Their public school, in Oakland, California, prioritizes project-based learning to equip its students with tangible skills and real-world experience that can help them succeed in college and beyond. Extended learning opportunities, ranging from site visits to internships, aren’t extracurriculars — they are a cornerstone of the curriculum.

Students, parents, and academic leaders place tremendous value on such opportunities. Nearly nationwide express interest in participation in work-based learning. In fact, a found that teens consider “skills for future employment” the most important priority in their education.

High-quality work-based learning opens doors for students to discover a wide variety of careers, gain meaningful, career-connected experience, and graduate not just with a diploma but with a clear sense of direction and the concrete skills to match. And yet offer formal work-based learning programs.��

Founded in 2019, Latitude is quickly proving what’s possible when students step outside the classroom and into real-world learning. It accelerates students’ paths to success, outperforming state and national trends. About 70% of Latitude’s seniors feel ready for life after graduation — nearly double the national share of students who remain unclear about their career expectations, a figure that has doubled in the past decade.

Jesus’ and Alexis’ journeys are a prime example of how work-based learning can shape a student’s future. During their first year at Latitude, a worksite visit sparked an unexpected passion for aviation in the two teens. “I really just fell in love as soon as I walked into the hangar,” Jesus recalls. When the time came to decide on senior-year internships, both students chose Wingler’s Aviation at Hayward Executive Airport, where they became immersed in everything from airplane mechanics to aerodynamics. Now Jesus attends the College of Alameda, where he is pursuing a license to become an aviation mechanic. Alexis, for his part, is pursuing a bachelor’s in aviation from San Jose State University. By graduation, he plans to be a fully licensed pilot.

I sat down with both students to hear firsthand about their experience and understand the impact of work-based learning on high school students.

Before you started your internship with Latitude, what were you thinking about the future?

Jesus: I was torn between going to college, which I wasn’t really interested in, or pursuing a trade, which I wanted to do. I always knew I wanted to be someone in the trades: welding, plumbing, something like that. But I wasn’t 100% sure.

Alexis: I had decided I wasn’t going to go to college. I was committed to going to trade school, joining a union, and going from there.

What was it about Latitude that attracted you?

Jesus: I was never really big on classrooms. I didn’t love learning from books. I really liked that Latitude took a hands-on approach. It opened my eyes. I really valued working on projects, so that’s why I chose it. I knew “This is the school for me.”

At Latitude, you were exposed to a range of professions before your teachers worked with you to define your path and select your internship with Wingler’s Aviation. Tell me about those first few days as interns.

Jesus: At first, we didn’t know anything — it’s an airplane!

Alexis: There was definitely a “wow” factor. I had wanted to stick to something so general, like plumbing, but now I was going to work on airplanes. It opened my mind. It’s a whole different world that not many high schoolers get to explore.

How did the journey unfold from those early days?

Jesus: The first month or two, it was just us taking it all in and learning from our mentor, Mr. Sunil. We started with basics: changing brakes and tires, doing inspections, working on panels. We observed and followed instructions, doing the work alongside them as they showed us all the tips and tricks. Eventually, we started to take on bigger projects ourselves and mentors would just check in on us. By the third or fourth month, we got the hang of it. We learned how to read tail numbers, how to start and control a plane. We’ve learned a lot. By the end, we knew the lingo and could do inspections and repairs on our own. 

On site, you learned how to fix a plane, but also how to work with others, communicate in the workplace, and problem-solve. What are some of those professional skills you’ve developed?

Jesus: Troubleshooting, for sure. Knowing when something’s not right and trying a different tool or method. That applies to a lot in life. We’ve also met certified flight Instructors and private pilots at the flight school across from our shop. They’re very professional, and I’ve learned a lot about professionalism just watching and interacting with them.

Alexis: Yeah, business people come by to sell products or deliver a plane, and being around them, seeing how they act, it teaches you the level of professionalism needed in business.

Do you feel more prepared for life after school now?

Alexis: Yeah, I have a good understanding of what I want to do. I’ve learned a lot. I’ve grown as a person.

Jesus: Definitely. I wasn’t very serious in ninth grade, and my grades reflected that. Coming from middle school, I was still adjusting. But I’ve made a huge change. I’ve matured. I’ve seen the importance of putting in time and effort—it shows in everything. 

Looking back, what would you say is the biggest takeaway your work-based learning experience has given you?

Jesus: A straight path in life. I have clarity. I know like what’s next, you know? I have my goals set.

Alexis: It opened a lot of doors. I didn’t really have my mind set on what I wanted to do. But through the internship, I figured out what I wanted to do with life.

So what is next? What happens after graduation?

Jesus: I’m studying aviation at the College of Alameda, then pursuing a license to become an aviation mechanic. My internship changed how I viewed college. I realized there’s a lot you need to know, and it’s good to get hands-on learning because then, when you study the book, you can make the comparison. You get the theory in school and the practice at work.

Alexis: I’m also pursuing a career in aviation, but I chose the pilot path. I’m going to San Jose to earn my bachelor’s in aviation and then I’ll get my license before graduating. I got a full ride. Eventually, I want to leave the state to do a course in avionics and open an electrical shop.

Your time at Latitude clearly played an important role. Based on your journey, what do you think the purpose of high school is?

Jesus: That’s a big question. I like it! High school is a place where you learn who you are and figure out what you want to do. It goes fast. I’ve changed a lot since freshman year. It’s about preparing to become an adult.

Alexis: I agree. High school is about getting a better understanding of yourself and who you are as a person. It’s about getting out of your comfort zone and meeting new people. It’s important to get out of your bubble to grow. That’s the whole point of high school. 

Disclosure: supports ����Ӱ��’s focus on the ‘Future of High School.’

On the surface, this is good news. Today’s CTE looks nothing like the “vocational ed” of the past. Students are earning credentials and college credits in fields like health sciences, IT, engineering, and advanced manufacturing. And the results are clear: show that high-quality CTE increases graduation rates, boosts college enrollment and improves access to well-paying jobs, whether it’s after college or in a skilled trade.

But beneath the headline numbers lies a harder truth: In too many places, CTE remains a loose set of electives with little structure or alignment to industry standards. Courses may look modern, such as “Intro to Business,” but without clear pathways or rigorous content, they rarely lead to meaningful skills, credentials or good jobs. Much like other “evidence-based” initiatives, how a program is structured matters much more than whether or not it is offered.

The danger of low-quality CTE is that it risks giving a false sense of progress. Labeling courses “career-ready” doesn’t make them so. Worse, inequities creep in if students are steered into career tracks with weaker labor market returns. And we’ve seen this film before: In the 1960s, federal vocational education bills promised to reduce inequality but by the 1980s, it was clear that the system had too often reinforced tracking, essentially segregating some students from rigorous academic coursework. Without high standards and greater accountability, low-quality CTE risks repeating that history.

So, what distinguishes CTE programs that truly pay off from those that don’t? By studying models that have demonstrated success, we can identify the features that should be scaled across more schools. A new does exactly this, looking across the existing research to identify clear lessons about what makes CTE programs high-quality.

The strongest CTE programs offer structured, sequenced pathways, not a few disconnected electives. Students who take at least three aligned courses in a single career area consistently fare better than those who take standalone courses. Benefits accrue to these students in the form of higher graduation rates, as well as either higher college enrollment or stronger earnings. High-quality programs also make work-based learning a core feature rather than an afterthought. Well-designed internships, apprenticeships and employer-linked projects give students the kind of hands-on experience that builds both confidence and skills.

Just as important are partnerships with employers and with colleges. Industry partners ensure students are learning on up-to-date equipment and tackling relevant problems; higher education partners create early-credit opportunities and smooth transitions into degree programs. The most effective programs also recruit teachers with real-world experience, valuing practical expertise as much as traditional certification.

Finally, equity must be a design principle, not an afterthought. Schools should make sure CTE courses fit within students’ schedules, expand access to underrepresented groups, and track participation and outcomes to identify gaps. After all, the promise of CTE is not simply to prepare some students for good jobs but to ensure every student can connect learning to opportunity.

Nebraska is taking a bold approach in rural communities with its .��

Rather than leaving small districts to build programs in isolation, the state requires each district to conduct a data-driven needs assessment and supports regional collaboration through reVISION Action Grants. Districts then pool resources, staff and industry partnerships to design stronger, more equitable programs. 

The result: regional CTE hubs, mobile labs, and virtual courses that bring specialized programs like cybersecurity to even the most remote towns. By embedding collaboration and workforce alignment into state policy, Nebraska shows how geography doesn’t have to limit opportunity.

Washington state is rethinking who can teach CTE through its pathway, which allows skilled professionals with substantial industry experience to get certified without a bachelor’s degree. Candidates complete a streamlined pedagogy program, making it easier for industry experts to transition into classrooms. This approach maintains instructional training requirements and expands and diversifies the CTE teacher pipeline so that students learn from educators who know both their craft and how to teach it.

Ultimately, high-quality CTE is tied to real-world experiences that are hard to measure, vary across states, and available data provide only a partial picture. The federal government has a key role to play in tracking the results of these programs. Yet the latest would scale back what little we already collect, making it even harder to identify high-quality programs.��

If Washington is serious about preparing students for good jobs, it should strengthen, not shrink, its role in collecting and sharing useful data. We lack the equivalent of a “Nation’s Report Card” for career readiness: common, rigorous measures that show which programs align with labor-market needs and promote economic opportunity. Without stronger data and federal leadership, CTE risks becoming a black box: highly visible in name but opaque in impact.

