Credential Chaos: Career Certificates Boom in High School, But Not All Have Value
States want students to earn career certificates and licenses, but many earn credits employers don’t seek
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Grace Manzo knows for certain that earning a ParaPro certification as an Ohio high school senior next year will help her on her path to becoming a teacher.
Earning the certification for basic teaching skills will let her work as a paraprofessional, or teaching aide, right out of high school, allowing her to earn more money and gain more experience than other students.
“I’ve always wanted to teach special ed, like, it’s just my passion,” said Manzo, a junior at Valley Forge High School just outside Cleveland. “With the ParaPro certification, I could become a para directly out of high school. You can’t beat that.”
Manzo very deliberately chose to pursue the certification because of the doors it would open for her. It’s the ideal states aim for when they promote credential programs in high schools.
But the system isn’t working as well for students in other fields. Many students are spending their high school years earning credentials that won’t help them land a job.
The number of students earning career credentials has exploded nationally as states and schools increasingly encourage students to pursue them — tripling in some states over the last few years.
But experts warn that not all credentials are created equal.
Researchers are finding massive mismatches between the credentials students are earning and what employers seek. With thousands of non-degree credentials to choose from, it’s a challenge to sort through the chaos and find the programs teaching valuable skills that lead to good jobs and good pay. Guidance for schools and students is spotty and riddled with gaps. Consider:
- Students , such as national basic construction skills and Occupational Safety and Health Administration safety certificates, the partnership between the Burning Glass Institute, a leading employment research nonprofit, and ExcelinED, a right-leaning education policy nonprofit, reported in 2022.
- The credentials don’t always lead to higher pay. Just one of every eight career credentials available today leads to better wages than without them, Burning Glass estimates.
- Meanwhile, the researchers also of students earning credentials employers want, such as Microsoft Office Specialist certifications, or nursing, electrical and commercial drivers’ licenses.
- Some of the mismatch is because just over a quarter of all high school credentials only provide workplace readiness skills, such as digital and financial literacy, rather than technical certificates for things like auto repair, construction or welding.
- There are only a few resources available on hiring and wages that can help students and schools assess whether a credential has real value.
before steering schools and students toward them, Advance CTE, the association of state leaders of career technical education, reported this summer.
How does your state review credentials for high school students?
Though states often give lists of available credentials to schools to consider, Advance CTE found, they don’t always find out whether companies are hiring in that field, or which credentials matter when it comes to hiring or pay.
Some states are even creating paths for students to receive their high school diplomas by earning career credentials without carefully evaluating their demand from employers, AdvanceCTE and Burning Glass data shows.
Not one state is closely aligning the credentials that schools offer to employer needs, according to ExcelinED and Burning Glass — and just 16 states are moderately aligned.
ExcelinED earlier this year called the low rate of students earning in-demand credentials “more than just a missed opportunity.”
“It’s a potential waste of time and resources for learners and education systems,” . “Credentials that don’t lead to viable employment opportunities fail to open doors for students, leaving them unprepared for the realities of the job market and potentially dead-end opportunities.”
This results in too many students earning credentials for jobs in certain fields while too few are earning credentials for others.
“Seven out of eight credentials are not resulting in wage gains for credential earners,” said Emily Passias, deputy executive director of Advance CTE. “That’s substantial.”
Passias said she is concerned that states and schools could be “over-identifying what holds value in their credential lists” while students and schools spend time and money pursuing them.
“Getting this identification and approval of credentials right helps produce a strong return on investment, both for learners and for states that are aiming to… ensure that learners have the skills and the credentials that they need to get the good jobs that are most important in their state,” Passias said.
Students in high school vocational programs, now known as Career Technical Education, have traditionally sought licenses or apprenticeships in specific fields. But for the majority of students, especially those headed to college, their school’s diploma was the only credential they ever sought in high school.
But CTE programs are expanding as demand from companies for people with specialized work skills has increased. High school and college diplomas, long viewed as a catch-all verification of a student’s skills and aptitude, aren’t carrying the same weight as before.
So there has been a movement toward students to demonstrate some work skills even if they’re going to college. And there is increased urgency for students not going to college to leave high school with some verifiable skills so they can find work that pays a living wage after graduating.
States are doing an uneven job helping districts and students make the best decisions of which credentials to spend time and money on, Advance CTE found in its Credentials of Value report in July. Among its findings:
- Only 34 states have state agencies that formally review and approve credentials for schools, leaving 16 states that don’t.
- Just 34 states asked employers what credentials they recommend.
- And less than half looked at employer demand for a credential (24 states) or wage data for the kinds of jobs a credential would let students step into (23 states)
The ultimate goal — tracking the jobs students land and how much they earn after receiving a given credential — is still difficult for states. Only eight — Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Kansas, Kentucky, Minnesota, South Dakota —are able to look at that data, Advance CTE reported.
Even where states take many of the steps Advance CTE is tracking to verify the value of credentials, there are still challenges. The experience of Ohio, one of the highest rated states by Credentials Matter, is a good example.
Ohio actively consults employers in creating and annually updating its list of industry recognized credentials students can pursue.
