Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is the birthplace of career academies, which were born in 1969, out of the protest, riots, and racial tensions of the 1960s and ’70s. It is nicknamed the “City of Brotherly Love,” and is now a commercial, educational, and cultural center. Before Washington, D.C. was named the capital of the U.S., it was the capital and the social and geographical center of the original 13 American colonies.

Philadelphia is the fourth largest metropolitan region in the U.S. population with 6.1 million people and also the fourth largest total employment of U.S. large metro areas with a total of three million jobs. It is home to three major shipping ports and 92 colleges and universities. Key industries are: life sciences, (ranked top by the Milken Institute) chemicals, financial services and information technology.

The CEO Council for Growth, Select Greater Philadelphia, the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of commerce, and the regional chambers in southern New Jersey and northern Delaware are all working in partnership to create a stronger and more vibrant Greater Philadelphia by improving the region’s competitive positioning. A unique partnership among business, the school district, and other education institutions, labor, and parents has created the Philadelphia Academies, Inc., an independent not-for-profit corporation primarily dedicated to strengthening public school students’ academic and occupational skills, enhancing their in-school and post-graduation options, and contributing to the development of a stable and skilled workforce. This overarching organization coordinates with 6,500 students in 29 career academies in 19 high schools, across 12 career areas. Philadelphia Academies, Inc. uses teachers, academy coordinators, and guidance counselors, along with its staff and management, funders, business partners, and volunteers to connect high school students with their futures and keep them in school. Just as the lives of the students served improve significantly, so too does Philadelphia as a result of a newly engaged, skilled, and educated workforce.

Next Generation Learning Community Designation by Ford Motor Company Fund

A Ford PAS Next Generation Learning Community designation program used Ford Motor Company Fund’s Indicators of Success Assessment Tool to evaluate this community. Philadelphia was designated as a Ford Fund Next Generation Learning Community on March 26, 2008 due to its promotion of more than 29 career academies and 6,500 career academy students.

Career academies puts the power of workplace “relevance” and business “relationships” to work to excite young people about education as well as prepare them for the workplace and postsecondary education. When successfully implemented, career academies also improve attendance, grades, and graduation rates and help to ensure a smooth transition from high school to postsecondary and workplace success. They also are thought to reduce the need for academic remediation at postsecondary institutions, foster more rapid acquisition of proficiency in the English language, and improve test scores.

The career academies in the high schools by theme are below:

Philadelphia Academies, Inc. Academy Enrollment Figures, SCHOOL YEAR: 08/09

Program	Schools	9th	10th	11th	12th	Total
Automotive & Mechanical Engineering	West Phila High School	24	40	37	39	140
Biotechnology	Benjamin Franklin H.S.		25			25
	George Washington H.S.		27			27
Business & Technology	Samuel Fels H.S.	61	126	75	38	300
	Kensington H.S.					556
(Includes Spec. Ed.)	Abraham Lincoln H.S.	117	99	106	75	397
	Roxborough H.S.					148
(includes ESOL)	South Phila. H.S.	73	73	42	50	238
	West Phila. H.S.	54	78	44	35	211
	William Penn H.S.					138
						1,988
Communications	Roxborough H.S.		24	24	16	64
Applied Electrical Science	Mastbaum H.S.		42	21	16	64
	Swenson H.S.		60	9	12	81
Environmental Sciences	Abraham Lincoln H.S.	115	50	28	5	198
Health & Life Sciences	Martin Luther King H.S.	10	32	20	10	72
	Overbrook H.S.	31	113	89	74	307
(Reactivated for 0809)	South Phila. H.S.					100
	William Penn H.S.					138
	Abraham Lincoln H.S.					315
						932
Hotel, Restaurant, Travel & Tourism	Benjamin Franklin H.S.					95
	Howard Furness H.S.	15	64	41		120
	George Washington H.S.	8	43	107	60	218
	Mastbaum H.S.		46	29	38	113
	Swenson H.S.	1	46	64	13	124
						670
Process Technology	Bok High School		26	24	23	73
Urban Education	Howard Furness H.S.	21	34	31	21	107
	Overbrook H.S.	39	128	64	81	312
	Parkway West H.S.	70	99	73	78	320
						739
Total All Academies						5,022

Best Practice of the Indicators of Success

The Ford Next Generation Learning Communities (NGL) initiative has identified 12 Best Practices that are associated with helping a community self-assess the quality and thoroughness of its career academy implementation plan by analyzing program elements that distinguished or proficient and by analyzing elements that need improvement.