To deliver on the promise of CTE, we cannot settle for programs that look good on paper but fail to prepare students for real opportunity. Every student needs access to a rigorous program connected to postsecondary education and local workforce needs. That’s not the case today, but it can be, if leaders prioritize quality and equity in every CTE investment they make.

While it’s important to think creatively about how to train workers in a variety of industries, too many workers are being locked out of traditional apprenticeships — ones that promise to open doors for anyone hoping to enter a career in construction. Until we fix this, we’re leaving talent on the table in an industry .

Currently, the discourse around traditional apprenticeships focuses on the limited number of slots, which is certainly a challenge; but it obfuscates a more troubling issue: the composition of these slots. Apprenticeships in the construction industry are highly selective and essentially designed for the student who is already passing the class. It favors those with pre-existing knowledge or skills, requires advanced coursework with technical content and has cumbersome application processes. If you’re a student who’s motivated but needs a little bit of extra help, you’re being .

So, how do we change this?

Pre-apprenticeships are one answer. These short-term programs provide exposure to multiple careers and employers, build professional and technical skills, connect participants with a mentor and prepare them for entry assessments. Often, participants can leave with industry recognized credentials.

During a six- to eight-week , for example, students might visit union job sites, earn an OSHA certification and come away with both a clearer understanding of what career path fits them best and the confidence that they know what it takes  to enter the workforce. They’re like internships but better.

High quality pre-apprenticeship programs — ones that are well-designed and connected to real opportunities like union programs, employers and registered apprenticeships—are effective in helping people make that leap to the next step in their career journey.

Why then are pre-apprenticeships not more popular? The answer is simple: Programs lack funding. While there are for this, the result is the same: Programs are limited in how many people they can serve and the support they can provide. They also lack capacity to track and collect outcomes data — and unlike their registered apprenticeship counterparts, aren’t federally required to do so. That limits a program’s ability to attract funding, perpetuating the cycle of underinvestment.

But breaking this cycle is possible, if we get creative:

First, let’s rethink how to finance wraparound support. Transportation, childcare or lost wages — real barriers that lock many people out — represent the most expensive but most critical element for learner success. Providing — like zero-percent loans or emergency lines of credit, designed so that participants only repay if their earnings increase — would help minimize the financial burden and risk for workers. Unions, trade associations or employers could also partner to repay these loans for participants who join them, creating a mutually beneficial situation: a pipeline of diverse, skilled talent for employers and life-changing access for learners.

Collecting better data is another key step. Until programs can demonstrate a track record of achieving outcomes, they will struggle to grow and scale. In particular, programs must show that they can graduate students and place them into apprenticeships that lead to longer-term employment.

Those steps will help unlock new funding sources. There are plenty of stakeholders who care about economic mobility and want to think creatively about improving our current workforce training system. With evidence showing tangible, improved results from pre-apprenticeship programs, there’s no reason why these programs can’t attract additional grants or philanthropic investment.

Making these changes will take partnership and intentional, strategic investment across a wide range of stakeholders — from employers and unions to government agencies and philanthropy. So, while we expand apprenticeships in other industries, let’s not lose sight of ensuring the current system reaches its full potential by investing in construction pathways that allow all people to access these opportunities. This will create a ripple effect: helping to bolster the talent pipeline needed to fill in-demand jobs, putting people on the path to economic mobility, and creating best practices other industries can learn from. It’s a win-win for everyone.

Too often, high schools separate so-called academic students from those perceived unlikely to attend college, a process commonly known as tracking. Two high schools in Cranston, Rhode Island are showing that career and technical education programs can prepare students for both college and the workforce.

In fact, seniors who completed CTE paths in the past school year included those with the highest academic rankings at both Cranston High School West and Cranston High School East. Across Rhode Island, students who have completed at least two CTE-specific courses perform higher on national assessments and have a higher four-year graduation rate than other students.

“There used to be a division between postsecondary education and vocational education. At Cranston, we’ve been able to make these two things the same thing,” said Zachary Farrell, executive director of secondary programs for Cranston Public School District. 

High school students in Rhode Island’s second largest district can choose among coursework in Medical Pathways, Pre-Engineering/Robotics, Information Technology, Culinary Arts, Computer Science, Criminal Justice and more. Those who complete a CTE track graduate with real-world work experience and either industry credentials, college credits or both, in paths that the state has approved as aligned to a high-wage, high-demand career. Students do this alongside their existing general education coursework, so they can take AP classes or participate in extracurriculars with the rest of their classmates.

When Santomassimo, the valedictorian, entered the Medical Pathways program her freshman year of high school, she thought she wanted to do direct patient care. But the program’s work-based learning, including a placement at a nursing home, helped to change her mind: “I realized direct patient medicine isn’t for me because I don’t like blood…[Then] [s]chool helped me get set up with an internship at an engineering site…[so I’m] back on the science and research end, not direct patient care.” 

Santomassimo credits Medical Pathways with helping her carve out a specific vision for her future. “I really want to do research…to help inform public policy,” she said. At Brown, she plans to double major in physics and political science.

Students who complete that pathway, which is available at both high schools, leave with healthcare workplace safety training and a CPR and First Aid certification. They have the option of completing a certified nursing assistant or emergency medical technician certification. Even though she isn’t planning to become a healthcare practitioner, Santomassimo has no regrets about the hands-on classes she took. She completed 40 patient hours as a certified nursing assistant (CNA) in training and successfully passed her licensing test this summer after graduation: “It’s a really good certification to have and will never not be a needed job. I will have that certification as a backup if I ever need it.”

Cranston Superintendent Jeannine Nota-Masse has seen the benefits of exposing students to passions and careers: “At both our high schools, we have an educator training program. You’d be surprised at how many students [say] ‘I love little kids, little kids are so funny,’ and then go into it and don’t love it. They have that hands-on experience before their parents pay for college and they realize ‘Oh I really don’t want to be a teacher.’”

Graduating high school with college credits in hand is another way that the CTE tracks across Cranston help save students time and money. Mark Lizarda, part of East’s second-ever Medical Pathways cohort, graduated with college credits from three different institutions under his belt, not to mention a high score on the AP Calculus test, which converts into college credit.

In 2024, Lizarda won first place in the Medical Terminology exam at the SkillsUSA championship, a national CTE organization for students, and is attending University of Rhode Island this fall. “Those three years [were the] hardest classes I’ve ever taken, but that’s the reason I stayed. It was so captivating and rigorous. I wanted to prepare myself for college.”

The programs also benefit CTE participants who choose to go directly to the workforce. For example, culinary students graduate with food handling and food safety certifications, Information Technology students graduate with CompTIA certifications and all CTE programs include a financial literacy class. “If your child wants to get a job after high school and they have no skills whatsoever, it’s going to be difficult,” Nota-Masse said. “But if they even have entry-level skills, they are still more competitive in the job market than their peers who don’t.” 

Farrell sees the inherent value in a program that connects to student interests. “Forget credentials,” he said. “If students really enjoy the program that they’re in and are learning and having fun and it’s part of their identity, I think you can’t really put a price tag on that.” 

The aquaculture path at West, the only one of its kind in the state, is a model for making learning fun and practical. Rhode Island is known as the Ocean State, and its over 400 miles of coastline are crucial to the economy. Launched by longtime science educator Leonard Baker in 2000, the aquaculture path prepares students for careers in the state’s fish hatcheries and shellfish farms or for further study in the biological sciences. 

With access to an on-campus aquarium, laboratory, pond and greenhouse, students learn about water chemistry, aquatic plant science and how to breed fish. Baker sets every student up with their own aquarium to practice keeping plants and animals alive: “They say ‘I can’t stand chemistry,’ but they’re measuring water temperature and pH balance…They say ‘I can’t stand insects,’ but they’re feeding frogs. We’re making science meaningful, relevant and important to students.”

Every single senior who has completed Baker’s program has been accepted to a four-year institution. On top of that, many of the people running the state’s fisheries are graduates of his program, and one even started a fishery in another state. Some go on to careers in nursing or other healthcare professions because they’ve had exposure to complex refrigeration and filtration systems and extensive practice working in teams.

Stephen Osborn, who leads statewide opportunities for students at the Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE), credits the program for getting young people excited and ready for their future: “They can“get a job after graduation if they want, but [the program is] also preparing many of them to go onto college. Kids are doing incredibly complex things in their classrooms and they don’t realize it because they’re having fun.”

A between RIDE and, launched in 2018, helped unlock changes that enabled Cranston to give students more options. Cranston high schoolers previously had rotating daily schedules, like most high schools, but switched to a college-style schedule where students only take four classes a semester and are in them for almost 90 minutes instead of 50. This way, students get longer blocks of time for hands-on and work-based learning.

