CTE Mechanisms: The Effects of Career and Technical Education Center Admissions Offers in Baltimore

While there is a growing body of literature related to the benefits of participation in career and technical education (CTE) in high school, there remains a dearth of causal work in this area. Relying on administrative data from Baltimore City Public Schools, which uses a ranking system with a strict cut score to assign students into CTE-focused high schools, we employ a regression discontinuity design to estimate the causal effects of attending one of these high-quality CTE schools on attendance, career pathway completion, high school GPA, and SAT scores. We find that students who are offered admission to a program within one of the CTE centers are significantly more likely to complete a CTE pathway, though they present significantly lower GPAs. Implications are discussed.