Selecting a field of study is an important decision made by thousands of incoming postsecondary students each year. Numerous studies have shown that graduates from engineering, business and mathematics programs earn considerably more than their counterparts from arts and humanities. These earnings disparities may reflect differences in skills that…

Background: The landscape of education is increasingly recognizing the impactful role of Career and Technical Education (CTE) programs in preparing students for the workforce. In Delaware, the implementation of CTE programs has been substantial, offering students opportunities to earn college credits, attain industry certifications, and gain…

The federal government and many individual organizations have invested in programs to support diversity in the STEM pipeline, including STEM summer programs for high school students, but there is little rigorous evidence of their efficacy. We fielded a randomized controlled trial to study a suite of such programs targeted to underrepresented high…

Participation in Career Technical Education (CTE) programs has been proposed as a valuable strategy for supporting transition to independence among students with disabilities. We exploit a discontinuity created by admissions thresholds from a statewide system of CTE high schools. Our findings suggest attending CTE high schools has large positive…

The prevalence of data in every aspect of life in modern society makes it critical that students are given experiences investigating real issues with real data. Our research question was as follows: In what ways can mathematical action technology used with a real-world context involving the wage gap contribute to students' sense of identity and…

In the 21st century, education has become America's most significant marker of class privilege. People with bachelor's and advanced degrees have mostly prospered, while wages for those with less education have fallen. This divergence in economic fortunes lies at the heart of our country's present economic and political discontents. Federal and…

The policy brief describes a study done by the Regional Educational Laboratory Southwest. Round Rock Independent School District (ISD) wanted to enhance its high school career and technical education (CTE) programming to prepare CTE graduates to either enter high-wage, in-demand careers in Central Texas or continue their education after high…

As students transition between high school and college or career, many have begun to consider their future career paths or want to identify career options that will best fit them. To better understand the types of career characteristics that students want to explore, this study surveys a random sample of 11th and 12th-grade students who registered…

Local teacher recruitment through "grow-your-own" programs is a prominent strategy to address workforce shortages and ensure that incoming teachers resemble, understand, and have strong connections to their communities. We exploit the staggered rollout of the Teacher Academy of Maryland career and technical education certificate program…

Since the passage of the Massachusetts Education Reform Act in 1993, the Commonwealth has been seen as a national leader in education reform. The legislation introduced statewide learning standards and the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) tests, and provided large increases in funding for K-12 education. We explore the high…

In this paper, we seek to answer the research question as to whether students take into account the predictions of human capital theory (namely the higher wages associated with further studies) in their decision to participate in higher education. Our alternative research question is whether students can be described by Bourdieu's theory on…

Youth apprenticeship has emerged as a potential strategy to recruit and train a new generation of early childhood educators. Many in the field hope it will help address teacher shortages, promote the recruitment and retention of diverse candidates, and provide the training and experience needed both to enter the profession and grow into…

To ensure that students are prepared for the workforce, part of Maryland State Department of Education's (MSDE) vision for career and technical education (CTE) is for all students to have access and opportunities to engage in CTE programs of study that align to occupations that are high-wage, high-skill, and/or in-demand (MSDE, 2020). MSDE's…

This study assesses the human capital development and wage performance of low-income students from geographically isolated and substandard housing settlements known as colonias. The research follows Texas high school students from the classroom to employment over a span of two decades and, specifically, tracks the three border regions where most…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to develop a measure of soft skills suitable for use in a large survey of Australian adolescents. Design/methodology/approach: A survey was conducted with N = 4,704 Australians aged 15-19 over 2 years. Principal components analysis was performed on 14 self-report items, followed by generalised linear mixed…