“It took a lot of professional development and a lot of community communication,” said Nota-Masse, reflecting on the process. “People kept saying ‘kids won’t be able to sit in a class for 84 minutes, they’ll go crazy.’ We’re not saying we do that perfectly, but if you’re in construction and you’re working on a project, 84 [minutes] is certainly better than 50 [minutes] to start and clean up.” These technical changes allowed Cranston to expand CTE programs, while keeping room in the schedule for AP courses, electives, special education services or services for English language learners. 

Cranston Public School District is a powerful leader in the state, but it’s not alone. is the new statewide initiative, with the goal that all of Rhode Island’s kids take at least one CTE course before they graduate. Coursework that’s rigorous and relevant is helping to unlock students’ freedom of choice. Says Osborn: “We don’t tell [students] whether to go to college or work. They have the skills and an open door to choose what they want to do after high school.”

Disclosure: is a financial supporter of ����Ӱ��.

This year’s edition devotes particular attention to career education, workforce readiness and the critical transition from grades 10-12 — what the report calls — into employment or further study. The findings are stark: While some countries provide clear pathways from classroom to career, many — including the United States — leave too many teenagers unready for the next stage of life.

Released each autumn since 2010, the report compares data from 38 member nations and about a dozen partner economies. The current version covers more than a billion students worldwide. It is filled with tables and charts on topics from preschool enrollment to the wage premium for education and training beyond high school, including diplomas, academic degrees and vocational certificates — all of which it groups under what it calls tertiary education.

The report confirms that more schooling typically means stronger earnings and more stable employment, and that adults with postsecondary degrees usually enjoy the highest wages and lowest unemployment. Yet it warns that credentials alone are not enough. In every country, a significant share of young people, including some university graduates, lack the literacy, numeracy and digital skills that employers demand.

Depending upon the country, the decisive years for young people are ages 15 to 19, when students finish compulsory schooling and face choices about university, vocational programs or work. The report highlights that upper-secondary programs, whether academic or vocational, are pivotal to workplace success. In systems with strong vocational education and training, young people typically move smoothly into paid apprenticeships that confer recognized credentials.

Programs such as career-focused community college certificates or industry-recognized credentials can serve as effective bridges between high school and either employment or further study. 

Yet many nations, including the United States, lack a systematic and robust tier of such programs that have a direct link with employers, leaving some high school graduates thinking their only option is a university degree.

Finally, the report underscores how background still influences destiny. Students from low-income families or with less-educated parents are markedly less likely to complete degrees or other credentials, or to find stable work after high school. Without intentional policies, career education may widen, not close, opportunity gaps.

The U.S. illustrates both the strengths and the shortcomings that the report highlights. Here are five examples.

1. General versus vocational pathways. Unlike countries such as Switzerland, Germany or Austria, the U.S. typically does not have a distinct, mainstream vocational track in high school. What does exist is usually tucked into career and technical education or electives rather than embedded in a structured vocational education system. This gives U.S. students flexibility but deprives them of an employer-linked route into skilled trades.

2. Apprenticeship numbers are growing but still small. The number of apprenticeship programs in the U.S. has expanded sharply, with over 667,000 active apprentices in 2024. This includes growth beyond the construction trades in fields like health care, information technology and education. Women now make up roughly 14% of participants. Yet relative to the general workforce population, the U.S. is far behind Germany or Switzerland, where the majority of teenagers enter paid apprenticeships that blend classroom and workplace learning.

3. Work-study and youth employment rates. Roughly 1 in 5 U.S. 18- to 24-year-olds report that they combine work and study in some way, which is similar to the OECD average. But that’s far below leaders like the Netherlands, where just over half do both. And around 14% of U.S. youth are unemployed, or what the report describes as being in the “NEET” category — not in education, employment or training — also around the OECD average.

4. Community colleges and dual enrollment. Many OECD countries have formal and systematic education and training programs that bridge the gap between school and work. In the U.S., community colleges and dual-enrollment programs play this bridging role. Nearly 2.5 million high school students take college courses for credit, and early college high schools show significant in degree attainment. These efforts partially substitute for the formal vocational bridges that are common elsewhere

5. Access and support services. The U.S. also shares OECD’s concern about young people who are not looking for work. Barriers such as transportation, mental health and caregiving responsibilities often stand in their way. Federal youth programs and the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act offer patchwork assistance, but personal supports remain fragmented compared with the integrated guidance available in many European systems.

But examining the findings on high-performing countries illuminates what the U.S. might learn from them. For example, well-structured vocational options need not limit the pursuit of further education that leads to a college degree. This is typically accomplished by creating clear occupational pathways that provide opportunities for students to follow a course sequence that leads to a collection of credentials that eventually lead to a degree. Many graduates of Swiss or German apprenticeships later complete what we would call associate or bachelor’s degrees.

One illustration of how this earn-and-learn approach is being duplicated in the U.S. is found in the effort to create that integrate on-the-job training with an accredited academic degree. and are two examples.

is Switzerland’s approach to apprenticeships, where almost 60% of students who would be in the equivalent of U.S. grades 10 to 12 enter vocational programs that combine three to four days a week of paid company training with classroom instruction. Industry groups co-design curricula and pay apprentice wages. The Swiss model also features early career exploration and allows movement between vocational and academic tracks at multiple points. Indiana and Colorado are at the forefront of adapting this model to their states’ needs.

The OECD analysis suggests four priorities for American educators and policymakers going forward.

• Make work-based learning a common experience. Opportunities like internships and apprenticeships should be routine for young people in high school, so earning and learning overlap rather than conflict.

• Double down on bridge programs. Continue to expand dual-enrollment and early college high school initiatives, especially for students least likely to complete a four-year degree.

• Implement wraparound supports for vulnerable youth. Integrate career guidance and navigation, transportation and mental-health services with work-based programs to reduce the share of young people who are not working, training or in school.

• Strengthen credential transparency. Ensure that certificates and associate degrees are based on the skills that employers value, reducing mismatches and boosting confidence in non-bachelor’s routes.

Education at a Glance 2025 makes clear that America’s young people need more explicit and direct pathways into work — pathways that blend a strong academic foundation with work-based opportunities. Achieving that will require schools, employers and policymakers to treat the school-to-work transition as a shared responsibility, not an afterthought. Without such deliberate action, too many young people will continue to leave classrooms with diplomas in hand but no clear route to a fulfilling career.

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 ����Ӱ��.

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.”

Newark Public Schools will pay over $300 million over 30 years for its new trade high school — but after many delays, the gym and auditorium may not be finished when it opens this fall.

The Newark School of Architecture and Interior Design is expected to welcome students in September, per an amended lease agreement that extended the deal from 20 to 30 years and was approved by the district’s Board of Education last month. But the deadline for the developer to finish those parts of the school isn’t until the middle of 2026.

The district also has the option to purchase the building for $1,000 at the end of the 30-year lease, according to the revised agreement obtained by Chalkbeat through a public records request.

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The amended lease agreement comes after the developer of the property and Summit Assets CEO Albert Nigri would be finished by the start of the upcoming school year.

When the lease for the new trade high school was first signed by the district in 2021, NPS agreed to a $160 million, 20-year lease. The following year, Superintendent Roger León in the city’s East Ward at an invite-only groundbreaking ceremony. He touted the school — the first of its kind in the district — as an opportunity for students to fast-track their technical careers and earn a contract to work with the district.

It was originally scheduled to open in the fall of 2022. But issued by the state’s Department of Labor and Workforce Development over wage complaints and changes in contractors have delayed the project.

The district’s communications director Paul Brubaker did not respond to questions from Chalkbeat about the project’s setbacks, how the district plans to pay the lease for the school, or its reasoning for extending the lease agreement. Nigri did not respond to calls seeking comment.

The Newark School of Architecture and Interior Design is set to focus on three trades — plumbing, electricity, and HVAC — and allow students to study architecture and interior design. The curriculum will also give students a high school diploma and a license for trade work, district officials have previously said.

The new school is housed at the former St. James Hospital building that has stood vacant for years in the middle of the city’s Ironbound neighborhood. When it opens, the school will enroll 240 ninth grade students and add a grade level each year. Payments to Nigri, the property’s landlord and developer, are set to begin when the school opens this fall.

New high school delayed amid pay complaints

The latest version of the amended lease, approved by the school board in May, includes two new deadlines for the completion of the school.

By Aug. 1, 2025, the base of the school building must be completed, which includes new walls, roofs, and windows, elevators, restrooms, a courtyard, and landscaping. By June 1, 2026, the newly constructed gym and auditorium must be completed and the building must be finished, according to the lease amendment.

Those deadlines are later than those in approved by NPS in August 2024, which were for the base of the school building to be completed by Jan. 9, the new gym and auditorium to be finished by July 30, and the building to be completed by Sept. 1.

The amended lease also extends the deal from 20 to 30 years and bumps up the total lease to $295,979,990 over 30 years. The district must also pay a total of $20 million in additional payments to Nigri between year two and year six and year 26 and year 30 of the lease.

Union workers at the high school’s construction site also encountered poor working conditions that were making their jobs unsafe and many were being paid late or in cash. That resulted in the union filing wage complaints with the state.

In September 2022, the New Jersey Department of Labor issued stop-work orders to Summit Assets as well as the former general contractor and an ex-subcontractor. That order halted work on the site for months before Nigri hired a new contractor and subcontractor.