Ohio goes a step further by giving each of those credentials a value rating that students can use to earn their diploma. Each approved credential is given a “point” value so students can accumulate enough credential points to graduate through one of several pathways.
Ohio also adds another guide by creating a second list of credentials of extra-value, then awards schools extra money for each of these earned through its Innovative Workforce Incentive Program (IWIP).
But even after taking those three steps, Ohio still has challenges. Students and schools are still gravitating toward credentials that are not in demand, in part, some believe, because they can be an easy way to satisfy state requirements to earn diplomas.
“What appears to be happening in Ohio’s urban districts is some kind of distorted form of CTE in which low-achieving students are getting routed into less rigorous IRC (Industry Recognized Credentials) programs to get them diplomas at the last minute,” the Fordham Institute’s Aaron Churchill“This does nothing for the students who receive certificates that have nothing to do with their career aspirations and have little value in the workforce.“
Though the state IWIP list is supposed to guide students toward valuable credentials, the ones students earn the most – OSHA safety, CPR, retail and customer service certificates – are not on it and have low employer demand. Of the 141,000 approved industry credentials Ohio students earned last year, only 22,000 — 16% — are from the IWIP list.
Ohio districts also varied greatly in how much they steered students to higher value credentials. The Cleveland school district, for example, had its 34,600 students earn just 23 IWIP credentials last school year. Students at the similarly-sized Columbus and Cincinnati districts did 10 times better, earning more than 300 and more than 200 respectively.
Cleveland trailed even the suburban Parma school district, just over a quarter Cleveland’s size, 145 to 23.
Cleveland students instead followed the state trend, just more intensely, by earning less intense and less in-demand credentials that offer few career advantages.
Hundreds of students in Cleveland completed CPR certificates and the from the National Retail Federation, which require students just to pass written tests with no workplace training
ExcelinED found no employers in Ohio seeking the CPR training from job applicants and just three seeking the RISEUP certificates.The National Retail Federation declined to discuss the low demand for these credentials with The 74.
The two RISEUP credentials, however, give students enough “points” when combined to satisfy an Ohio graduation requirement.
“Students can bundle them to earn a diploma,” . “And yet, according to job posting data, neither credential is in demand by employers.”
Selena Florence, Cleveland’s chief academic officer, said the district hopes to increase the number of students earning in-demand credentials under a plan the district is developing to start next fall. She would not say when that plan would put Cleveland on par with Cincinnati or Columbus, saying only that she hopes it will be soon.
“We have students who are walking out the door, out of the high school, without needed credentials,” Florence said. “So absolutely, it is a concern.”
She bristled when asked if Cleveland awards so many CPR and RISEUP credentials mostly as a way to help students graduate easily instead of preparing students for careers.
“I don’t see those things as being mutually exclusive,” she said. “So yes, they are used to help kids get diplomas, and yes, they’re used to help kids get prepared for a career.”
“They may not be of value as the state defines it, but they are,” she said. “They are credentials that we think kids need. Kids need to know how to do CPR. Kids need, if they’re going into a service industry, they would need the service credential. It would be a value.”
In neighboring Parma, Chuck Caldwell, who heads district CTE programs, says the district still offers the RISEUP credentials, but is steering students much more toward Microsoft Office credentials that employers want..
Caldwell and school staff said the RISEUP training is useful as a way to teach students basic workplace skills. And several local stores, including Wal Mart and Target, pay students with the credentials $1 more per hour. But Caldwell also conceded that they prepare students for entry-level jobs more than a career and are sometimes used mostly as a handy way to satisfy diploma requirements.
“I do see some value in it,” Caldwell said. “But I will be honest. In some ways, it’s a way to meet a bureaucratic end goal too.”
He also stressed that RISE UP and OSHA certificates may look like they have little demand, but still hold value as building blocks of a larger training program.
OSHA certifications, for example, may not show up in job ads, but the school requires students to obtain them at the start of all CTE programs so students don’t hurt themselves while learning. Apprenticeships or jobs will require OSHA training of new hires too if they haven’t done it already.
RISEUP credentials can also be a building block. A student in the Parma schools this fall, for example, is combining that training with health care classes for a career in health management.
Other CTE school leaders in Ohio agree judging a credential just on employer demand isn’t the only way.
David Mangas, superintendent of the Cuyahoga Valley Career Center south of Cleveland, said he strongly believes some classes and credentials should be focused on skills employers need, but others can be starting points for students to explore a field, learn some skills and decide whether to go further.
“They’re trying to see what interests those students have, not necessarily get them ready for that skilled position right out of high school,” Mangas said.
Jeremy Varner, the deputy director of the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce, said Ohio is reviewing its credential recommendations and point values for graduation requirements over the next year. Now that a few efforts have been in place for a few years, it’s time to reassess and refine the state’s approach.
Ohio’s plan largely follows what Advance CTE and Credentials Matter are recommending — gathering the best data to see the return on investment for each credential and really weighing what can work best for students.
“We’ve had explosive growth in industry credentials,” Varner said. “All the policy structures are working. They’re doing exactly what we intended, which is to get students more industry credentials. Now we just need to bring more focus to those that have the most value to students and employers.”
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Patrick O’Donnell is a correspondent at The 74, covering the impact of the pandemic on America's education system
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