One of the 12 indicators of success is that is especially important to the success of Philadelphia is number 10, entitled “Business Leaders Representing Each Prioritized Career Cluster Constitute An Ongoing Business Advisory Board To Align Business Support For Academies.” Philadelphia Academies, Inc. (PAI) works with the School District of Philadelphia, the greater Philadelphia business community, higher education and other non-profit partners to enhance the educational experiences and career opportunities of Philadelphia public school students. PAI’s model relies on the business organizing capabilities to engage leaders in regional growth industries in public education.

Operationally, they use three mechanisms to accomplish this:
Industry Advisories — Developing, managing and nurturing Industry Advisories in nine industry areas that have growth potential in the region; these bodies have curriculum and policy-level influence at the School District of Philadelphia.
Volunteers — Recruiting, preparing and managing volunteers from the corporate, labor and higher education sectors to play a role in program delivery
CEO Ambassadors for 21st Century Skills — Initiating, managing and staffing a CEO advocacy group focused on the development of 21st century skills in young people (with a focus on high school-age students).

Industry Advisories

PAI has managed these bodies since the early 1980s and they have provided a base of support for their work. Over the past three years, this role and these bodies have become more institutionalized as PAI has been the managing partner of the Citywide Industry Advisory Boards for the School District of Philadelphia and has been responsible for the recruitment, coordination, and management of industry advisories. Each Citywide Industry Advisory provides regular guidance, advice and recommendations to support instruction and programming in career related School District of Philadelphia programs including those administered by Philadelphia Academies, Inc. The Citywide Industry Advisors are management representatives of a variety of businesses, postsecondary institutions and other related organizations with the career focus of specific industry areas.

The current role of these Advisories is to represent the perspective of their respective industries regarding the skills and competencies that are needed to gain access to and be successful in various career areas. PAI’s goal is to create a strong regional economy through youth workforce development and they undertakes a comprehensive approach focusing intensively on the developmental needs of students while addressing the workforce needs of specific industry partners. By engaging employers in specifying workforce needs, identifying necessary competencies, and integrating competencies into curriculum and programming are the three approaches that PAI utilizes. They also collect ongoing data to inform business leaders about the positive impact of the programs.

Through the programming, PAI gives the business community a voice in public education; engages them in policy related activities like curriculum development; and enables them to provide adequate pressure, continuity and accountability to keep the School District focused on 21st Century skill building during and beyond the current administration.

Volunteers

PAI has developed a menu of programmatic activities that volunteers from corporate, labor and higher education sectors can be directly involved in. Those activities include: Guest Lecturer, Career Day Presenter, Practice Interviews, Equipment Assessment, Donation and Demonstrations, Professional Development for Teachers/Educators in the Workplace, Internships, and Judging at Student Events. In addition, they are developing a more structured vetting, orientation and preparation process for volunteers which is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2008. This is to ensure that volunteers are prepared for the role that PAI is asking them to play and that they are delivering messages consistent with our programming and philosophy.

CEO Ambassadors for 21^st Century Skills

The CEO Ambassadors for 21st Century Skills in an ad-hoc committee of CEO and executive level partners who view investments in education, particularly public education, as investments in Philadelphia’s workforce and the local economy. The group was initiated by and is managed by Philadelphia Academies, Inc. in an effort to provide a vehicle for critical industry and other stakeholders to have a voice in the instructional agenda in school and the need for the intentional and sustained focus on the development of what are commonly known as 21st Century Skills. Ambassadors are leaders in the regional employer community and have been selected for their first-hand understanding of how career-connected approaches to learning along with mentorship and work-based experiences can produce dramatically different long-term outcomes for young people. Specifically, their role is to:
•   Attend an annual meeting of the group to set the agenda and work plan each year.
•   Attend critical meetings with the School District of Philadelphia to weigh-in on curriculum and policy matters.
•   Advocate for the continued emphasis on increasing School District efforts designed to prepare young people for a 21st Century economy.
•   Advocate for continued industry investment and involvement in internships and other evidence-based, career-connected approaches.
•   Attend major announcements/events pursuant to these goals.
•   Combined, these efforts have allowed PAI to create an expansive cadre of community stakeholders from the corporate, labor and higher education sectors that can advocate for career academies and other career-related education models that prepare young people for the 21st century. The focus of this advocacy is on evidence-based approaches and their applications in the high school reform work that is evolving in Philadelphia.

