Career Technical Education Course-Taking Patterns: Demographic Distribution and Relation to Student Achievement

• In Event: Friday Roundtable Session 11:25 am
  In Roundtable Session: Understanding Student Achievement Using the NAEP Data (Table 13)

Abstract

The study examines the impact of high school career technical education (CTE) programs on academic achievement. It uses data from the 2019 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) High School Transcript Study (HSTS) to analyze the number of CTE courses taken by 2019 graduates. The findings show that CTE coursetaking varies most significantly by gender, race/ethnicity, and Census region. In the Northeast, Midwest, and West Census regions, White graduates take more CTE courses than Black and Hispanic graduates, while this relationship is reversed in the South. Male graduates take more CTE courses than female graduates in all regions, but this difference is small in the South. The top CTE courses by average credits earned differ according to demographic factors.

Authors

• Ingrid Fichtenberg, Westat

• Robert Colby Perkins, Unemployed