CareerTech officials call for education changes

Snyder, 17, told Bray she'd left high school because of problems at home. Then she found the academy, which focuses on teaching career skills to students who have dropped out of high school or who are at risk of doing so.

“I wanted to change my life,” Snyder said. “I was tired of going nowhere, always worried about whether I was going to get a job.”

Since entering the school in September, Snyder said she's earned 13 high school credits. She now wants to study cosmetology or horticulture to help pay for law school.

“This gives you your life back,” Bray said.

Bray said the academy is the embodiment of what the CareerTech system should be about: Student-focused versus structure-focused.

Bray helped with a national report released in February by the Pathways to Prosperity Project, based at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

The study states the national strategy for education and youth development has been too narrowly focused on an academic, classroom-based approach, resulting in just 30 percent of young adults earning a bachelor's degree by age 27, and in teen and young adult employment rates not seen since the Great Depression.