Key Milestones

1968—The inner-city riots of the 1960’s brought community, business, education, labor and government leaders together to form the Philadelphia Urban Coalition. Under the Coalition’s leadership, an agreement was born to combat high drop out and unemployment rates among Philadelphia’s youth. The concept they created was called the “academy program” and it would operate in public high schools in partnership with business.

Charles Bowser, deputy mayor, and Lee Everett, CEO of Philadelphia Electric Co. came up with a plan to help students understand how their class work related to the real world. In 1969, the first Academy was opened at Thomas Edison High School. The Academy of Applied Electrical Science opened its doors and the career academy model was born. The original funders of the program were Bell of Pennsylvania (now Verizon) and the Philadelphia Electric Co. (now PECO).

1970s and 1980s—Due to the success of that first academy, three new career areas were developed into Academies with new business partners in the fields of business, automotive, and health. By 1986, Academies were in 10 high schools. Business partners and funders included Rohm and Haas Co., PNB bank, Provident Mutual, and P.S.F.S. bank. The Health Academy attracted partners like Wills Eye Hospital, Hospital Workers Union 1199, Thomas Jefferson Hospital, and Smith Kline and French. The Automotive Academy had a strong partner in Sun, Co. Each academy was established as a separate non-profit entity with a separate Board of Directors.

In 1987, business leaders commissioned a study by The Conservation Company to evaluate how the city might further benefit from this successful education model. Recommendations included restructuring to consolidate the four operating Academies under one non-profit organization to achieve economies of scale, to clearly focus the funding, and to pursue a goal of expanding Academies’ enrollment to 5,000 students by 1996.

In 1988, a new organization was established under the leadership of Natalie Allen. Each individual Academy program relinquished its status as an individual tax-exempt non-profit and merged into the Philadelphia High School Academy Association. The Association subsequently changed its name to the Philadelphia High School Academies, Inc. Each of the individual Academy programs still maintained its own Board of Governors, and each was represented on the parent Board of Directors by its Chairperson.

Philadelphia Becomes a National Model

In 1981 the Philadelphia Academy model was transplanted to the Sequoia Union High School District on the peninsula south of San Francisco, California. Interestingly, Hattie Harlow, who was the director of the Mid-Peninsula Urban Coalition, brought the Philadelphia Academies to the attention of the superintendent of the Sequoia District. Once again, an Urban Coalition took the lead in directing the program and bringing together the business leaders and school partners.

By 1983, the success of the Peninsula Academies was evident. It was at this time that the notion of replicating the academies began to surface. In the fall of that year the Stanford Urban Coalition approached a state assemblyman who put together a bill for the purpose of creating ten more academy programs. By 1985 a bill was signed that would offer schools a $25,000 planning grant to start an academy program. In 1987 a second State Bill was passed encouraging further growth of career academies statewide. They became known as the California Partnership Academies.

Also in the ’80s and independent of both Philadelphia and California, a pilot project was taking place in New York. The first academy of finance was started in 1982 as a project between American Express Co. and the brokerage firm of Shearson Lehman and the New York public schools. Again, it was so successful that in 1986 American Express began a new program the academy of travel and tourism in New York and Miami. In 1987 American Express Company created a national office for the administration and quality control of its programs. It became the National Academy Foundation (NAF) and it is still the largest network of career academies nationally.

1990—During the decade that followed, corporate contributions rose considerably, with significant first-time foundations support from the Pew Charitable Trusts to fund the program’s aggressive expansion plan. Programs created in the early nineties included: Environmental Technology, Horticulture, Fitness, Communications, Law and Public Service, Aviation, and Hotel, Restaurant and Tourism. Set up differently than the others, the Hotel, Restaurant and Tourism Academies (1991) were jointly sponsored and operated by the School District of Philadelphia, the Pennsylvania Convention Center Authority, and the Philadelphia High School Academies. Major funding was provided by the Convention Center in an anticipation of an increase in employment opportunities in accommodations, food service and management, travel planning and related enterprises.

