Supporting Successful Transitions to Adulthood: Understanding the Potential of Career Academy High Schools

For the past 15 years, MDRC has been conducting a random-assignment evaluation of Career Academies, a secondary education model in which schools structure their curricula and student opportunities around career themes. The most recent findings from the study show that career academies have a striking impact on long-term labor outcomes for participants. For example, over the eight years after scheduled high-school graduation, those who were randomly assigned to career academies earned an average of $2,088 more annually than their non-academy counterparts. Murnane will use this grant to reexamine these labor market outcomes, looking at which programmatic components were likely the most influential.