Days later, dozens of union workers demanding that León intervene after they were forced out of work and owed pay. León addressed laborers’ complaints and reiterated the district’s plan to open the school in September 2023.

, the Department of Labor issued a second stop-work order on the site and to the new contractors and subcontractors of the project. Although the work subsequently resumed, district leaders have not addressed the project’s delays or issues related to worker pay.

Instead, the district began to advertise a fall 2025 opening date, and this spring, it opened up enrollment to the school. Brubaker did not respond to a request for comment about the district’s contingency plan if the landlord fails to deliver part of the building by Aug. 1.

State remains responsible for new school construction in Newark

on the project, former assistant school business administrator Jason Ballard said that leasing a high school building is more affordable than building a new high school, which he said costs an average of $134 million. That’s less than half of what the district will pay on its lease for the new trade school, based on construction plans in other New Jersey cities.

The Schools Development Authority is the state agency responsible for paying construction projects in Newark and 30 other low-income school districts. According to its , the cost per square foot for a high school project was $369 at that time.

The agency’s largest and most expensive construction project is , which opened its doors last fall and cost $284 million to add room for nearly 3,300 students.

Over the years, the agency has promised the district it would pay for school repairs and provide new buildings. But despite efforts to address these challenges, including the allocation of $18 million in state funding for building upgrades over the last three fiscal years, the district estimates that it would need more than $2 billion to repair and update all schools.

The Newark school district has identified 33 out of its 64 total schools that need replacing and dozens more that need renovations. The state agency last summer promised to replace , but the deal still leaves out 20 schools that need replacements. The state agency also said it would spend a new University High School and relocate Hawthorne Avenue Elementary School, but the plan is still in its early stages.

In 2023, the Schools Development Authority purchased the former University Heights Charter School building and transferred it to the district to fulfill its promise to provide a new elementary school, now known as the

This story was originally by Chalkbeat,��a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.

 People are exhausted and desperate for some good news. Well, we now have some.      

Despite the virulent and largely inaccurate charges levied against higher education, the American public may hear it but clearly doesn’t buy into the raft of misinformation. In a recent , seven out of 10 adults without a college degree believe both a bachelor’s degree and an associate’s degree are either extremely or very valuable. And despite the costs, a majority in the poll believe college will pay off within five years.

In perhaps the best piece of news, a about the quality of their college classes found that 72% consider their classes to be either “excellent” or “very good,” and half were very confident their college education and degree would result in positive career opportunities.    

This positive view of higher education also extends to seniors in high school. In 2025, the percentage of seniors who have filled out their FAFSA forms has increased by 13% over 2024, and the percentage of seniors filling out the Common App for college admissions increased by 4%, with the number of first-generation college goers increasing by 13%. 

According to the , the largest gains are among students from low-income neighborhoods. This is significant because the decline in birth rates has affected the size of the youth population. Add all of this to the fact that nationwide this past fall college enrollment was up by 3.4%, it is clear that the notion that “college doesn’t matter” has little truth. 

This news is particularly important because labor market data shows that by 2031, despite the phrase “college doesn’t matter,” more than seven of every 10 jobs will require a post-secondary degree or credential. , those entering the workforce with a college degree earn more than $1 million more over their lifetimes compared to those with only a high school diploma. We see growth in the semiconductor industry due to the CHIPS and Science Act, growth in health careers, green jobs, and a host of labor market areas.      

This doesn’t mean our higher education systems can’t improve. They can and they must improve. The growth in micro-credentials is a significant innovation offering students an opportunity to earn industry credentials that are both credit-bearing and stackable toward a degree.

In New York State, the Power Authority, a big green jobs employer, is partnering with SUNY to not only double the number of micro-credentials for green jobs but also offer them to high school students in some of the state’s , at no cost. This year Gov. Kathy Hochul announced free community college tuition for students seeking degrees in areas of labor market growth. 

Other colleges and universities have begun providing an opportunity for a bachelor’s degree in three years, rather than four, reducing the time and cost of a degree. Others, including SUNY, have expanded the use of credit for prior learning, allowing military service, community service, work experience and other backgrounds to qualify students for academic credit, also reducing the cost and time of a degree. 

The P-TECH approach, which offers a model of education combining high school and college via dual enrollment along with industry engagement, has spread to over 500 schools across 28 countries. It offers a clear pathway from school to college to career for students regardless of income or achievement levels. Many employers — including IBM, Cisco, Northwell Health, Micron, GlobalFoundries, and the NY Power Authority — are seeing strong results from this model. An by MDRC demonstrates its success, especially for low-income students and students of color.

While some of the issues involving education appear to inspire more division than unity, this isn’t the case on the need for a clear pathway from school to college to career. This is an issue that unites and doesn’t divide. It is this unity that will bring together Republican and Democrat governors, education leaders, business and labor leaders, and student representatives at the on Thursday to discuss the need for innovative paths from school to college to career.  

It will take all of us — regardless of political affiliation — to achieve success for our nation. We must examine models of success together and identify ways to make them scalable and sustainable with clear solutions that include more experiential learning, career guidance and exploration, and access to academic and workplace skill development.  

It is true that these are difficult and challenging times. But the good news story — about the latest poll numbers, the degree to which education leaders are willing and able to innovate and the unity demonstrated at the upcoming summit — give me some hope.

With the nation’s second largest school district now offering nearly 450  programs across 160 schools, Los Angeles Unified students are embracing CTE. 

More than 47,000 students have access to programs that range from internships and dual enrollment courses to clubs, electives and required classes aligned with core academic subjects. 

Earlier this month, hundreds of high schoolers demonstrated new skills at the California Endowment Center, from horticulture to computer programming, while middle school students toured booths and explored the programs they could soon join.

“I want to go into landscaping, designing people’s yards,” said senior Serenity Flores, who takes a horticulture class at Sylmar Charter High School. “And this class kind of brought me around to that.”

District data shows these offerings are growing fast. The number of paid student interns more than doubled, rising from just over 700 in 2023–24 to more than 1,600 this school year.

Industry certifications have also grown in popularity. Students earned more than 6,000 credentials in 2023-24, a 60% increase from the previous year, in areas like Microsoft Office, food handling and CPR.

One reason for the increase is the rise of Linked Learning, a California-based program that blends academics with career exploration and college credit.

The  began in 2009 as a pilot in nine school districts. Today, it’s grown to more than 50 districts. In LAUSD,  participated during the 2023–24 school year.

Romero’s school, Hilda Solis High School in Boyle Heights, is one of many that offers a .

“I really enjoy it because it shows that I’m capable of doing things like this,” said Ivan Romero, who is enrolled in the school’s engineering design class.

To meet rising demand, the district announced a two-year pilot program in 2024 to trai new CTE teachers. LAUSD officials  was to address the growing need for skilled educators in CTE programs. 

The pilot will support 25 new CTE teachers per year and pair each with a mentor. 

According to a U.S. Department of Education study, students who took two or more CTE courses had a 94% graduation rate, compared to 86% for those who didn’t. Employers are also on board, with 96% viewing CTE applicants favorably.

Many of these students are graduating high school with certifications or finished college courses. 

“Basically, when they graduate, they can start working,” said an LAUSD spokesman. “The emphasis on it is, when they get out of college, they’re ready to go to work.”

Although most students said the courses help build on their college plans or inform them of higher education choices, some have chosen blue-collar and trade programs as an alternative.  

Sergio Garcia, a senior at Banning High School, gets to learn how to put out fires and do CPR from the Los Angeles Fire Department. Other students said they had never thought of becoming a firefighter before being introduced to the course. Now they can expect to have certifications and be working for fire departments straight out of high school. 

Some educators say all students, not just the ones in blue-collar programs, should have that opportunity. Darryl Sher, who teaches the robotics club at LACES Magnet School, said students are often told college is the only route. CTE programs show otherwise.

“Most of them are going to college, but they could get jobs in tech right out of high school,” Sher said.

Even if the majority of students plan to go to college, or need a degree to pursue their ultimate career goals, there are plenty of programs to help students earn money right out of high school. 

“Some have automotive programs, some have food safety courses,” Frank said, highlighting auto repair and customer service jobs as starting industries for many students. “They can get a job and do something that can support their college education.” 

This article is part of a collaboration between ����Ӱ�� and the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.

President Donald Trump’s vision to revive American manufacturing — a linchpin of his economic and national security strategy — rests on a bold promise: a renaissance of high-tech factories staffed by skilled tradespeople. The White House, defending steep tariffs to incentivize domestic production, that decades of trade deficits have “hollowed out” America’s manufacturing base, resulting in “a lack of incentive to increase advanced domestic manufacturing capacity.” This, in turn, has “undermined critical supply chains; and rendered our defense-industrial base dependent on foreign adversaries.”

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick painted a bracing picture of this industrial renaissance. “There’s going to be mechanics, there’s going to be HVAC specialists, there’s going to be electricians — the tradecraft of America,” he on CBS’s Face the Nation earlier this month. “Our high school-educated Americans, the core to our workforce, is [sic] going to have the greatest resurgence of jobs in the history of America, to work on these high-tech factories, which are all coming to America.”

It’s a stirring vision, but it hinges on a question that’s been largely ignored amid the political and economic debates over tariffs: Does America’s education system have what it takes to produce the workforce needed to staff a manufacturing revival? To put the question bluntly, is it any better at career and technical education than teaching kids to read and do math proficiently?

