Plumbing, then political science

More vocational schools across Massachusetts are preparing their students for colleges, some as elite as MIT, shedding a long-held reputation for steering students only toward blue-collar professions.

Nearly half of the state's vocational students now enroll in a two- or four-year college after graduation, more than double the rate in 1990, according to the state. Some schools are urging more students to take the SAT and offering college-level advanced placement classes -- many in the last five years. Most schools, prodded by the state, are finding ways to teach high-level math and English in traditional shop classes.

Plumbing students at Assabet Valley Regional Technical High School work with trigonometry teachers to install pipes. At Lexington's Minuteman Regional High, carpentry students were assigned to read Thoreau when they built a replica of his Walden Pond cabin.

School officials say they are focusing more on college because the state and employers are demanding higher academic skills. Since 2003 all students have had to pass the MCAS test to graduate from high school, and federal and state officials say many new jobs in the trades will require college-level skills. Eighty-three Massachusetts school systems have vocational programs serving more than 63,000 students in grades nine to 12; more than a third of the programs are in separate vocational schools.

Jonathon Pasquale , an Assabet Valley senior specializing in plumbing, said he studies calculus, pre-engineering, and government one week and learns to unclog drains the next -- a typical schedule for a vocational school student. He is planning to attend a four-year state college in the fall.

"I had people who told me, 'Oh, don't go to a vocational school. . . . You're ruining your life,' " said Pasquale, who is considering studying criminal justice and having a second career in plumbing. "I made the best choice possible."

Vocational school officials concede that the strictly college bound might fare better in regular high schools where virtually all students are pushing for college. Vocational schools do not offer as many advanced placement classes as regular schools, and their test scores lag behind the best suburban schools. Many vocational schools still have few students taking the SAT, and some trades are more focused on college than others.

But vocational schools say they are raising test scores and promoting college, even as they hold on to mainstays such as carpentry and plumbing. They are adding programs or classes -- such as pre-engineering or biotechnology -- from white-collar fields. Some schools, such as Minuteman, are calling their trades "majors" and quietly dropping "vocational" from the name of the school.

They are also raising state MCAS scores. At first, failure rates were high at many vocational schools, but now more than 90 percent of their students pass the test to graduate from high school.

In the past, vocational schools set their own curriculums and did not offer the higher-level math, reading, and writing found in regular high schools. Now, they are guided by state academic standards, and many are pushing even higher. Assabet Valley started advanced placement pre-engineering last year and added English and US government this year. Worcester Technical High School plans to start with advanced placement biology next fall. Minuteman offers a Latin class and touts its biotechnology and pre-engineering programs. Students must pass a math and science exam to get in to those programs.

Superintendent Michael Fitzpatrick , of Blackstone Valley Regional Vocational Technical High School in Upton, said students are demanding classes that will prepare them for college. He set a goal to increase SAT test-taking last year after he realized that students were flocking to MCAS tutoring sessions to earn higher scores and win free tuition to state universities. Last year the portion of seniors taking the SAT, used for admission at state universities, rose from 24 percent to 39 percent.

"It's amazing," said Fitzpatrick. "We're attracting a higher quality student because industry is saying that is the only student that we will reward with the job opportunities."

Kelsey Byers , 21, a senior at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said Minuteman's biotechnology program gave her an edge in college. Unlike most of her classmates, she went to a vocational school where she spent every other week in a real laboratory, learning to grow bacteria and make recombinant DNA.

"I was able to get an undergraduate [research] project my first summer because I knew my way around a lab," said the Sudbury resident who stunned middle school classmates by eschewing Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High. "I was lucky."

But it wasn't easy to shake the poor reputation of vocational schools during the college search, Byers said.

When she applied to Harvard, interviewers asked her whether she had read the classics. She told them she had read not one, but two, versions of "Antigone and had written a paper comparing them. Then she mentioned her perfect SAT score.

"They basically stopped talking," she said. Harvard declined to comment. Byers said Harvard accepted her, but she chose MIT.

Ian Rooney , 17, an Assabet Valley senior, said he hoped his practical experience making electrical panels at a plant will impress college professors as much as the fact that he is taking advanced placement English. While working at a Bolton plant, he has noticed that some machine designs reflect the fact that engineers have never had to build them.

"I have the practical experience," said Rooney, who is heading to college with SAT scores that are higher than 600 in every category, including 730 in English. "I'll know not to make some stupid mistake."

Vocational schools are aggressively marketing the changes in glossy fliers sent to parents and at open houses across the state. Last week Minuteman's assistant superintendent, Thomas Markham, stood before an auditorium of Needham parents and touted his school's hands-on learning philosophy, winning basketball team, and literary magazine.

More than 70 percent of all graduates last year headed to two-and-four year colleges, he said. He said the school's approach also works well with special education students -- who make up half the student body.

Afterward, like a college recruiter, he stood in the lobby at a table stocked with applications, Minuteman pens, and a DVD showing the school at work.

"I didn't realize such a high percentage went on to college," said Kathy Sussman , a mother of five who said she would consider the school.

The push is causing friction within the schools and with other cities and towns, which compete with vocational schools for students and the public funds that pay for their schooling.

Last school year Maynard sent letters to parents of incoming freshmen comparing Maynard's higher SAT scores to Assabet Valley's, and pointing out that Maynard's students were more likely to go to college. Maynard's superintendent said school officials were trying to inform parents and avoid losing students.

Jonathan Bruce , a School Committee member in Milford, one of several towns that send students to Blackstone Valley, praised the school, but he worried that college-bound students are crowding out students who want to learn a trade. Aspiring computer scientists can study anywhere, he said, but regular schools generally don't teach plumbing.

"I don't have a problem sending kids to college," said Bruce, a former pharmacist who became a builder. "I have a problem that we don't have enough seats for everybody to do what they want to do."

Vocational school teachers say they are pushing college as an option because every trade includes a wide range of possibilities. Cosmetology students might be content to cut hair in their kitchen -- or perhaps they would like to earn a business degree and run a salon. Worcester Technical High School's top two seniors are cosmetology students, and both are planning to attend a state university in the fall, school officials said.

"Like I tell the kids, we're not just pretty faces," said Arlene Thompson , Worcester's head of cosmetology, surrounded by the heads of mannequins with their hair styled into French twists. "We do have a brain."

Maria Sacchetti can be reached at msacchetti@globe.com.