This article first appeared in Education Week, June 9, 2011. Reprinted with permission from Editorial Projects in Education.

To the national debate about whether students should pursue career and technical education or college preparation, a California program wants to add an emphatic declaration: Yes.

The refusal to choose between one instructional emphasis or the other symbolizes the work being done to build career pathways in nine school districts as part of Linked Learning, an initiative cited as a national model of career and technical education.

One of the places the project is unfolding is in a cluster of high schools in the Porterville Unified School District, which serves a predominantly Latino, low-income community here among the San Joaquin Valley’s olive and orange groves.

At one school, a half-dozen students huddle around big desktop computers. The complex formulas they’re calculating and programming into the computer will tell a robot how to restack blocks of blue and red cubes. When they give the robot the command, the job comes off perfectly. Barely old enough to drive, these students are learning to negotiate the real-world engineering that shapes manufacturing.

A few hallways away, teenagers master the high-tech tools of the performing arts world. Aspiring musicians sit at rows of electric pianos, listening through headsets to the music they create as it is automatically notated on computer screens. At another school, students juggle computers and soundboards to produce a morning broadcast.

When they’re not in classrooms, students from these schools are out in the community, working in local engineering companies, staging musicals with preschoolers, or helping design sound for a street concert.

The point, leaders of the work say, is to create a more relevant, engaging school experience for young people by blending the rigorous core academics they need for college with the career and technical education that prepares them for good jobs, and to do it in an applied, hands-on way that includes real-life work experience.

Just south of downtown, Santee Education Complex is one of Los Angeles' newest high schools, a huge, modern campus with more than 3,500 students. Many of its students come from poor neighborhoods where gang-related violence is common, and those who end up graduating and attending college are often the first in their families to do so.

But few Santee students ever do go to college. Since it opened in 2005, Santee has grappled with low test scores, dispirited students and a nearly 50 percent dropout rate.

"So many of our students simply don't see the benefits of a high school diploma because they aren't exposed to (those benefits) in their communities," says Brunel Merilus, assistant principal of the Travel, Tourism and Culinary Arts Academy, one of six small learning academies that make up Santee.

Now, Santee is embarking on a new initiative designed to curb the school's high dropout rate and help students see the benefits of going to college. The program will send Santee students to college-level classes in tourism, culinary arts and other fields, while giving them hands-on work experience in these fields through internships with local businesses.

Berkeley, CA – The James Irvine Foundation and ConnectEd: The California Center for College and Career, today announced grants to 10 California school districts as part of the California Multiple Pathways District Initiative. The Initiative aims to transform high schools districtwide by offering students a choice of at least six high‐quality pathway programs that prepare them for success in both college and their careers. Multiple pathway programs connect learning in the classroom with real‐world applications by integrating rigorous academic instruction with a demanding technical curriculum and work‐based learning.

After extensive district‐led planning processes including community involvement, a systematic assessment rubric was used to award the following six school districts two‐year grants of more than $1 million each to develop systems of multiple pathways: 

With its partners, Irvine’s Youth program has spent much of the last three years developing and refining an approach to high school education called California multiple pathways — a synthesis of rigorous academics and real-world experience that seeks to engage youth in the serious learning needed to graduate high school prepared for success in college and career.

The multiple pathways approach is flourishing in high schools throughout California, with promising results, but its reach is limited. Now it is poised for expansion at a much larger scale, with 10 high school districts in California developing plans to implement multiple pathways districtwide, reaching tens of thousands of students.

Over the past year, the James Irvine Foundation’s Youth program has refined its approach to education reform in California’s high schools. The result is a more targeted focus on multiple pathways as our core strategy for improving the chances that all California’s young people succeed in life.

As is well known, California’s high schools are not working for large numbers of young people. Almost a third of ninth graders will drop out of high school before graduation. And of those who finish high school, most will lack the knowledge and skills needed to succeed in college and the workforce.