The evidence suggests a mixed picture: CTE is a comparative bright spot in America’s challenged education system, but serious hurdles, from misaligned training to automation’s rising demands, raise doubts about whether schools are equipped to meet the moment. Fewer than 40% of the country holds a college , so Lutnick is correct to say high school-educated Americans are the “core” of the workforce. But manufacturing is no longer reliably safe terrain for an unskilled worker with minimal education. Even before Trump took office, a 2024 forecast a need for up to 3.8 million additional skilled manufacturing employees by 2033 — while predicting that half of those could go unfilled if skills and applicant gaps go unaddressed.

Let’s start with the good news. CTE delivers tangible outcomes where core academics often stumble. While only 26% of eighth-graders scored proficient in math on the 2022 NAEP, the Nation’s Report Card, CTE programs demonstrably funnel kids into the workforce. High schoolers who take multiple CTE courses peers who don’t in earnings and employment rates. Even more encouraging, a 2022 published by the Annenberg Institute at Brown University found these CTE “concentrators” are 8.4 percentage points more likely to avoid poverty and are significantly more likely to earn above the poverty threshold seven years after high school. They are also less likely to be disengaged — neither employed nor participating in education or training.

These are positive outcomes, and unsurprising. With 85% of 2019 high school graduates earning at least one CTE credit and 77% of CTE students graduating on time — often despite being at-risk — CTE’s focus on jobs over test scores suggests that K-12 can do something right when the goal is paychecks, not just test scores. At its best, CTE aligns education with the practical demands of the labor market, offering pathways to careers that don’t require a four-year degree but still promise stability and dignity.

But those successes are not universal, and the broader K-12 system’s weaknesses cast a long shadow over Trump’s manufacturing ambitions. A by my former colleagues at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute found that CTE programs often fail to align with the needs of local job markets. Nothing useful comes from schools churning out workers trained as welders in regions where robotics or advanced manufacturing jobs dominate — or might in the future. More concerning, only about 5% of CTE concentrators focus on manufacturing, lagging behind other fields such as health science, agriculture, business management, and hospitality and tourism. tourism. A co-authored by Boston College’s Shaun Dougherty found that schools have an even tougher time filling CTE teaching positions than openings in academic subjects, and that CTE teachers in high-growth areas with occupational licenses are much more likely to leave the profession and enter industry, where they can earn more. 

The broader K-12 system’s academic struggles don’t inspire confidence, either. That 26% math proficiency rate among eighth-graders isn’t just a statistic; it’s a flashing red warning light. The elephant in the room is automation, which shifts manufacturing job demands toward advanced skills like robotics and computer numerical control programming, which involves writing instructions, or code, that tells a machine how to operate and perform tasks like cutting, drilling or milling. In sum, manufacturing is no longer about low-skill, repetitive tasks, but about sophisticated, tech-driven processes. If three-quarters of students can’t master middle school math, the demands of modern manufacturing are likely beyond them. 

The poor performance of K-12 education doesn’t augur well for a renaissance in even semi-skilled labor. Specialized CTE high schools and postsecondary schools perform well, but most such students are still in traditional settings, notes Dougherty. “I don’t think that we have evidence that in … comprehensive high schools where we’re offering CTE, that we are systematically doing better in teaching CTE than we are in math and reading,” he tells me.

Finally, and perhaps ominously, there are factors schools can’t fully control. Soft skills like initiative and work ethic are critical in manufacturing, yet they’re notoriously hard to teach. Tim Taylor of America Succeeds, a nonprofit aimed at mobilizing business to support education, shared an anecdote about an Austin, Texas, manufacturer who handed out 75 business cards at a career fair, inviting students to come for a job interview. Only three showed up. Taylor’s organization emphasizes mid-skill, mid-wage jobs as the goal — not low-skill, low-wage work that’s easily automated or offshored. But fostering the initiative to seize those opportunities requires more than curriculum; it demands a cultural shift.

So, can American education rise to the challenge of Trump’s manufacturing revival? The answer is a qualified maybe. CTE is a proven pathway for getting kids into the workforce, and its focus on practical skills makes it better suited than traditional academics to meet industry’s immediate needs. Getting serious about this revival will take more than tariffs and rhetoric. It means ensuring CTE programs are tightly aligned with local economies and forward-looking enough to prepare students for an automated future. It means fixing the academic foundations — math, literacy, problem-solving — that underpin technical skills. And it means cultivating a culture that values hard work and opportunity, not just credentials. 

Such a school could expose students to a multitude of career fields, allow students to choose learning opportunities that reflect their passions, and facilitate credential-building experiences that support students in launching careers they care about – all before entering college or the workforce. 

This type of learning isn’t hypothetical, and it isn’t always restricted to high school. Innovative communities across the country are proving the power of career-connected learning – which integrates real-world skills and experiences into curricula – to give students of all ages the 21st-century know-how needed to thrive and lead in the future. 

Just outside Austin, Texas, IDEA Round Rock Tech recognizes that must access computer science courses to be prepared for the region’s . The school implemented a comprehensive COMP3 (computer science,computational thinking, and general computing) progression for all of its pre-K through high school students. Programming languages like Python and JavaScript bolster students’ access to tech jobs (if they want them) and build the foundational logic and problem-solving skills they’ll need in any career. 

At the Brooklyn STEAM Center in New York City, 11th and 12th grade students from across the borough spend their afternoons “learning by doing.”  Located at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, a robust industry ecosystem with over 400 businesses, STEAM students choose from six in-demand industries, engaging in professional work, developing robust industry networks, and ultimately creating tangible pathways to a career.

Students’ personal stake in the industry and opportunities they pursue is helping STEAM build toward its founding goal of transforming the “school to prison pipeline” into “school to career.” It’s working: 83% of STEAM’s first graduating class earned a career credential, 100% had a fully-developed post-secondary plan, and 95% enrolled in a four-year college.

Career-connected learning solves for the future by engaging students today. Where I work at , a national nonprofit committed to extraordinary learning for all children, my colleagues and I are hearing from too many students that school is falling short. It is not engaging, relevant or connected to their real-life. They are telling us directly in surveys like our and continued tracking of Gen-Z engagement. They’re also telling us by simply not showing up to class. 

By giving students agency to pursue the kinds of relevant, rigorous learning experiences they care about, career-connected learning can help solve the youth disengagement crisis. 

In Chicago, families designed Intrinsic Schools to address the troubling reality that just of kids entering local public schools would earn a four-year degree by the time they were 25. Intrinsic built a unique school design where students personalize and own their learning with support from innovative technology that helps students and teachers know where to focus and adjust day-to-day. 

For Isaaq, who went on to graduate from University of Chicago with a degree in computer science and psychology, this flexible design was key in pursuing his budding passion for math. While taking three math classes concurrently – unheard of in a traditional curriculum that stresses sequential, paced progression – Isaaq launched a club around video games and used his math skills to code a real-time rankings system he’d been told “couldn’t be done.” 

This student-centered design looks different for every kid, but gets results for most of them: more than 90% of the class of 2023 enrolled in college, compared to the national college enrollment rate of 39%.

Rural communities are also tackling student engagement with career-connected learning. In Colorado’s Clear Creek School District, students were increasingly disengaged in school as their community confronted a serious water crisis. Spurred by students’ advocacy for project-based learning, Clear Creek High School transformed 34 of its classes to tackle real-life challenges, in part by learning more about the careers that influence them.��

In AP Bio, students began learning about filtration systems and water quality. Some students delved into communications, fundraising, and liaising with school and business leaders. In just one school year, students’ belief that they’ve “seen adults in my school listen to the ideas and voices of youth when making decisions” grew from 45% to 54%. And the momentum generated by Clear Creek students led to a commitment of at least $150,000 to mitigate the water issues.

In each of these communities, career-connected learning is giving students a say in what, where, and how they learn. IDEA Round Rock, Brooklyn STEAM, Intrinsic, and Clear Creek are refusing to accept the limitations of a school model designed over a century ago, with students batched by age, curriculum standardized, and uniformity prized. Instead, these schools are elevating student voices and re-designing their education offerings to meet the needs of modern youth. 

Importantly, all of these schools arrived at their career-focused innovations through “,” a process that starts by listening to students and engages the whole school community to reshape school to meet student needs. When we listen to students, they tell us they want to grow new skills, explore new opportunities, and build their own futures—starting in K-12. 

These schools aren’t anomalies. Career-connected learning can take root in any community—red or blue, urban or rural, coastal or heartland—willing to come together to design learning that responds to the demands and opportunities of the 21st century. Our students are spelling out what they want from school today. It’s up to educators to  listen to them and create schools that make their 15,000 hours count. 

Natalie Watts loves her computer science classes at Campbell High School. The junior has studied everything from coding robots to creating online computer games and was initially attracted to the career track because of the technological skills she could gain and the high-paying jobs that could follow. 

But when Watts recently participated in a presentation highlighting Campbell’s STEM programs, she received an unexpected question from the audience: Is being in the program “like going to an all-boys school?”

In the 2022-23 school year, 70% of students in Campbell’s information technology classes were boys. The school had a similar gender gap in its architecture and science programs. 

