Preparing Students for Educational and Career Success.
For more than 40 years, Philadelphia Academies, Inc., (PAI) has been reaching public high school students with college and career preparation, life skills, and adult connections they could not get anywhere else. When we started the first Career Academy, we were simply looking to lower dropout rates. We have accomplished that—yet there’s so much more that needs to be done.
Direct support is a vital component of the program.
Career academies are based on a rigorous and relevant curriculum that prepares students for college, careers, and productive citizenship. At the center of the experience, students need:
Career academies make a profound difference in young people’s lives.
A recent, long-term research study shows that we have been able to substantially improve the labor market prospects for students:
- Higher employment and earnings. 1
- More young people productively engaged and supporting our economy.
Our goal: To increase the impact of career-linked education.
Our programs provide a viable way for students to “get in the game,” be motivated to learn, and connect to successful futures. Many more students need our help—by 2015, we hope to
expand our reach from under 10% to a full 25% of the student population. 3
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We are scaling up to reach more students.
Because direct support to students is such a key part of our model, we need to bring more people to the important task of helping young people succeed in the 21st century. We are working to:
Increase the number of teachers and adult practitioners that are trained in our approach.
Involve and prepare more business and community partners to play more meaningful roles in our programming.
Pilot the use of technology to improve our ability to teach 21st century skills and engage young people.
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1 From the report, Career Academies: Long-Term Impacts on Labor Market Outcomes, Educational Attainment, and Transitions to Adulthood, a 15-year random assignment study of Career Academies in nine urban high schools around the country conducted by MDRC.
2 $1,594,366 greater average lifetime earnings between a high school dropout ($457,089) and a BA degree-earner ($2,051,455) in Philadelphia.
3 Data represents Philadelphia high school population in traditional public high schools (excluding charter and private).