While stand-alone, full-time vocational schools are less common than other career and technical models, such as “school within a school” programs or classes at local colleges, they have been been studied the most, largely because they allow researchers to create matched control groups of similar students who didn’t get in, says Shaun Dougherty, a professor of education and policy at Boston College and one of the authors of the Connecticut study. It’s harder to compare students who choose to take technical courses in comprehensive high schools with their peers because the groups may differ in important ways.
Eric Brunner, a professor of economics and policy at the University of Connecticut and Doherty’s co-author on the Connecticut study, suspects that peers matter, too. At technical high schools, students are surrounded by classmates who are interested in the same thing they are and excited to learn. “I can’t imagine that not helping,” he said.