The transition from high school into postsecondary education and a career has become particularly challenging given today’s complex, fast-moving, and highly technological economy. To combat this problem, one approach widely adopted in the United States is the career academy model, which combines a college-preparatory and career and technical curriculum with a career theme and is often structured as a small learning community within a larger high school. A landmark MDRC randomized controlled trial of career academies, starting in the mid-1990s, found sustained earnings gains for academy participants in the eight years after expected high school completion.

Shifts in the labor market, reforms to secondary education, and a growth in both high school graduation and postsecondary enrollment rates across the United States prompt new questions about how participating in career academies may affect current students’ academic and labor outcomes. MDRC is currently conducting another long-term randomized controlled trial of career academies to help answer these questions. This study explores California Partnership Academies (CPAs), which are partially state-funded career academies within high schools across California. The study will follow participants for the eight years after expected high school graduation and look at the impacts on students’ high school, postsecondary education, and employment and earnings outcomes.

This report explores the impacts of CPAs on students’ high school graduation and college readiness at the end of high school as well as their college enrollment during the first year after graduation. It also examines the differences between the school experiences of the students who were offered a spot in a CPA (CPA group) and of those who were not offered a spot (non-CPA group), as well as some of the early effects of the program on teachers’ attention to and expectations of students and on students’ collaboration with each other, their perceived relevance of schoolwork, and their plans after high school. Key findings include:

• CPA group students had more experiences related to the three key components of CPAs than those in the non-CPA group, but these features were not exclusive to students in CPAs, and some non-CPA group students reported experiencing some similar types of activities. The three key components are the creation of a small learning community within the larger high school (also called a school within a school), the integration of college-preparatory core academic curricula with career and technical education, and employer partners and work-based learning opportunities.
   
• The CPAs in this study, along with all schools and districts across the country, were greatly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and related school closures during the study period. This was especially true for work-based learning opportunities. Most CPA group students had work-based learning opportunities that were canceled, postponed, or changed due to the pandemic. These missed opportunities could dilute the effects of the program.
   
• Students assigned to CPAs reported more personalized attention from teachers, more collaboration with their classmates, and feeling more prepared for future college and career plans.
   
• Ninety-three percent of students in the study (both those in the CPA group and those in the non-CPA group) graduated high school on time. Being offered a spot in a CPA did not impact a student’s likelihood of graduating. While the state requires half the students in CPAs to be at risk of not graduating high school when entering the program based on a set of indicators (for example, income level, academic proficiency), this graduation rate is quite a bit higher than the state average, which was 86 percent in 2023, suggesting that other factors, such as motivation (all students in the study applied to be in a CPA), may have played a role in the success of these students.
   
• There was no impact of the CPA model found on students’ college readiness nor on their college enrollment in the first year after expected high school graduation—across all students in the study. Sixty percent of the CPA group had passed the high school courses required for enrollment in a California public university (higher than the state average for high school graduates, which was 50 percent), 33 percent actually enrolled in a four-year institution after high school, and 69 percent enrolled in any college or trade school.
   
• The CPA model did have positive impacts on readiness for a California university for young women (by 12 percentage points) as well as for those students who were identified as both economically disadvantaged and struggling academically (by 13 percentage points).

This study will provide findings at two more intervals. A report on college completion and labor market outcomes four years after high school graduation will be published in 2028, and a final report, on labor market outcomes for the eight years after high school graduation, will be released in 2032.