Employers and Educators Drive Learning Together: The Philadelphia Academies, Inc.

Abstract

    Summary

How can an organization that created an evidenced-based model 40 years ago designed to reduce dropout rates and motivate youth to engage in the planning of their own careers remain innovative and relevant?  As our country, state, and city look to education as a means to help our economy remain globally competitive, how can innovation occur in traditional high schools and be supported by industry?  What career- connected tools can introduce change in the Philadelphia public high school system?  Questions like these drive a local nonprofit youth development organization, the Philadelphia Academies, Inc. (PAI), to develop strategies and solutions so that more local youth can benefit from career-connected education. 

PAI successfully helps Philadelphia high school students stay in school, graduate, and enter careers by involving industries and businesses in the classroom in a substantive way. PAI comprises individual Career Academies, small learning communities based in local high schools that have a career theme, link academic subjects and the workplace through project-based learning, and connect students to a network of employers and higher education institutions. Using this model, which has been replicated across multiple sites with different populations in 2,500 schools nationally, PAI has established a 40-year track record of improved academic and employment outcomes for young people in Philadelphia. Building on its success, PAI now plans to scale up the impact of its work by widening its focus from direct service to include training educators in the principles of its model and organizing industry for substantive roles in public education, with the goal of serving 25 percent of all Philadelphia high school students (roughly 25,000 youth) by 2015.

Lisa Nutter is President of Philadelphia Academies, Inc., a nonprofit youth development organization that works in Philadelphia’s public high schools to provide career-based learning, college readiness supports, and positive adult networks that motivate young people to graduate and prepare them for the 21st-century economy.