Whether it’s student surveys, higher rates of chronic absenteeism, or declining college enrollment, mounting evidence — especially since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic — indicates that students are increasingly disengaged from traditional high school. and fundamentally questioning the four-year university track as the norm.

It’s a reality that David Coleman, the director of the nonprofit College Board, which runs two of the college world’s core institutions, has always seen clearly: the Advanced Placement program and the SAT assessment program—both programs that have historically focused on high school students with plans to go there. secondary school.

Although most students say they need postsecondary education, and enrollment in AP courses and the number of SAT test-takers continue to grow, Coleman acknowledges that a large portion of students are disengaged from high school. and do not proactively make post-secondary plans. At the same time, students say they want more opportunities to learn about career options and prepare directly for those opportunities.

It’s why the College Board recently took a decisive turn in the career exploration and preparation space. The AP program, long dominated by traditional, core academic subjects, is expanding into career and technical education classes by introducing two such courses this year, through which students can earn both college credits and industry degrees. And now, after students take the SAT, they learn about possible career options that could be right for them when they receive their score reports.

“For many students, they view high school life as high school – again with feeling,” Coleman said Oct. 21 during the opening session of the College Board’s annual forum here in Austin. “If we want to be relevant, if we want to work together towards a new level of relevance, the Executive Board must fundamentally change.”

New program offers high school and college credits and industry credentials

Although the percentage of high school students enrolling in college has generally declined in recent years, the number of students enrolled in bachelor’s degree programs hasthat trains students in industry-specific skills, has grown.

As a result, more high schools have invested in helping students explore career paths.

One such tool for career exploration is career and technical education, or CTE.

An EdWeek Research Center study from June found that 66 percent of school and district leaders say their districts offer students access to CTE pathways leading to industry-recognized credentials as a way to expose students to career opportunities.

And 62 percent of educators said their district now offers more career and technical education courses than it did a decade ago.

In keeping with this national trend, the College Board’s AP program is piloting the Career Kickstart program that extends the AP model to CTE.

The goal is to offer courses that meet high school requirements while allowing students to earn college credit and an industry-recognized certificate, said Clare Bertrand, executive director of career strategy for the College Board.

The CTE courses largely follow the format of traditional AP courses. The Executive Board establishes a framework, teachers receive specialized training and students may be able to earn credits if they score well enough on a final exam.

The College Board is conducting two CTE courses this school year. AP Networking Fundamentals and AP Cybersecurity Fundamentals are full-year courses that some schools across the country are trying out. They provide hands-on, problem-solving activities that cover the basics in the field and prepare students to tackle today’s and rapidly evolving cybersecurity landscape.

Students who participate in this year’s pilot can earn high school credits and, based on their AP exam scores, be eligible for a voucher to cover the cost of test prep and exam for the related CompTIA industry-recognized certification.

“Does that student have to start working immediately? No, not at all. They can choose an internship, they can choose an internship, they can use that qualification to actually get a higher-paying, part-time job while they’re in a post-secondary program,” Bertrand said. “There’s a lot of flexibility in terms of how that reference will be used.”

The College Board is working to ensure that the courses are eligible for college credit, largely through partnerships with community colleges, Bertrand said.

Although it is a CTE program, the College Board encourages schools to offer the Career Kickstart courses in addition to existing AP courses, such as AP Computer Science Principles.

“We must end the unproductive gap between vocational and general education in high school and college,” Coleman said.

SAT will be a conversation starter for your career

Students who took the College Board’s SAT last year may have noticed another way the organization encourages students to explore potential careers.

As the College Board prepared to make the SAT digitalheard from teacher leaders who answered questions from their community about how the SAT rates of students’ math and reading skills applied to their careers and whether students should take the exam if they weren’t planning on pursuing a two- or four-year college track, said Priscilla Rodriguez, senior vice president for college readiness assessments at the College Board.

In response to this, the Executive Board has deployed a new instrument with the aim of drawing attention to potential careers for students.

The organization partnered with HumRRO, the Human Resources Research Organization, which matched the skills tested on the SAT to the skills needed for 1,000 careers in a U.S. Department of Labor database.

For the first time this past year, students had access to a career insights tool in their SAT score report: a chart that maps six different career interest areas based on students’ SAT scores. It includes information about the career paths, what post-secondary education the careers require, and how in demand these careers are in the students’ home countries.

The College Board doesn’t want students to think these are the only six careers the SAT recommends, Rodriguez says. Instead, the new tool is intended to be a conversation starter for students so they can explore different careers.

“The fact is that all students go to different places after high school,” says Bertrand. “So how do we ensure that they have all the information about all these different processes? But then again, college is a career path. It is part of the multiple path options for students.”