District/School Resources PK-16 Program Support
Career/Vocational Technical Education

High Schools That Work in Massachusetts

High Schools That Work (HSTW), an initiative of the Southern Regional Education Board, is the nation's first large scale effort to combine challenging academic courses and modern vocational technical studies to raise the achievement of career bound high school students. It began in 1987 with 28 sites in 13 states. There are now more than 1300 sites in 31 states.

The High Schools That Work program has two major goals:

1. To increase the mathematics, science, communication, problem-solving, and technical competencies and the application of learning for career-bound students to the national student average;

2. To blend the essential content of traditional college preparatory studies - mathematics, science, and language arts - with quality vocational and technical studies by creating conditions that support school leaders, teachers and counselors in carrying out the key practices.

Massachusetts joined HSTW in the fall of 1995 in order to help school districts with career and technical education programs to implement Education Reform and share ideas for raising the achievement level of students in career and technical programs. Eleven high schools that responded to a request for proposals and agreed to make a five-year commitment to the effort were given small grants from the Perkins Vocational and Technical Education Act to support their participation. Additional sites have been added through Perkins Act state leadership, Comprehensive School Reform, Goals 2000 district improvement, or the High School Reform grant. The state pays annual dues of approximately $18,000 to the Southern Regional Education Board in return for services provided to the state and local sites.

Maryellen McDonagh of the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education's School and District Intervention unit is the state coordinator for High Schools That Work. Mmcdonagh@doe.mass.edu or (781) 338-3932.

Dr. Gene Bottoms, Director of the High Schools That Work program, conducted a two-day site development workshop in December 1995 to introduce teams of faculty and administrators from the eleven original sites to the concepts of the program. Similar workshops were conducted as new sites were incorporated into the network. The teams returned to their districts to share what they learned with other staff and to begin work on three-year data-driven Action Plans. The sites attempt to get the whole faculty involved in team decision-making as they develop the Action Plan.

The sites participate in the following activities:

• A bi-annual twelfth grade assessment in mathematics, science and language arts using questions from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) test. A student survey and transcript study is conducted at the same time. Each site receives a printout containing approximately 100 pages of test analysis matching student scores to national results, student majors, courses taken, classroom practices, etc.
• A bi-annual teacher survey that analyzes classroom practices and professional development needs of English, mathematics, science and vocational technical teachers
• A summer professional development conference sponsored by SREB
• Two to six day institutes addressing specific topics related to the key practices offered by SREB throughout the school year
• District coaches meetings led by the state coordinator
• Professional development events sponsored by the MA Department of Elementary and Secondary Education
• Three-day technical assistance site visits to each school every three years by a team of national, state and local teachers and administrators to identify best practices, greatest challenges, and possible resources for raising student achievement.

Massachusetts HSTW sites have:

• increased the amount of faculty involvement in decision-making;
• eliminated lower level academic courses;
• increased communication between academic and career technical teachers;
• increased the integration of academic and career technical education;
• increased the number of required academic courses for career and technical students;
• organized ninth grade academies with intensive extra help to raise reading and math levels of incoming students;
• developed four-year career plans for students with opportunities for parent involvement;
• shared ideas with other sites about senior projects, portfolios, advisor/advisee programs; and
• used teacher survey results and faculty input to prepare professional development plans.