" being watched, she did in fact stop cutting, changed her peer group, and spent more time focusing on schoolwork because "that's what I had to do to stay in the program."

      With a single exception (P1), the poor-fit graduates spoke of low or uneven investment in schoolwork throughout high school. A fifth-year graduate (P8) spoke of procrastinating: "[I] always said, `I got time. I'll make that up in night school or something.' That's how I was. Man I put it off, put it off. Ah, I'll do it later." Case P5 recalled his tenth-grade year:

I didn't too much go to class too much then. So at a test a friend would like, somebody else would tell me "there's a test 5th period, you need to come to class." You know, maybe he'll tell me 2nd period, and I can like get a couple notes from him, and he'll, you know, look out for me. I just study a little notes in the lunchroom. So if he gave it to me 2nd period, that meant I had to cut 3rd and 4th just to learn what I need to do in 5th.

      In eleventh grade, this same graduate recalled, "I still was having a whole lot of fun. . . . I was having fun the whole year. I was . . . looking at (graduation) but I knew I wasn't at senior year just yet, so it wasn't that much on my mind." After continuing to cut classes in his senior year, he limped to a diploma with a 65.8 cumulative average and a confused notion of what might lie ahead: "I still was kinda confused, though. I mean I wanted to be a business person. I wanted to play basketball. I wanted to do a whole lot of things. I still was kinda confused. Still am to this day. Ha!" Other poor-fit graduates echoed this lack of concern over nearly failing out in ninth and tenth grade. Even at the time of their interviews, some poor-fit graduates did not appear to attach many consequences to a weak high school record. Case P4, who was neither employed nor enrolled in school at the time of his interview, believed he could "always go to college and pick up extra skills."

      Case P6, who had considered dropping out in her junior year, confessed to a nearly complete absence of self-discipline, but argued (or hopes?) that high school has no necessary connection to future opportunity:

About the future, what was my thinking? Well, I thought that without an education that it was gonna be hard to make it in the real world. But then, you know, I hear stories about people who are rich and don't even have a high school diploma. . . . People say that you need a college education to get somewhere in this world and yet here goes this person who doesn't even have a high school diploma who's rich, you know. And sometimes, I guess, that's fine, you need a high school diploma, but you know, there are smart people without high school diplomas. It doesn't necessarily mean that you're inhibited or whatever in some way because you didn't go to high school. Some people are smarter than the people who have diplomas, you know. So I guess you have to choose your way, your path, you know, it's not the same for everybody. So that's why I'm, that's why I'm not, I'm not, ah, too afraid of not going on to college, you know, `cause, you know, I just maybe, I, I, you know, maybe I still trust in God a little, you know, maybe. Let's see what happens.

Planfulness
      With one exception (G1), the good-fit graduates recalled thinking a lot about college during their senior year, and four of the six applied to at least one college during twelfth grade. Case G1 concentrated primarily on completing the nursing program, graduating from high school, and passing the state LPN boards. She confessed to ignoring the constant "push" from program teachers during twelfth grade to get her college "stuff" in. Even Case G6, who did not end up applying during twelfth grade, talked to her grade advisor and program teachers about college "a lot" because she wasn't sure she wanted to go "right away." The other four good-fit cases had their sights fixed more firmly on college. Thus, Case G2 remembered being in the college office "all the time . . . just doing research." During twelfth grade, she "wasn't too concerned about graduating. I was more geared towards, um, college. . . . I applied everywhere." During twelfth grade, Case G3 said he "started realizing about the future now. You know, I had to pick a career and I had to pick a major to go to school. And then I had to, um, think about what college is going to be best for me." He heeded the advice of his program teacher, taking an interest inventory and selecting his college major based on the results. Case G4 recalled that high school made her "look forward" to college. "I didn't want to stop . . . I wanted to learn more." She was accepted to the only college she applied to during twelfth grade. Of all the good-fit graduates, Case G5 recalled the most comprehensive and long ranging plans for the future. She applied to several college nursing programs and planned on completing a four-year degree and gaining employment before even considering marriage.

      Case P1 had her eye firmly fixed on a law career after college and sought out college information during extensive conversations with returning graduates, teachers, and counselors. During twelfth grade, Case P4 began searching college manuals "on my own." He was "looking into medical," and eventually enrolled in a health professions program offered within a college that is more widely known for its business programs. Like other poor-fit graduates, Case P4 believed peers who told him that colleges attended only to performance in the junior and senior years, so effort during those years could compensate for an otherwise weak record: "I wanted to [improve] because colleges, you know, they say you have to do good your junior year in high school and your senior year. . . . And that's when I started studying." Having also heard from friends that "colleges like to see that you are a well-rounded student, that you don't just stay in one particular area," he also joined the Future Business Leaders of America. He found the group completely unrelated to his work as a dental lab student or to anything else he was doing, but thought it would "look good" on his record.