Watts has always felt supported and welcomed by her male peers and teachers, but she also wants more girls to see computer science and engineering as a part of their futures. 

Campbell is one of 46 Hawaii public high schools enrolling students in career and technical education courses, which provide hands-on learning, internships and training to prepare students for life after graduation. Students usually enroll in a single CTE program throughout high school, taking multiple classes related to careers in fields such as nursing, teaching and engineering. 

The number of students enrolled in CTE pathways has exploded in Hawaii in recent years, amid debates about how to help students secure high-paying jobs after graduation and combat the state’s high cost of living. Nearly two-thirds of the class of 2023 participated in a high school CTE program. 

But the programs  across the state. 

In the 2022-23 school year, boys made up nearly 75% of Hawaii CTE programs focused on STEM and information technology, and roughly 70% of programs focused on manufacturing. On the other hand, girls made up three-quarters of health care programs like nursing. 

Researchers say these patterns reflect and reinforce larger trends in the state’s workforce, where men dominate lucrative careers such as engineering and computer science. Statewide, women make 86 cents for every dollar men earn, in part because of which careers they pursue,  from the University of Hawaii. 

Federal legislation requires states to track gender enrollment in these programs and dedicate funds to address enrollment disparities that help perpetuate longstanding  and shut women out of higher-paying opportunities. But many states — including Hawaii — have made little progress in closing the gender gap over the past five years. 

Hawaii has slightly better success than mainland districts in getting boys interested in careers in education — and has equal participation in some career tracks like business and hospitality — but the state is lagging behind the national average when it comes to enrolling girls in fields most likely to lead to high-paying jobs in the future.

The Hawaii Department of Education declined multiple interview requests for this story, but individual principals say they are exploring a range of strategies to address the problem, from career fairs highlighting women in STEM to presentations encouraging middle schoolers to keep their minds open about future jobs. Outside organizations and employers have also stepped in to help schools close gender gaps.

But efforts vary by school, and some CTE coordinators say the state isn’t doing enough to help schools create gender-balanced programs.

“There’s no real systematic approach,” said Jeremy Seitz, who leads the engineering CTE program at Farrington High School. 

Federal Funds And Few Plans 

Eden Ledward is the face of the University of Hawaii’s CTE carpentry program. A minute-long video on the university’s website shows Ledward building houses, studying construction plans and operating a handsaw as she explains how CTE classes help her pursue her passion for building.  

“My classmates and instructors are solid, and we get real experience doing real work,” she says to the camera. 

The promotional video is the product of federal funds Hawaii receives annually to support CTE programs at the high school and college level under the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act. Of the $7 million the federal government provided Hawaii for its CTE programs in 2024, the state was required to set aside $60,000 to address gender disparities.

Many of these dollars have gone toward creating promotional videos posted on the . The videos feature students who are pursuing CTE programs that have traditionally been dominated by a single gender, such as construction or nursing, said Warren Kawano, career pathways and strategy director at the organization .

UH isn’t required to report on the outcomes of specific gender equality initiatives using Perkins funds, and it’s difficult to measure the impact of these marketing campaigns, Kawano said. But he hopes the videos help broaden students’ understanding of the careers they can pursue. 

“If you’re interested, there’s a place for you,” he said.  

The state Department of Education gets about $1.4 million a year of the state’s Perkins funding. In the past, department spokesperson Kimi Takazawa said, schools have used some of the federal funds to purchase safety gear for girls in CTE programs, bring in female guest speakers to speak about their experiences in STEM fields, and more.

But the department could not say how much money was spent on initiatives around gender equality and doesn’t track in detail how schools use the funds. 

Schools receive Perkins funds based on the number of students enrolled in their CTE programs, said Waiākea High School Principal Kelcy Koga, but staff have a lot of flexibility in how the funds can be used. Waiākea has used the money on everything from hiring CTE staff to running a daylong program teaching elementary and middle school girls about robotics and engineering.

State leaders have said that equity and access in these programs is paramount, but there are few details on how they will achieve that. When the state submitted a comprehensive plan in 2020 to the federal government outlining how it would improve equity and enrollment in its CTE programs, there was not a single mention of how Hawaii would close its gender gap in the 157-page document.

That doesn’t mean that the state disregarded the issue completely, Kawano said, since the $60,000 designated for gender equality is only a small portion of the funding Hawaii uses for CTE. It’s up to the education department and individual schools, he said, to determine how to achieve greater equality in their CTE programs. 

Since the plan’s implementation, the state has made some progress, but the change hasn’t been the same across all programs. The proportion of girls enrolled in STEM programs rose from 20% to 27% between 2020 and 2022, but the percentage of boys participating in the health science career track stayed roughly the same, at 25%. 

‘Highly Segregated By Gender’

Hawaii is not alone in this.

A 2024 analysis from the U.S. Department of Education found that high school girls earned roughly the same number of CTE credits in architecture and construction in 2019 as they did in 1990. At the same time, the gap between the number of boys and girls in CTE health care programs grew as female students enrolled in classes at higher rates.   

“These results underscore the need for continued leadership in this space and an urgent, strategic focus on better engaging females in career pathways that lead to good jobs,” U.S. DOE Assistant Secretary for Career, Technical and Adult Education Amy Loyd wrote last year. “CTE programs in some career clusters remain highly segregated by gender, as do the occupations for which they prepare students.”

A number of factors can explain states’ ongoing challenges in achieving gender equality in career-based learning, said Emily Passias, deputy executive director of the national advocacy group Advance CTE. Gender gaps may persist as students gravitate toward the same classes as their friends, she said, or feel family pressure to pursue traditional careers. Sometimes, she added, CTE programs like welding may not have equipment specially fitted for girls, further enforcing gender stereotypes. 

“Those are things that signal to young people, I’m welcome or not welcome here,” she said.  

Some schools have shown that it’s possible to address gender segregation in CTE. 

Roughly half of students in STEM programs in the District of Columbia were girls in the 2021-22 school year, compared to the national average of 30%. The district said its success comes from teaching girls about careers in STEM from a young age and hosting career fairs and guest speakers emphasizing the importance of gender diversity in fields such as health care and engineering. 

But efforts in Hawaii are mostly piecemeal.

When Jeremy Seitz began teaching engineering and design technology classes at Farrington High School in 2008, all his students were boys. Roughly a quarter of students in the school’s engineering program are now girls. 

Making engineering classes a more welcoming place for girls has taken time, Seitz said. Growing up in Kalihi, he said, students have few opportunities to explore career options, and girls are often expected to stay home and take care of their younger siblings. 

The school brings in female engineers as guest speakers, Seitz said, and high school girls visit nearby middle schools to give lessons and show younger students what it’s like to study construction and architecture. 

Watts, the junior studying computer science at Campbell High School, is working with classmates on events that encourage girls to sign up for STEM programs. 

“If you want to do it, you should do it,” Watts tells younger students. “Don’t let male domination keep you from doing what you want to do.” 

‘You Just Have To Keep Trying’

There’s been little statewide effort to make sure all programs are taking similar steps. The state education department has occasionally completed equity audits of schools’ CTE programs, Seitz said, but he hasn’t seen any action taken based on that data.   

The CTE program at Waipahu High School, formerly under the leadership of Superintendent Keith Hayashi, is considered one of the trailblazers in providing career-based learning to all students during their four years on campus. Over 90% of Waipahu’s graduating class of 2023 participated in CTE, and the school opened a  hosting the culinary and natural resources programs just over a year ago. 

“It’s an opportunity for us in the department to lead change not only in Hawaii but, I believe, across the country,” Hayashi said at the learning center’s grand opening in December 2023. 

Even the state’s premier CTE school has significant gender gaps in its health care and engineering programs. Only 15% of students in the industrial and engineering technology program are girls. Meanwhile, only a quarter of students are boys in the health and science program.  

Waipahu High School Principal Zachary Sheets said achieving gender equality in CTE is a top priority. He tries to make sure there’s equal gender representation in the presentations and promotional materials the school gives to students choosing their CTE programs and has added career tracks like kinesiology to try to make the health care program appealing to more boys. 

“Don’t limit yourself,” Sheets said he tells students. “If you really have a passion about it, we want you to pursue that.” 

Sheets is optimistic that efforts by feeder schools to provide career education to younger students will help close some gender gaps at the high school level.

An equal number of boys and girls are enrolled in classes such as woodworking and aquaponics at nearby Waikele Elementary, said Michelle Tavares-Yamada, the school’s academy pathway director.

Younger kids aren’t always aware of gender stereotypes around certain jobs, she said, and the school capitalizes on this by encouraging students to explore their interests.

“I think our students see that, so they don’t think about those gender inequities,” she said. 

With limited statewide guidance, some community groups and local employers are also stepping in to help schools close their gender gaps. 

Since 2018, the Chamber of Commerce Hawaii has led a pilot program targeting middle and high school girls who are interested in careers in STEM. The program, taking place in the Castle, Campbell and Waipahu complexes, connects schools with female leaders in the field and hosts activities and panels teaching girls about engineering at partner campuses. 

Kathleen Chu, who helps lead the initiative and works at the local engineering firm Bowers + Kubota, said young girls aren’t always aware that engineering is a high-paying career path. When talking to girls about their CTE options, she shares the challenges of working in a male-dominated field but also emphasizes that women can bring leadership skills and new perspectives to the job. 