One of the most difficult challenges facing high schools today is how to engage more young people in the serious learning that will ensure their success in school and in work. The stakes for our youth — and for California’s ability to compete in a global economy — have never been greater

Shortly after taking office in 2006, Long Beach Mayor Bob Foster invited the local school superintendent, Christopher J. Steinhauser, to his home for lunch. The newly elected mayor had no official role in the Long Beach schools, but he wanted to get the superintendent's support for a program Foster proposed to prepare high school students for careers in the fast-growing building industry.

During that first meeting, the superintendent and the mayor talked more than they ate, Steinhauser recalled, and agreed to create the ACE Academy, which opened last year on an existing high school campus. The academy offers students job training and hands-on experience in architecture, construction and engineering along with other rigorous high school course work. It seeks to prepare students for apprenticeship programs after graduation and careers in architecture and engineering.

Steinhauser made the academic arrangements, while Foster lined up support from the building trades and began raising the $500,000 in private donations he'd promised to help pay for the new academy. "This program worked remarkably well," Foster said. "We have 54 students now, and we will have more than 400 students over a four-year period."

The trio of students huddle over a model that began as a gray slab of cardboard and now shows the beginnings of a miniature condominium complex, complete with parking lots, private garages and open-air spaces. The students are troubleshooting their latest problem: where to put the apartment building.

"We can't put it here because there isn't enough available square footage; it measures two centimeters short," explains Jos Bojorquez, 17, clutching one of three two-inch tall cardboard condo buildings that are part of the Lilliputian complex.

It is architecture class at Construction Tech Academy, one of four small schools in the Kearny High Educational Complex in San Diego that has become a model for how academically challenging courses with a strong real-world focus can transform high school education in California. Students here are taking college-prep math, English and science, but they're also learning through a hands-on approach that is unlike most traditional high schools.

Instead of lectures and textbooks, for instance, these students are studying building design by measuring dimensions and meticulously crafting miniature models themselves. "We've had to think of everything from plumbing to the thickness of the windows, to how fast the elevators in the buildings can go," says Jos, a junior. "I never thought I'd be using this much math in architecture. But it's really cool."

His enthusiasm is not something you often see in a large public high school like Kearny, which serves a low-income, predominantly Latino community in the Linda Vista area north of downtown San Diego. And it explains why programs like this are the focus of growing interest and support from a diverse array of education stakeholders in California.

Known as "multiple pathways," the approach combines high-level academics with workplace learning and skills. It is based on the idea that high school students come to school with a variety of interests and learning styles, and that in order to engage them in challenging academic work, schools need to tap those interests and demonstrate the relevance of classroom learning to the real world.

In a sense, it is the 21st century version of vocational education. But where vocational ed was seen as limiting the educational potential for many students — leading to jobs but discouraging them from higher education — multiple pathways is designed to provide students with a path to both college and advanced careers.

"The goal is to have every student graduate prepared to pursue some kind of postsecondary education, whether they decide to go to college or not," says Arlene LaPlante, Director of the Network of Schools for ConnectEd: the California Center for College and Career, a Berkeley-based nonprofit that helps develop multiple pathways programs and advances the role that it plays in reforming California's high schools. The James Irvine Foundation established ConnectEd in 2006 with a $6 million grant.

ConnectEd supports 15 schools and academies around the state, including Construction Tech Academy, that serve as models of the multiple pathways approach. These programs are typically small, averaging 400 students or less, and each focuses on a specific industry — finance and business; health science and medical technology; building and environmental design; engineering; and arts, media, and entertainment.

At each program, the curriculum is designed to deliver the academic courses required for entry into the UC and CSU systems. But at the same time, these programs take hands-on learning to a new level.

At Construction Tech, students learn about mechanical engineering not just by studying a bike's gears, as they might in a more traditional high school; they build the bike, gears and all. Students learn about the physics of bridges not by studying textbooks and hearing lectures on bridge design, but by building a bridge; last year, they built a 20-foot-long, six-foot-wide structure over a creek in the Serra Mesa area of
San Diego.

