Credit: Julie Leopo/EdSource
Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Master Plan for Career Education offers a critical and timely opportunity to reshape education and workforce preparation to be more efficient, effective and accessible, especially for students. As the Legislature considers the proposal, there is plenty here to embrace, from the need for greater agency coordination to better data, more opportunities to “earn-and-learn,” and workable pathways for students to stack up credentials in robust and emerging job markets.
One promising approach is increasing access to career technical education (CTE) fields through dual enrollment. Our recent research highlights how dual enrollment expands opportunities for both career education and exposure to postsecondary pathways.
By its very nature, dual enrollment — the practice of students enrolling in college courses while still in high school — facilitates access to higher education, accelerates credit-earning and streamlines education and workforce transitions. CTE-focused dual enrollment provides students early access to growing occupational fields, such as allied health, information technology and construction, and can move them toward economic prosperity.
Research shows that dual enrollment is associated with higher rates of high school completion and college participation and success. What’s more, dual enrollment opportunities in career-oriented fields may offer students who are not currently finding success or relevance in high school a “warm handoff” to additional training, typically in community colleges, and to jobs in growing economic sectors.
With our partners at the California Department of Education and the California Community Colleges, we explored access to different course pathways. We found that 18.4% of California public high school graduates in 2022 completed a high school-based career technical education pathway and 9.4% participated in these CTE pathways through dual enrollment (including 3% of students who do both). Importantly, 6.4% of high school graduates participated in career technical education coursework exclusively through dual enrollment, many of whom may not have otherwise engaged in such subjects. These courses expand the range of industries available for exploration among high school students. For example, fields like business and finance, public service, education and child development are available through college courses rather than through high school CTE pathways.
Right now, these opportunities are unevenly accessed, with lower relative participation among Black and Hispanic/Latino students and among students who struggle academically. These disparities arise from differences between schools, such as available programs or staffing, and school-based practices such as class scheduling and postsecondary advising. Yet, we and others (including the Public Policy Institute of California) show that formal, carefully implemented dual enrollment programs, such as those created through College and Career Access Pathways (CCAP) partnerships, foster more equitable access and participation.
We are convinced that CTE and dual enrollment, especially delivered in tandem, can be good for all students, as all can benefit from exposure to college-level work and relevant career-connected education. The unfortunate history, however, is that our systems too often sort students into one or the other: academic or career technical pathways. CTE-focused dual enrollment can bridge a stubborn divide and deliver early access to growing occupational fields, setting high school students on a path to professions with economic security.
The governor’s strong new Master Plan for Career Technical Education could be further strengthened by a greater focus on the expansion and careful implementation of CTE dual enrollment opportunities. Along the way, policymakers and educators should focus more on reducing barriers to these programs and encouraging participation by students who, in the past, have been unnecessarily left behind.
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Michal Kurlaender is the Chancellor’s Leadership Professor of education policy at the University of California, Davis and lead researcher for Wheelhouse: The Center for Community College Leadership & Research and faculty co-director of Policy Analysis for California Education. Sherrie Reed is executive director of the California Education Lab at the University of California, Davis. Audrey Boochever is a graduate student researcher in the School of Education at the University of California, Davis.
The research reported here was supported by the Stuart Foundation and the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education. Analysis was completed under research partnership agreements with the California Department of Education and the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office. The findings and conclusions here are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect the positions or policies of the funders, including the U.S. Department of Education, or of the state agencies providing data.
