Randolph is one of this city’s Career and Technical Education High Schools, where all students participate in vocational programs. In addition to the five high schools, the city also runs programs at traditional high schools throughout the city, for a total of 111 programs in 28 high schools. All students take standard classes such as math and English, but they also choose a speciality where they can earn college credit or a professional certification in areas such as dentistry, carpentry, automotive repair, vending, or health care.

Gillian White

The goal is to graduate kids who have options. They can go on to a community college or a four-year degree program. They can also start a career with a marketable skill and three years of training behind them, making them more likely to secure a job and higher wages, instead of floundering out in the job market, where more than 10 percent of young adults with only a high school diploma are unemployed and more than 20 percent live in poverty, according to Pew Research Center.

In Philadelphia, demand for programs like the one at Randolph is outstripping the school district’s ability to accommodate students. David Kipphut, the deputy chief of the CTE program in Philadelphia tells me that it’s not unusual to have thousands of applicants for a program with only 200 to 300 spaces in some instances. At Randolph the school year began over capacity, with more than 600 students slotted for only about 580 openings.

Demand varies, of course, depending on the program and subject matter. Some programs have empty seats while others are forced to turn away more than half of the kids who are interested. According to Kipphut, the district wants the program to expand significantly over the next few years. The program’s current capacity is 8,000 students. The school district has said that they would like to see that grow to 12,000—which would make about one-third of all district public-school students CTE participants.

But the cost of those increases would be substantial and “we don’t have that kind of money,” Kipphut tells me. Teaching professional skills requires professional equipment. Ovens and cooktops in the culinary arts department, X-ray machines in the dental specialization. All told, equipment and materials can costs millions of dollars. For a program like CTE to work, the skills that students are learning need to be readily applicable as soon as they graduate. Training on old machines won’t work for a vast number of the competencies. As technology changes, the schools need to stay on top of advancements for their students to have a shot. But that can be increasingly difficult, especially since funding at the federal and district level is shrinking around the country.

Currently the approved per-student state subsidy for CTE programs is about $900. The state’s new governor has proposed increasing that allotment to over $4,000, which would please Kipphut, though he doubts it will come to be. In order to make such a significant funding jump it would mean cutting something else in the budget, or passing an increase in taxes or fees. “We have a Democratic governor and a Republican legislature,” he says. “It’s all politics.” For now, it’s unclear if the growth Kipphut would like to see is something the city and state will provide room for.