“You can’t give up,” said Chu, adding that she doesn’t want girls to disregard a career in engineering because they struggle with math or haven’t seen many women at a construction site before. “You just have to keep trying.” 

In the three school complexes hosting the pilot program, the percentage of girls in engineering CTE programs has increased from 17% to 26% over the last five years. The Chamber of Commerce is trying to expand the program and identify new schools as future partners, said Lord Ryan Lizardo, vice president of education. 

Even with these partnerships and guest speakers, it’s still difficult to encourage students to pursue programs where they’ll be in the minority, said Tracie Koide, a teacher at Campbell High School. Teachers try to create welcoming environments for all students, regardless of their gender, she added, but many kids want to enroll in the same programs as their friends.

Looking Ahead

Hawaii has the opportunity to ramp up its efforts to achieve greater gender equality this year, as the state prepares to submit a new CTE plan to the federal government. 

The  offers few details on how schools will address gender gaps, but the public will have the opportunity to provide feedback on the document beginning next month.

For now, said UH research economist Rachel Inafuku, differences in career preparation for boys and girls can contribute to gender gaps already existing in the workplace. 

Nearly 80% of Hawaii’s elementary and middle school teachers are female and earn a median income of $63,000. Electrical engineers, 90% of whom are male, have a median income of more than $100,000. 

At the Chamber of Commerce, Lizardo said he’d like to see more professional development for teachers when it comes to helping students make informed decisions about CTE. It’s important for schools to be honest about gender inequalities in the workforce, he added, but students should also have as much information as possible when deciding what CTE programs to pursue so they’re not swayed by their families or friends.  

David Sun-Miyashiro, executive director of HawaiiKidsCAN, said the state should take a closer look at the way schools are marketing and administering CTE programs with clear differences in enrollment for boys and girls. CTE programs should open up new opportunities for students, he added, rather than confining them to the limited representation they currently see in the workforce.   

“I think we need to have those really honest and sometimes tough conversations,” he said. 

This story is a collaboration between  and , with support from Ascendium Education Group.

Civil Beat’s education reporting is supported by a grant from Chamberlin Family Philanthropy.

In this politically charged era, there’s one thing both parties agree on: the benefits of high school career pathways. 

With strong bipartisan support, career and technical education programs are poised to be a centerpiece of education policy over the next few years — both federally and in California. That’s good news for students taking agriscience, cabinetry, game design and other hands-on courses that may lead to high-paying careers.

Education advocates hail this as a boon for high schools. Students enrolled in career training courses tend to have . And business leaders say that strong career education can boost a local economy.

But there are still many unknowns, and some education experts worry that an expansion of career education will come at the expense of college-preparation programs, or lead to a return to “tracking,” in which schools steer certain students — often low-income students — toward careers that tend to pay less than those that require college degrees.

“This could be a great opportunity for career and technical education, but we have to do it right,” said Andy Rotherham, co-founder of Bellwether, a nonprofit educational consulting organization. “There’s a lot at stake.”

Funding is a primary question mark. While Republicans strongly support career education, it’s unclear if that enthusiasm will translate to more money — especially if Congress eliminates the Department of Education, as President-elect Trump has vowed to do. 

Career education classes can be some of the most expensive programs in a school district. Supplies, up-to-date equipment, teacher training, smaller class sizes, operation costs and students’ certification exams can cost millions, and the costs only increase over time. Schools spend 20%-40% more to educate students in career programs than they spend on those who aren’t, .

Most federal funding for career education comes from a 1960s law meant to improve career education. But that funding has not kept up with the escalating costs. Last year Congress allotted $1.4 billion, which was distributed to states through grants. California received $142 million, and supplemented that with an additional $1 billion.

“It’s wonderful to see this bipartisan support, but we’d like it to lead to continued investment,” said Alisha Hyslop, chief policy, research and content officer at the Association for Career and Technical Education, an advocacy group. 

Career education and tracking

Career and technical education has waxed and waned since its inception in the early 20th century as a way to prepare students, usually from working-class or immigrant families, for jobs in skilled trades.

For decades, most high schools in the U.S. had some form of vocational education. Those programs came under scrutiny in the 1980s and ’90s as some complained about tracking practices that left many students without the option to attend a 4-year college because they hadn’t taken the required coursework.

Partly in response to that criticism, former President George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act in the early 2000s encouraged schools to promote college for all students. As a result, many schools cut back their career education offerings and added more advanced academic classes.

Then the 2008 financial crisis hit. High unemployment coupled with the soaring cost of college led schools to revive their career training programs, but with less tracking. Schools started encouraging all students to take career education classes, and the classes themselves were updated. Welding and auto shop were joined by computer science, graphic design, environmental studies, health care and other fields. In California, students are encouraged to take a career pathway as well as the required classes for admission to public 4-year colleges, although last year only about 11% of students completed both, according to .

Welders vs. philosophers

Career and technical education is a focal point of , the conservative policy roadmap written by the Heritage Foundation as well as the Republican party education platform and President-elect Trump’s nominee for education secretary, Linda McMahon. McMahon headed a pro-Trump political action group called America First Action, whose policies include an  in K-12 schools. The Republican platform reads, “(We) will emphasize education to prepare students for great jobs and careers, supporting … schools that offer meaningful work experience.”

Sen. Marco Rubio, Trump’s nominee for Secretary of State, put it more succinctly: “Welders make more money than philosophers. We need more welders and less philosophers,” .

Career education has also been a priority for Democrats. In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond and the Legislature have all promoted career education. In 2022 Newsom created the Golden State Pathways program, a $470 million investment in high school career education, and followed up a year later with the , outlining a long-term vision. Newsom described it as “a game changer for thousands of students.”

In California, the goal is to , and tie pathways — sequences of two or three classes — to the local job market. For example, a  at a high school near the Port of Long Beach includes classes in global logistics and international business. A pathway at Hollywood High trains students for jobs in the entertainment industry. 

More ties to business?

But some educators worry about the fate of career education if the Department of Education, which administers the Perkins Act, is eliminated. Project 2025 suggests moving it to the Department of Labor, where it would likely have stronger ties to business and fewer ties to education organizations. That could impact whether pathway programs continue to have academic components, or include college preparation classes.

“Businesses love CTE because it socializes one of their big costs. Taxpayers are paying to train their workers,” said David Stern, education professor emeritus at UC Berkeley who’s an expert on career education. 

Hyslop shares that concern. 

“Certainly CTE has connections to the economy, but at its heart it’s an education program. It’s about preparing students for their future, whatever that future may be,” she said.

A broader question may be whether the push for career education is part of a backlash against college generally. College enrollment  for a decade, coinciding with a .

Meanwhile, Trump has proposed big cuts to higher education, and has often expressed disdain for what he described as colleges’ leftward tilt. Project 2025 calls for the government to place trade schools on equal footing with 4-year colleges.

“This new interest in CTE captures the anti-elitist sentiment of the time,” Stern said. He added that preparation for college does not have to conflict with preparation for careers, and some programs, such as the , prepare students for both. 

Rotherham agreed. “On the right, there’s definitely antagonism toward college,” he said.

But they both said regardless of the politics behind it, a national focus on career education could be transformative — if it doesn’t railroad students away from college opportunities. Ideally, students can gain career experience in high school, while also learning poetry and civics and other important academic subjects, Rotherham said.

“Power is having choices,” Rotherham said. “That’s what we want for kids. The option to change their mind if they want.”

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The Newark charter school was selected for a free science field trip after another nearby school couldn’t go. It was May 2012, and middle school teacher Patricia Fartura was in charge of bringing 30 eighth graders to the organization’s technology center — a trip she would make an annual event. 

“That’s when the journey began. And our students loved it,” Fartura said. “It allowed students who would normally not be in that scenario or the situation of seeing what a science lab really looks like to get hands-on experience.” 

Fartura is now the curriculum supervisor at Varisco-Rogers, but its middle schoolers still visit Students 2 Science’s technology center to conduct multi-day experiments, such as simulating how the digestive system works or testing the energy content in caffeinated drinks.

Varisco-Rogers is one of more than 150 schools in New Jersey and Pennsylvania that partner with the 15-year-old , sending students three times a year to its technology centers for all-day programs in chemistry, biotechnology, physics and engineering. When students arrive, they are split into research teams and work with scientists to conduct experiments that connect to real-world issues, according to the nonprofit. 

For now, Students 2 Science serves middle and high school students at two centers, located in Newark and East Hanover, New Jersey. But the nonprofit recently of its program to elementary students, especially those in third and fourth grade, with a new 20,000-square-foot technology center near Whippany, New Jersey. It will replace the East Hanover facility in fall 2025.

The nonprofit also provides virtual laboratory lessons for teachers to livestream in their classrooms and a career-exploration program for high schoolers.

Dan Barnett, Student 2 Science’s chief development officer, said the organization decided to include younger students after hearing from schools that elementary classrooms had a shortage of science teachers.

“There’s such a lack of science teachers, or teachers that have a science background or can teach science in the elementary levels, especially for our school districts that are in such great need overall for resources,” Barnett said. “We worked with consultants to help develop a curriculum that aligned to New Jersey standards for learning and science. And now we are looking for a specialist to lead that program.”

