Over 30 years ago, while building one of the largest financial services company in the world, Citi CEO Sandy Weill launched nonprofit (NAF) to boost high school graduation and career preparation. It has quietly grown to 667
career-focused high school academies serving 81,000 students in 38 states, including D.C. and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Academies represent five career themes: finance, hospitality and tourism, information technology, engineering, and health sciences.
We called Andy Rothstein, vice president of programs, to discuss work-based learning in emerging job clusters where employers are using complicated equipment and where
new employees are expected to have a fairly sophisticated set of technical skills.
Rothstein said a lot of small companies and their high-tech subcontractors are having trouble getting the talent they need. The NAF response is to focus on
college and career readiness (#CCR) rather than training students for specific post high school jobs. For example, NAF engineering academies focus on IT and
are more college ready than job ready.
In common. Network schools follow but do not use a common
curriculum or platform. NAF鈥檚 career pathways are powered by projects, which are developed as part of the NAF curriculum with guidance of the on project-based learning. There are 30 courses across the four career themes.
NAF has three dozen strategic relationships including content partners like,, and, advocacy groups including the and, and think tanks
like.
NAF collects data from every academy through a partnership with. The Certification measures college and career readiness by combining classroom and workplace learning to
measure career and technical knowledge and skill proficiencies.
A New CCR Credential. NAF saw a gap between job-specific certification issued by companies and associations and broad measures of college readiness like
the SAT test. Because about half the of students change their areas of interest in or shortly after leaving school, NAF thought there should be better and
broader measures of college and career readiness.
With a group of industry partners, NAF created a new credential that linked demonstrated readiness at work and at school. It considers a body of work not
just the results of a test. To companies including JP Morgan Chase, Hewlett Packard, KPMG, EMC, Juniper Networks, Xerox, Cisco, AT&T, and Verizon, represents a body of transferable skills.
The new credential requires high school students to take rigorous academic coursework, have an intensive internship (i.e., 120 hours) in a business that
reflects their career interests, participate in work-based learning activities, and pass industry-vetted assessments of their academic proficiency and
career- based skill sets.
While design principles and support services have been the primary reason schools joined NAF for over 30 years, NAFTrack is likely to become a big reason
schools join as it gains market acceptance.
Rothstein said NAF intends that NAFTrack will become part of a portable and stackable credentialing system adding (or aligning with) higher education and
more advanced work-based learning measures along the way.
Work-based learning. Director of work-based learning Rich Tulikangas said NAF business partnerships promote a comprehensive set of activities including nine to 12 guests
in classrooms, speakers, job shadows, mock interviewing, and paid internships. 鈥淭he goal is a paid internship for 100% of students,鈥� said Tulikangas.
Internships usually take place the summer after the junior year but they may run during the school year as well.
Many employers are more geared toward internships for college students. Rich said convincing them to take high school students can be a challenge.
Transportation logistics can be a challenge for students. Because NAF targets low-income communities, schools often serve undocumented students, another
internship challenge.
NAF academies conduct a sequence of activities preparing students for work settings and cultures. Corporate engagement specialists gleen business partner
expectations and help train students.
Academies attempt to incorporate dual credit opportunities including work-based learning. College credit opportunities in healthcare can be the most
challenging.
Work-based learning resources and tools are available in NAF鈥檚 WBL Center at .
Impact. Sandy Weill is the godfather of the career academy movement and an early leader in network-based new school development (a critical precursor to
charter management organizations). His personal and financial support for NAF is one of the reasons that US graduation rates have dramatically improved in
the last fifteen years.
It鈥檚 NAF鈥檚 stance that everyone has a role to play in creating better educated students and a well-trained workforce. More than 5,500 business
professionals volunteer in classrooms, act as mentors, engage NAF students in paid internships, and serve on local advisory boards. Join the movement and
help NAF prepare young people for college and career success.
For more, check out: