I wanted to share a brief explainer on "high schools with the majors." At the bottom of this post is a bit of context as to why and how I'm aware of this paradigm and I'm also including a self-interested plug related to that work.
"Why do some high schools have majors?" I have heard this question from parents I'm in touch with and I wrote this post to help break the topic down. High school "majors" is a topic that 8th grade students often learn about as they explore options for attending high school in Jersey City. County Prep and High Tech High School are two notable examples in Jersey City because they require an 8th grade student to "pick a major" when applying. But Ferris High School also has the "major" concept in the JCPS model of "small learning communities."
These majors are part of a larger, holistic workforce development paradigm in NJ (and the U.S. more broadly) and are both interesting and important to know about if you are a parent of a school-aged child.
"Majors" = CTE "Career Clusters®"
The technical name for the majors is "career clusters®" and they are part of a 100+ year old workforce development framework in the United States that has roots in vocational technical education. The basic idea is: help high school students find pathways into the workforce. In recent years, this paradigm has evolved into the Career and Technical Education ("CTE") paradigm which is an exhaustive (and very interesting) topic on its own that you can begin to learn more about at the Association for Career and Technical Education (ACTE) website and also at the Advance CTE website. I will share some highlights as this post is aimed at parents, caregivers, and community members with an interest in education.
This entire program is attached to federal and state "Perkins V" funding and related resources to support the framework and its implementation on a local level.
Jersey City's CTE Paradigm (3 examples): Ferris High School, County Prep, and High Tech High
In Jersey City, we have a mix of public school options but I will bucket them broadly into two categories:
- Traditional high schools that have the typical state-mandated classes (math, English, science) plus a suite of electives that students can take, depending on what that school offers. For example, I still recall taking photography (my school had a dark room), an arts class, and typing. My school at the time also offered woodworking, mechanics, and other classes (my brother recalls learning how to take apart a small engine in high school). Some of these electives were the funnest and most useful part of my high school experience (typing was probably the most useful class I've ever taken, given how much I use the skill today) because they involved hands-on, experiential learning. Ferris High School is one such example of a "traditional" high school in this regard.
- CTE high schools, like traditional high schools, have typical state-mandated classes. But, unlike the traditional high schools, CTE schools do not offer the suite of electives. Instead, they invite/mandate a student to pick a "major" (a CTE career cluster®) that allows that student to focus on a particular learning track. The learning track is designed to help direct a student towards industries that offer well-paying jobs in high-demand industries with rewarding skills that can be obtained both in the classroom and in a work setting. County Prep and High Tech High are two CTE schools in Hudson County.
James J. Ferris High School is located on Montgomery Street in Jersey City, just east of the Route 78 extension overpass, towards downtown. It is part of the Jersey City Public Schools district. It is what I'd term a "traditional" high school but it offers CTE programming through the small learning community framework.
County Prep is located on Montgomery Street in Jersey City, just west of the Route 78 extension overpass, not too far from Ferris High School. It is part of the Hudson County Schools of Technology, which is its own school district. It is a "CTE school" because it offers CTE career cluster® education through the "majors" concept.
High Tech High School is in Secaucus and, unlike County Prep and Ferris, it is not nestled inside a city but rather more akin to a suburban campus. Like County Prep, it is part of the Hudson County Schools of Technology thus it serves students throughout Hudson County. It is a "CTE school" because it offers CTE career cluster® education through the "majors" concept.
Public data shows CTE at work
I am actively mining the New Jersey School Performance Reports for insights about CTE (my interest is in accounting education). So I am sharing a few visuals that illustrate CTE in action at these three local schools.
The chart below shows total enrollment (in the circles) for County Prep, High Tech High (HTH), and Ferris High School. Below that, in the bar charts, we can see the total students enrolled in CTE (career cluster®) programming. Some basic observations show that:
- County Prep and HTH both have nearly 100% of their total enrollment also engaged in CTE. Conversely, about 40% of Ferris High School's student body are enrolled in CTE. This shows the CTE vs traditional programming at work.
- Ferris's CTE program is primarily anchored around business administration, finance, and marketing. County Prep and HTH, however, offer career clusters® anchored in architecture (HTH), business administration (County Prep), health sciences (County Prep), and hospitality and tourism (both County Prep and HTH).