By 1996, the organization spanned 11 career areas with 28 Academy programs operating in 19 of the neighborhood public high schools, and enrolled over 5,000 students. It was then that the organization met its first significant funding crisis as a result of corporate downsizing, mergers and move by the Philadelphia School District to close or “take over” the academy programs.

Efforts to dialog with then superintendent, David Hornbeck were unsuccessful. Mayor Edward Rendell addressed the School Board on the Academies behalf and asked the Board to support the academies as an independent intermediary and to support the integrity of the academy model.

On April 25, 1996, the Philadelphia Academies’ Board of Directors held a special meeting at Rohm and Haas Co. to create a dialogue between the Board of Education and to express their concern about the potential loss of the twenty-six year old partnership between the businesses associated the Academies and the School District. The result of that meeting was an agreement for substantial Children Achieving Challenge Grant (Annenberg) funding for PAI’s work under the School-to-Career Workplan; an affirmation of the importance of the Academies’ role in the School District’s agenda; and the establishment of a School to Career Oversight Committee to assist the District in developing a comprehensive K–12 School-to-Career program. PAI’s president, Natalie Allen would serve as that committee’s Senior Advisor.

In 1998, following a yearlong strategic planning process, a Strategic Plan was approved by the Board of Directors. It called for a reassessment of funding strategies to support the future of Academies.

The year 1999 marked the 30-year anniversary of the Academy Model in Philadelphia and a move to change the name to the Philadelphia Academies, Inc. effective in 2000.

2000—In 2001, two more career areas were added: Information Technology and Fine and Performing Arts. In addition, the first All-Academy High School was established at Abraham Lincoln High School with seven Academies serving a student body of over 1,800 and the enrollment in all Academies growing to nearly 8,000.

In 2002, the fourteenth career academy was opened, the Academy of Urban Education at Dimner-Beeber Middle School.

The Academies launched a new era of leadership with its announcement that Lisa Johnson Nutter would succeed Natalie Allen as President in January 2005. The Academies’ new strategic direction included organizing itself around workforce demands and the opportunities that they present for young people in the following regional growth industries: Utilities, Automotive, Process Technology, Education, Financial and Professional Services, Health and Life Sciences, and Hotel Restaurant Travel and Tourism.

Key Successes and Process

Building and Bridging Relationships
The key to PAI’s success has been their ability to cultivate effective sets of relationships at a number of levels and maintain these relationships for over 40 years. The success factors include:
•   Developing a board that is highly engaged and where each member brings their whole organization to the effort, thereby creating a sustainable network of caring, responsible adults for our students.
•   Through the Board of Directors and the association with other organizations,  PAI works to influence decisions in policy and practice.
•   PAI provides program supports that expose students to life-opening choices that motivate them to do well and set high expectations for themselves.

Programmatic and Working Partnerships
Another factor for success is that, since 2005, PAI has been working in partnership with the District’s Office of Secondary Education and two major non-profit partners, Philadelphia Youth Network (PYN) and Communities in Schools. The four entities have been meeting regularly to plan career-focused programming and ensure alignment of our work going forward. PAI’s unique collaboration with the School District of Philadelphia, business, and higher education and community partners places them in a position to influence public school education.

Adaptability and Entrepreneurial Spirit
Finally, PAI’s longevity can also be attributed to their ability to adapt the model and evolve as an organization over time. As their methods shift with industry and constituency needs and trends, PAI continues to focus on youth development and to address problems commonly found in urban neighborhood high schools.

Creating and Investing in Vehicles that Organize Stakeholders Outside of the Education System
PAI has paid careful attention to making sure that they have multiple organizing vehicles to support different tasks and address different interests. These vehicles include:
•   Institutionalized Industry Advisories—policy and curriculum shaping bodies
•   Volunteer Menu—documented menu of activities and a process/system for matching people to tasks
•   CEO Ambassadors for 21st Century Skills—advocacy for evidence-based initiatives that support development of 21st century skills in public high schools

In order to organize these bodies, PAI has had to:
•   Put the work in a broader economic and community context
•   Apply basic community organizing approaches to build industry, labor, and higher-ed support
•   Create an accountable structure and vehicle for ongoing involvement
•   Find the right messages to communicate with the various constituencies they organize.

