High School CTE in the Atlanta Metro Region: An Overview Focused on Access and Equity
Abstract
We study Career, Technical, and Agricultural Education (CTAE) credit accumulation among students in four metro-Atlanta school districts. Our analyses focus on differences in CTAE credit accumulation and the specific courses students take across students’ race, economic status, and gender characteristics. We further ask whether any of the observations are driven by the particular school students attend. We find meaningful differences in CTAE participation by students’ race and ethnicity and by economic status. However, when we compare students within the same school, observed differences are dramatically reduced. We also examine whether differences in CTAE course-taking across demographic subgroups hold for the types of CTAE courses students take. Overall, we find that differences in CTAE participation by race or economic status are modest and largely explained by differences in course-taking across schools. This contrasts with our analysis by gender, where we find meaningful separation in both participation and course type both across and within schools.