"These schools are making learning relevant, engaging kids and contextualizing their learning," says LaPlante, who oversees ConnectEd's network of model programs. "When students are engaged, they are less likely to drop out of school and more likely to graduate from high school and go on to college."

Indeed, growing evidence shows that multiple pathways hold great promise for reducing dropout rates and increasing student achievement. A recent assessment of 2,113 students enrolled in eight ConnectEd-supported schools found that all of the seniors during the 2006-07 academic year graduated. Of those, 71 percent fulfilled the academic course requirements for UC and CSU, and most went off to college.

Moreover, students in ConnectEd-supported schools were equal to or outpacing their peers statewide on several standardized tests. In the 2006–07 school year, 82 percent of sophomores in ConnectEd schools passed the English/Language Arts section of the California High School Exit Exam, compared with 77 percent of sophomores statewide.

Recently, momentum has been building around the multiple pathways approach. In June, ConnectEd launched an alliance, called the Coalition for Multiple Pathways, to expand the number of
career-oriented high school programs in California. More than 60 education, industry and community organizations, including many stakeholders who don't always see eye to eye about how to improve California schools, have joined the coalition.

The hope is that multiple pathways can address the alarmingly high dropout rates in California high schools, where about a third of students never make it to graduation, and another third graduate unprepared for the demands of postsecondary education or the workplace. The multiple pathways approach offers a way to engage those students who often leave school because they see little link between what they're learning in the classroom and their aspirations in the real world.

At the School for Digital Media and Design (DMD), which is also part of the Kearny complex in San Diego, the front hall is covered with flyers (graphically designed by students, of course) of the schools each senior will attend.

Many go on to Mesa Community College while others attend San Diego State University, UC San Diego and a host of other state universities or private colleges. This year, one student, Linh-Da Ho, received the highly competitive Gates Millennium Scholarship, which will pay for her post-secondary career from college to a doctorate program.

"We've got really high achievers and we've got kids who never thought they would finish high school," says DMD Principal Cheryl Hibbeln. "But they all end up finishing and going on to some form of
post-secondary education."

Hibbeln says that the school emphasizes high academic standards. All students, she notes, must take a foreign language and intermediate algebra, and they can only take an elective once they have shown proficiency in math. "Our mission is to teach kids to be high-level thinkers and effective communicators. We want them to know how to argue, debate and articulate ideas," she says. "So, if theyre working on a video, film or graphic project, it needs to be the best written and understandable product, no exceptions."

As part of the field learning, DMD often requires students to present projects to real-world clients or professionals. In one graphics class, seniors worked on public service announcements for the San Diego city attorneys office. They researched ordinances on environmental issues, then wrote and designed brochures and posters on making San Diego a cleaner city by 2020, and, finally, pitched their ideas in groups before the city attorney and local business leaders.

"You learn that theres so much more to it than just putting together something pretty and slick on the computer," says junior Derrick Beebe. "You really have to think through things and know what you're talking about because the clients can tell. All of it prepares you for real life and for college work."

One of the most promising aspects of the multiple pathways approach is how it can re-engage academically struggling students. At Kearny, one of those students was Daniel Robles, who didnt have much hope of making it through high school, let alone getting to college. He barely finished middle school, leaving with a 1.3 grade point average (GPA).
"I wasnt interested in school. I was there because I had to be there," Robles recalls.

Robles decided to attend Construction Tech Academy, hoping he would find something interesting to do outside of his classes, something that appealed to his interest in building things. Instead, building things was an integral part of Robles' traditional classes. The hands-on learning helped Robles excel academically, turning his
1.3 GPA into a 3.5 GPA and above. He graduated in 2007 and is finishing his freshman year at UC San Diego, majoring in mechanical engineering.

"It was such a great way of learning for me," says Robles, 19. "Everything was hands-on. Everything had a purpose. It made me realize that you can't have one without the other. Even if I just wanted to be a carpenter, I really need to know mathematics and physics."