If you wanted to learn more about these majors you could access the Advanced CTE website, and it drills into exhaustive detail about all of these majors. For example, the finance career cluster® is focused on "planning, services for financial and investment planning, banking, insurance, and business financial management." Please see the Advanced CTE website for more details; it is beyond the scope of this post, but there is tremendous depth and nuance to all of this as I am learning through my research.
Data is from the NJ School Performance Reports website.
Finally, it's worth noting that CTE programs are of course not the *only* way that students can gain access to these various career paths. Many schools across the state do not have CTE but they still offer classes and learning tracks related to one of these topics (e.g. finance). A school must have the resources which introduces a thicket of complexity around access and equity, because school quality can vary depending on:
- which schools have teachers who are subject matter experts and qualified to teach
- equipment and space for hands-on learning (e.g. a kitchen for a culinary program)
- administrators to manage the program which includes a compliance framework with the state
So, some schools can afford to hire a teacher who is certified to teach finance and they may have strong social capital in the community as it relates to the finance industry (e.g. a connection at a local bank) that can support the private investment of resources (like a computer lab with Bloomberg terminals). But not all schools have those private resources. That is where CTE can be thought of as the public apparatus to help local school districts that may not possess those private resources, or that simply need help offering additional programming related to one or more career clusters®.
In closing
It's important to note that a CTE career cluster® is not "locking a student in" to a college major. Meaning, a student can focus on business in high school but then enter college and major in English or history and eventually work in a space that has nothing to do with business, English, or history. But...if a student does want to have a shot at getting an accounting job out of college, then exposure to accounting while still in high school can support that student's pathway through college and beyond (I see this in my day job as an accounting professor).
There is a lot more to this topic, but I wanted to provide a basic frame for parents and caregivers simply around the concept of the "majors."
Context on my work with CTE as it relates to accounting
I am digging into CTE data as part of my research focus. There is a dire talent shortage facing the accounting industry; as a result, accounting jobs are currently in high demand. There are a confluence of factors contributing to the talent shortage, but one is awareness at the high school level of how accounting can be a rewarding, well-paying, and stable career (disruptions from AI not withstanding). Growing awareness about accounting among high students is not easy. Accountings suffers from common misperceptions about career quality. Students (and adults) can assume it's boring, monotonous, and isolated from human contact. But this is really not true; accounting is a dynamic, client service profession that can offer great job optionality and good pay over the long run. And if you work in public accounting (like I did) you may be staffed on multiple clients at one time, your office is your backpack, you may be traveling (gaining exposure to different states and countries), and you are usually teaming with others along the way.
Many industry efforts are afoot to address this talent shortage (e.g. Accounting + from the Center for Audit Quality), but a key piece of the puzzle is giving high school students (and I would argue even middle school students) access to curriculum - baked into their school days - that allows them to learn about accounting in dynamic ways that include experiential learning models (e.g. like helping run the books for a school store). This is where CTE can be incredibly helpful to both (a) industry stakeholders (like CPA firms) who need quality talent to enter the workforce and pursue the CPA license and (b) students who may actually really enjoy an accounting career at some point. I believe, for example (with some passion), that you can peak an interest in an accounting career as early as middle school...I wrote a brief piece on that in, "Algebra to Accounting").
I have seen the benefits of CTE programming with students who wish to pursue accounting in college. Students in a business-focused high school CTE program possess a clear advantage of awareness and know-how with respect to accounting, Excel, and business before they even step foot on a college campus. That high school investment can translate into immediate value-add in college, where we encourage students to pursue internships as early as their first year. Those internships are then building blocks to full-time roles post-college.
This is a complicated puzzle of education and workforce development, but CTE can play an important role as intended by the government. More work is needed to bridge education to industry, however, and that is what I aim to do with my research around CTE.
There is a cost-benefit factor to CTE. The potential cost is that CTE students may be limiting their exposure to elective coursework (like photography, my favorite example) while they go "all in" on a CTE major. The benefit is, however, is that a student may find a topic that they enjoy which is (a) a great bonus in and of itself if a student looks forward to that work each day but also (b) very helpful and additive if that student is turned onto that topic as an educational focus for college and career. The benefits of career scaffolding weighed against the costs of exposure to elective topics is important to consider and beyond the scope of this post.
Finally, a plug: if you are interested in learning more about accounting education for K through 12 students, then I am interested in connecting. Drop me a note at brigid@civicparent.org.
