P-TECH 9-14 Pathways to Success: Implementation, Impact, and Cost Findings from the New York City P-TECH 9-14 Schools Evaluation

Not established at secondary depth; 7 New York City P-TECH 9-14 schools, lottery applicants

New York City P-TECH 9-14 schools; students mostly below proficiency in mathematics and English language arts at eighth grade; followed seven years after high-school entry.

Lottery-based random assignment through the New York City High School Admissions System — the strongest design available for a whole-school CTE-family model, and the cleanest counter to the claim that CTE forecloses college. But the treatment is not ordinary CTE: it is a six-year secondary-plus-postsecondary hybrid with a free associate's degree bundled in and an employer partner. Read at SECONDARY depth (the full MDRC report was not obtained), so the standard errors on the degree-attainment effect are unchecked. The 2024 CTE systematic review excluded this study because it published too late.

Seven years after entering high school the P-TECH group was 5 percentage points more likely to have completed an associate's degree, almost entirely among men: 13% of young men in the P-TECH group against 3% of comparison men. After four years, 46% had dual-enrolled in at least one college course against 20% of comparisons. Interim findings showed higher English Regents passage (42% vs 25% at two years) and more total credits, with CTE credits added without displacing academic credits.

None material. Lottery assignment through a centralised admissions system.

The only lottery evidence that a CTE-family model raises POSTSECONDARY degree attainment, and it is unreplicated. Because it is a hybrid model with a free associate's degree built in, it neither replicates nor is replicated by the pure CTE-high-school studies — it is better read as showing what has to be added to the model before degrees move.