      Beyond those two examples however, the poor-fit cases tended to think only as far as graduation. An accounting program graduate (P7) recalled that basketball was her one absorbing interest in high school. Looking back, she realized she had been "basically naive" about planning for college: "I wasn't really thinking about college that much. I just wanted to graduate." Another poor-fit graduate recalled:

My last year, around graduation time, I was in space. I was just lost, I know--I didn't have no plans for nothing, I didn't even know if I was going to college. I was just out there, I just--make sure I graduated, make sure I got my diploma, that's all I was worried about.

What the Graduates Say They Learned
      To the extent that these 14 graduates valued their high school experience, most did so for reasons that seem unrelated to basic academic preparation. All six good-fit cases credited their occupational programs with supplying them with useful knowledge and skills. Thus, a nursing program graduate (G1) said that her program prepared her to pass the state board examinations and "let me, at a young age, start in something and come out still young and have it. . . . The most important thing about the program was the opportunity to do something when I got out of school. School I didn't care for." An accounting program graduate (G6) said she learned that "teamwork is better than doing something on your own" and that her program gave her "the skills that I do now . . . typing, computers, word processing." She stated emphatically, "If anyone comes out of that institute and cannot get a job then there's something wrong with that person. . . . [T]hey show you everything . . . they train you." Case G2 said she felt confident coming out of high school because she "had skills to give to the job [and] . . . you can use your secretarial skills to get through my accounting program in college." Similarly, Case G4 felt that the travel and tourism program "really prepared me to do well. . . . [I]t taught me different things about business . . . nowadays you need to know computers." Others also emphasized the acquisition of practical skills and experience:

What I really learned is all the accounting [and] clerical procedures. . . . The stuff I learned in clerical procedures I can always use . . . in any business environment and in college. [G3]

Health careers prepared me for like the basic classes [in nursing at college]. I'm not going to say I knew a lot, but it prepared me a little bit, enough to understand what the health careers environment was all about. [G5]

      The poor-fit cases present a more mixed picture, both in terms of the aspects of schooling that they valued and in their assessment of the school's performance. Two of the graduates (P1, P7) felt that they had received solid preparation overall; both also felt that they could have been pushed harder to excel academically. Case P1 spoke forcefully of the strong academic grounding she had received, but said her law studies program was pedestrian and that all her teachers could have pushed her "even harder." Case P7 professed little interest in her accounting program, but believed she derived considerable benefit from being in a "specialized school" and wished only that she had also had a stronger "liberal arts" education.

      Two others emphasized the school's contribution to their own personal maturity. Case P5 expressed satisfaction with the medical business program in which he finally experienced some modest success during twelfth grade and his fifth year of high school. The program "was real good, truthfully," helping him to "see what life was about" and that "you couldn't mess up" (e.g., calculate a person's mortgage wrong). Even Case P8, who graduated after five years with a dismal school record, credited the school with teaching him "responsibility" and with giving him a rudimentary background in computer technology.

      Four of the poor-fit cases disparaged their programs or schools for a failure to supply them with practical knowledge and skill. They reported having learned little that would position them well for future work or school. Like Case P1, Case P2 was disappointed in her law studies program, saying it was "just regular social studies . . . stuff I just thought was irrelevant to know in law." Unlike Case P1, Case P2 extended this evaluation to her overall school experience: "I didn't feel that anything I learned would apply toward my life." Other poor-fit graduates echoed these sentiments:

I didn't feel like I really learned much in high school. Skill-wise, you know, I--I learned how to type . . . I really didn't feel like I--I was capable of doing anything graduating out of high school. I didn't have--I felt like I didn't have no skill to do anything. [P3]

[I learned] that I can get a [entry-level] job and keep it . . . but I needed more. That's not enough. [P6]

I didn't learn jack. [P4]

Postsecondary Status
      What path do these graduates appear to be following in the early years after high school graduation? We do not wish to attribute too much significance to the graduates' choices and circumstances only two years out of high school, but we have paid particular attention to the "fit" between the graduates' present circumstances and the aspirations they expressed or preparation they undertook in high school. Overall, the good-fit cases demonstrate a much higher degree of fit between the course of study pursued in high school and the education or employment in which they are now engaged.

      Two years after graduation, five of the six good-fit graduates were either attending college and majoring in areas consistent with their high school programs, or they were employed in the occupational field of focus. Of the three graduates of business programs (G2, G3, G6), two are pursuing coursework in business administration and one is enrolled in a hotel management program. Cases G2 and G6 are both financing college with jobs in their programs' focus areas (clerical job with the city; accounts receivable clerk in a medical lab). The two graduates of health programs were both enrolled in college nursing programs briefly after high school and are now employed in the field; however, we find an instructive difference in their high school circumstances and postsecondary employment status. Case G1 completed a high school program that prepared students for LPN certification and provided hands-on experience in a hospital setting. Although program coordinators admit that relatively few students actually complete the state board examination, Case G1 did so and is currently employed as a Licensed Practical Nurse. Case G5's high school program was broadly defined as "health careers," with an emphasis on nursing. Absent a hands-on clinical component and a sequence of nursing-specific courses, it did not equip Case G5 to attempt the state examination. After a brief stint in college, she took employment as a typist in a medical laboratory. The remaining good-fit case, Case G4, is currently enrolled in a legal studies program and hopes to work as a legal secretary while pursuing a law degree.

      Among the poor-fit cases, we find a higher incidence of postsecondary educational activity that appears unrelated to their high school program of record and that suggests limited future opportunity (e.g., more instances of low-skill employment). Of the eight cases, four are enrolled in college, three are employed, and one is unemployed. Of those in college, only one (P1) is following a path that will lead her to a career related to her high school program. Majoring in political science and psychology, Case P1 planned to earn a law degree after completing her B.A. However, she asserted that any appearance of a connection between her high school law program and her persistent interest in the field of law would be illusory. She recalled that she "never really looked at high school as being a stepping stone toward anything." The law studies program was "basically social studies, which is stuff you do repeatedly over the years." Two poor-fit graduates were enrolled in two-year programs unrelated to their high school programs (P2 in marketing; P7 in law). At the time of the interview, Case P6 was attending college but was on academic probation and planning to quit.

      Employment patterns among the poor-fit cases also demonstrate a weak connection to the career magnet programs in which the graduates had been enrolled. One student was neither employed nor attending school; two others were employed in low-skill jobs (loading trucks, serving pizza). Only Case P8's job as a clerk in the city's Human Resources Department appeared to reflect what he said he learned from high school: "a sense of responsibility and basic computer skills." Yet, he also said he was bored and looking for alternatives. Another poor-fit case (P7) was also using her program skills in her job, but she saw this position as temporary. Despite her dislike of accounting as a field, she was using her accounting skills to earn money while she pursued a pre-law degree.

      The good-fit cases stood out particularly for the constellation of supports that programs provided for students' academic success, personal well-being, and "planful" orientation toward the future. The poor-fit graduates report no experience of a "high definition" career magnet program in any meaningful sense. Their stories point to a range of individual and institutional difficulties--from badly informed choices and shifts in student interest to weakly designed programs and disengaged teachers. The differences between good-fit and poor-fit cases draw particular attention to the importance that students attach to the combined pressure and support they received from teachers or counselors, and to specific program features such as a mechanism for monitoring academics and communicating student progress among teachers.

      This paper raises two questions that cannot be examined adequately with the data in hand, but that would seem central to future inquiries into reform in secondary schools. The first centers on the part played by career magnet programs for students who accumulate a record of widespread academic failure and low attendance in the first year of high school. With only one seriously at-risk case among the good-fits, relatively little can be claimed with confidence, but it is possible that the difference between a good-fit and a poor-fit experience matters most to students whose ninth-grade record places them at risk of failure.

      Our study further suggests a question regarding the matter of student choice. Students encounter different opportunities to exercise choice over the course of their high school years and receive different kinds of help and guidance in constructing informed choices. The opportunity to enroll in a career magnet program represented the first choice the graduates in our study were asked to make with regard to their high school careers. In the comprehensive career magnet cases, all of which constituted a "good fit" with the Magnet Model, this choice resulted from the individual initiative of students who had been lottery losers but who nonetheless found their way into academic career-focused programs in their comprehensive schools. At two of the career magnet schools, where various programs were oriented toward a single occupational domain (health occupations or business careers), students were able to negotiate a program change if their interest waned in the program to which they had originally applied. These students were able to transfer to a related program, maintaining a certain coherence in their studies and continuing to build skills in a given domain. All three of the cases from the third career magnet, which offers a variety of programs from diverse occupational fields, were poor fits with the Magnet Model. Students in this school faced an array of weakly defined programs with very different course sequences and may have been the most "stuck" if their initial choice proved a poor one. Helping students make informed decisions about high school programs, and allowing them the latitude to modify their initial choices, may be central to creating career magnet programs that attract.

References

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McCharen, B. (1995). Guidance and counseling: An essential component for effective integration. In W. N. Grubb (Ed.), Education through occupations in American high schools, Vol. 2: The challenges of implementing curriculum integration (pp.141-155). New York: Teachers College Press.

Meier, D. (1995). The power of their ideas.Boston: Beacon Press.

Newmann, F. M. (1981). Reducing student alienation in high schools: Implications of theory. Harvard Educational Review, 51,546-564.

Olson, L. (1997). The school-to-work revolution: How employers and educators are joining forces to prepare tomorrow's skilled workforce.Reading, MA: Addison: Wesley.

Stern, D., Raby, M., & Dayton. C. (1992). Career academies: Partnerships for reconstructing American high schools.San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

[8] Acknowledging that older adolescents may have compelling reasons to balance school with other obligations related to family and work, we are cautious about attributing delayed graduation to school-specific experiences. Among this sample, however, we have no evidence that such external constraints account for the failure of those students who did not complete school in four years or who required summer or night school credits to graduate in four years.

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.