Engaging in Grassroots and Grasstops Organizing
The messaging and organizing work of PAI are conducted at multiple levels. They call it a grassroots and grasstops approach. At the “grassroots” level, they engage students, teachers and school leadership in understanding the significance of the model and the methods for delivery of the supports they need to accomplish their goals. At the “grasstops” level, PAI targets the local Chamber, the School District, and local and state government and make the economic case for education. They communicate to these groups how a strong secondary education system can provide a return on investment through a locally grown prepared workforce which translates to increased number of businesses locating into the region and significantly decreased employment recruitment and training costs.

Lessons Learned

Putting the work in a broader economic and community context
Philadelphia Academies, Inc. serves approximately 6,500 public high school students annually. This represents about 10 percent of the total high school population in the School District of Philadelphia. While it has successfully reached and supported a significant number of students over the course of their 37 year history, PAI believes all high school students ought to benefit from the same options and opportunities provided by their programming. It believes this because they see the types of supports provided by PAI as vital tools in a 21st century economy and in a region that is largely a knowledge-based economy. As a result, PAI has turned their attention to increasing the scale of the work by collaborating with other youth-serving organizations and the School District of Philadelphia. The goal of these collaborative efforts is to develop strategies and operational approaches that would provide broader access to these supports across Philadelphia’s public high schools. As PAI defines scale, they have been clear that scale does not necessarily mean that they simply serve more young people. Instead, PAI has defined four pathways to scale that they believe need to work in concert in order for them to achieve their goals in this areas:

Institutionalization — work with the School District, school partners, and non-profit partners to embed career-connected approaches, including PAI’s model, in secondary education instruction through curriculum development and integration efforts.

Technical Assistance — provide technical assistance and consulting support to the School District of Philadelphia as well as school districts regionally and nationally concerning the development, growth and maintenance of industry advisory structures and the implementation of career-connected instructional models.

Partnerships — continue to work in partnership with other large local non-profit youth serving partners focused on career-connected approaches, including the Philadelphia Youth Network and Communities in Schools to align resources and work strategically in schools to deliver career-connected models and activities to a broader number of Philadelphia public high school students.

Demonstration — implement planned whole-school demonstration projects in partnership with the Philadelphia Youth Network and the School District of Philadelphia to build a case for these approaches and test replicability.

Reaching this scale will require the following:
•   sound business planning and capacity building supports to finance staff expansion, professional, and organizational development;
•   a research and evaluation agenda that will allow PAI to build a case for the work as well as deepen its understanding about which set of interventions seem to stick and for which populations of young people; and
•   deeper organizational capacity to conduct and support advocacy efforts designed to influence secondary education reform.

Challenges

Influencing the Secondary Education Reform Agenda in Philadelphia
There is a strong evidence basis that PAI’s approach and other career-connected approaches along with mentorship and work-based experiences can produce dramatically different long-term outcomes for young people, particularly youth considered “at-risk.” In recognition of the impact of career-connected education and PAI’s success, the School District of Philadelphia has engaged it in the system's planning and policy-making processes. This is an important milestone given that this is the first time in the organization’s history that it has been invited in as a planning and policy-making partner. Its strategic approach to moving this work forward has involved four primary tactics upon which it wishes to build and increase its efforts:
•   Making the case for interventions that prepare young people for the 21st Century and keep them engaged in their learning through sound research, evaluation and advocacy;
•   Organizing the employer and labor communities with other non-profit partners to have a voice in secondary education instruction and to bring resources to bear in a local high school reform agenda;
•   Serving as the industry advisors for the School District of Philadelphia, regularly providing curriculum, program, facility and equipment recommendations concerning industry areas in which they are presently working; and
•   Continuing to participate in local high school reform planning efforts being led by non-profit partners in conjunction with the School District of Philadelphia.

Communications – External and Internal
External (Employers, Government, Academia and Labor)—PAI's success has been rooted in its ability to make very direct connections between these communities as recruiters of young talent and broader local interests in a sound economy. In addition to viewing young people as their future workforce, some employers also made clear connections to the fact that young people are their future consumers. An on-going challenge is to continue the effort to manage the communications in way that is current, succinct and compelling

Internal PAI Staff and Board Members—It is equally important for all staff to communicate the same messages about the work. PAI strives to keep the students at the center of all discussions and stress that students are empowered actors in their own educations. This is not charity-this is self-interest.

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