Fartura said the decision to include elementary students will be critical to improving their academic success and trajectory. 

“I think at a younger age is where we want to get them [interested in STEM], because it’ll just continue to create passion for the subject, especially with all the careers that are out there now — everything is STEM,” she said.

show that young children begin to lose interest in science, technology, engineering and math as they grow older when they don’t have mentors to encourage them. found that this decline is more common among girls, students from low-income families and children of color.

This school year, Varisco-Rogers began incorporating STEM into its own elementary curriculum. Majority of the school’s are Hispanic and qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. 

Fartura said that so far, she has seen the school’s third and fourth graders become more engaged in their learning when STEM activities are involved.

“The little ones are … absorbing everything,” she said. “By the time I would get my students in sixth grade — even 10 years ago, 15 years ago — if they didn’t have that passion for science, it was so difficult for me to try to kind of push them.”

As Students 2 Science prepares to open its new site, the organization is also reimagining ways STEM can be taught through its two other programs, Barnett said. 

The V-Lab Program offers virtual laboratory lessons that can be remotely streamed at any school. Classroom teachers are given science materials, and a Students 2 Science instructor teaches a 45- to 50-minute lesson.

There is also a career advancement program that offers high school students opportunities for training and internships in STEM fields.

“We are really focused on exposure, making sure students know what options are out there, especially in the state of New Jersey,” Barnett said. “We recognize that for the communities that we serve, the students don’t necessarily get exposed to all of those opportunities, so that’s really what the focus of that program is, and that’s going to, I think, make a greater impact.”

About 90% of Students 2 Science participants are students of color, and 52% are female, according to the nonprofit. Since its inception in 2009, the organization has served more than 250,000 students.

One former student, Nomase Iyamu, said his participation in 2015 led him to a career in pharmaceuticals. He began at Students 2 Science as a sophomore at Bard High School Early College, which is part of Newark Public Schools, interned there as a college student and helped create the V-Lab Program. 

Imayu said Students 2 Science allowed him to make mistakes while experimenting with science and technology in high school. That opportunity sparked his interest in the pharmaceutical field, which eventually led him to enroll in business school to create his own pharmaceutical startup company.

“It took STEM for me to become an entrepreneur, so it may take STEM for someone to do something else that they’re actually passionate about,” he said. “I definitely see Students 2 Science as a very strong stepping stone to any career path that you want to have. I would definitely not be here without them.”

Lea esta historia en 

California announced today which schools will share a windfall to bolster career paths for students – but delays and mishaps have meant that thousands of students missed the opportunity to participate.

An estimated 300 K-12 schools will share $450 million to set up internships, boost dual-enrollment programs at community colleges and take other steps to connect students to high-paying jobs in health care, technology, the arts and other fields. 

The announcement comes after a tumultuous few months for the Golden State Pathways program, which is part of California’s broader effort to  at high schools and community colleges. Alongside other investments, the program is intended to ultimately make career training available to every student.

Initially  in 2022, the Golden State Pathways Program was supposed to roll out the following year, with schools applying for grants and the state Education Department announcing winners in January 2024.

But in spring 2023, a brewing state budget deficit led some legislators to  and sending the money elsewhere. After protests from school districts and career education advocates, the program survived  — then faced more delays when the state pushed back the application deadline.

In May, the Education Department announced that 302 school school districts won grant money, but , some of those grants were for far different amounts than what the schools had applied for. 

In July, the state abruptly revoked the entire roster of grant recipients, saying it needed to review the applications again given that school districts had flooded it with appeals.

“The California Department of Education takes Golden State Pathways, as well as all of California’s investments in workforce-ready educational opportunities, very seriously, and we are committed to ensuring that these funds get to local educational agencies as quickly as possible. We recognize the impact that this (delay) has had on districts, and every effort is underway to ensure that funds are distributed as swiftly as possible,” Elizabeth Sanders, spokesperson for the Education Department, said in an email this week, adding that the agency is working to “ensure that all communication moving forward is clear, responsive, and collaborative.”

School districts and career education advocates were irate. The delay meant they could not move forward with plans for this fall, even though many had already committed to programs. In early September, a group of 20 school districts and nonprofits  to state officials, including Gov. Gavin Newsom, imploring them to speed up the process.

“We respectfully ask that you do everything in your power to get promised Golden State Pathways grant dollars flowing, sent, and received to the hundreds of local education agencies that have planned, staffed and set expectations for this funding across California communities,” they wrote. “Time is of the essence for the communities that depend on them.”

The delays were especially painful for districts that have been scrambling to help students recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. Since campuses reopened, they’ve grappled with ,  and an uptick in student misbehavior. Many students, meanwhile, have struggled with . 

Career pathways have offered some hope. Students who participate in them  higher graduation rates, higher rates of college enrollment and higher earnings later in life, according to research compiled by Policy Analysis for California Education, a nonprofit think tank.

By improving career paths for students, the state also hopes to spur its own economy by providing skilled workers for growing industries such as health care, technology and climate-related fields.

Students missing out

But the delays and uncertainty have forced schools and organizations to freeze hiring and planning.

“We’re in a holding pattern and the school year has already begun. We’re missing an opportunity to reach more students and help more school districts with their goals,” said Kirk Anne Taylor, executive director of Climate Action Pathways for Schools, a nonprofit that provides paid internships for high school students to work on environmental projects in their schools and communities.

Porterville Unified in Tulare County is among the districts that risked postponing its career pathways expansion plans. The district was hoping to use Golden State Pathways grant money this year to expand its climate internship program, where students create energy audits of school buildings and recommend ways to save gas and electricity. Over the past three years, the students’ audits have  more than $830,000 in energy costs. Students have also worked on green schoolyard projects and a switch to electric buses.

Taylor’s organization ended up finding another funding source for Porterville’s program, but other districts weren’t so lucky, she said.

“It’s a great program in Porterville and we’re eager to move forward … there and elsewhere,” Taylor said. 

In Los Angeles, a nonprofit called UNITE-LA connects schools with local businesses, setting up internships, job shadowing opportunities, mock interviews, professional speakers and other avenues for students to gain career experience. Due to the delays, plans to expand its programs at dozens of Los Angeles County high schools have been scuttled for a year.

Career education “really has the power to transform students’ lives,” said Carrie Lemmon, UNITE-LA senior vice president of systems change strategy. “So many students are struggling right now. We’re grateful for the grants, but every year we wait to implement these reforms, we’re losing more students.”

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The Alabama state superintendent said Thursday afternoon that a diploma pathway focused on career readiness should not be used to remove lower achieving students from another diploma pathway.

Speaking to members of the Alabama State Board of Education during a work session, Eric Mackey told board members that students should not be forced to work toward a career-pathway focused diploma known as Diploma B just because they have lower ACT scores than others.

“There will be no ‘If your ACT score is 22 you’re on Option A, and if it’s 21 you’re on Option B,’” Mackey said. “And if anybody tries to do that, the furor of the state superintendent will come down on them, because that is not the purpose.”

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The remarks came in a discussion over the diploma options of “A” and “B,” with “B” meeting a career-focused option required by the Legislature.

sponsored by Sen. Donnie Chesteen, R-Geneva, the chair of the Senate Education Policy Committee, was part of a package of bills focused on workforce development in the 2024 regular legislative session. The legislation requires the board to create a diploma under the law’s goal of facilitating “the development of a career pathways diploma at the K-12 level that would enhance career and technical education opportunities for high school students who plan to enter the workforce immediately after graduation.”

Mackey said that diplomas issued by the schools will not note whether they are the “A” or “B” option. Both diplomas require 24 credits.

But the superintendent said he was worried about returning to an old educational model where people sent students to vocational schools just to get them out of the building.

“I’m telling you, if anybody tries to go back to that, there will be fire raining down on them because that is not what this is about,” he said. “This is about giving students opportunities.”

Chesteen said in a Thursday afternoon phone call that he agreed with Mackey after the Reflector summarized what was said at the work session.

“I think it’s one thing to pass a piece of legislation. I think the most important piece to that is the implementation. How is it going to affect the students? And that’s what I want to monitor very carefully,” he said.

Chesteen said “we can’t use it for an easy pathway out for these kids that don’t score well,” and they need to have a career pathway after they graduate.

Diploma “A” requires four credits each in English Language Arts, Mathematics, Science and Social Studies. Diploma “B” requires four credits in English Language Arts and Social Studies, but two credits in Mathematics and Science. Option “B” also requires three credits in Career and Technical Education to complete a whole sequence.

“We’re going to have kids that score a 32 on the ACT, that want to be Option B because they like working with their hands, and they want to go into robotics or such thing, and we’re going to have kids with with a 20 ACT, that are strivers, they want to do the Option A,” Mackey said.

The Board intends to announce the intent to adopt the changes in the October meeting.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Alabama Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Brian Lyman for questions: info@alabamareflector.com. Follow Alabama Reflector on and .

Not long after new college students have finished choosing , they are asked to declare an academic major. For some students, this decision is easy, as their majors may have actually influenced their choice of college. Unfortunately, this decision is not always an easy one to make, and college students frequently change their minds.