In a few short weeks, Aldine Independent School District in Texas will welcome a new cohort of ninth graders to the HEAL high school programs — one of the biggest career-technical education experiments underway in the state and just one of many that the Houston-area district is implementing to ensure its graduates are equipped with real-world skills.

Through a partnership with Memorial Hermann Health System — the largest health care provider in the Houston area — students pursue one of five pathways, identified for their resistance to automation and urgent local workforce needs: nursing, rehabilitation, pharmacy, imaging, and non-clinical administration.

In ninth and 10th grades, students participate in job-shadowing and practice their skills in simulation labs; starting in their junior year, students have access to paid health care internships and professional mentoring, among other work-based learning experiences. Students at HEAL, or the Health Education and Learning program at Nimitz High School, still take traditional academic courses to meet state graduation requirements, but they also enroll in specialized health care classes co-taught by Memorial Hermann employees.

The school was established with the support of Bloomberg Philanthropies. Once the school is fully phased in over the next three years, it will serve approximately 760 students who will graduate with the skills and in many cases the certifications needed to move directly into high-demand health care jobs with family-sustaining wages.

“We’ve made a big push to re-leverage how we’re using CTE programs and industry-based certificates for kids that are in high-demand, high-wages career fields,” says Adrian Bustillos, the chief transformation officer at the district. 

“The hospital system was telling us we have a shortage in these pathways and careers that we need to fill. Well, let’s work with our students sooner so we can get them in today. Give them access to their building, give them access to their training and to the experts in the field, and help cultivate future healthcare workers,” he says. “This is a game changer.”

The 58,000-student school district, where the vast majority of students are from low-income families, offers other workforce pathways focused on cybersecurity, energy, engineering and more — partnering with local businesses to offer students real-world experiences, industry certifications and dual credit opportunities. 

Looking ahead, Bustillos says, Aldine is focused on how to make these options available for all students and on how to orchestrate a wholesale shift from a century-old learning model rooted in class time and passing exams to one that prioritizes skills gained. 

“How do we find the other premier programs that are rooted in a model similar to this, that students want and the community needs, and that will help drive the market? How can we leverage our thinking and drive it out to scale across the district with different pathways?”

Bustillos is far from the only district leader asking such questions these days. The slow recovery from the pandemic combined — along with the swift integration of artificial intelligence and a workforce that’s increasingly interested in skills and experiences over four-year degrees and pedigrees — has scrambled long-held assumptions of teaching and learning. Faced with a moment that’s forcing the education community to rethink what students should be able to do by the time they graduate, many are attempting to pivot away from test scores, GPAs and essays toward more tangible, employable skills. 

Indeed, Aldine is part of a new cohort of two dozen school systems from across the country whose leaders are already pursuing this type of transformation. The , launched this summer by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, aims to establish a “new architecture” for high schools across the country — one that sets ambitious goals for students, offers meaningful, rigorous and engaging learning experiences and uses improved tools to measure and accelerate student progress.

The network is part of a larger effort by Carnegie to redefine the so-called “Carnegie unit,” or what many know as the credit hour. Developed back in 1906, the unit defines the amount of time students need to spend in a course to earn credit toward a high school diploma. More than a century later, it still serves as the basis for calculating credits needed for graduation in many states and school districts. And while it once played an important role in standardizing a fragmented public education system, the time-based system, most agree, has outlived its usefulness. 

“There is really broad scale recognition that the current design for the American high school isn’t meeting the needs of young people, isn’t meeting the needs of the economy and probably isn’t preparing young people effectively for participation in civic society,” says Timothy Knowles, president of the Carnegie Foundation. “You layer on top of that the intensity of the economic transition that the nation and the world is in, and it makes a very strong argument for this being an important moment for high school transformation. 

“Lots of states are grappling with how you move away from time conflated with learning. The Carnegie unit was our creation and it doesn’t really comport with what we now know about how young people learn,” he says. “Now is a critical moment of opportunity not for tinkering around the edges with small elegant examples but with more sustainable and scalable examples.”

The goal of the high school network is for members to collaborate on a framework that helps other districts modernize their outdated systems and expand competency-based high school models that accelerate student engagement, achievement and success in postsecondary education and work — whether that’s community college, medical school, a certificate program, the military or directly into the workforce. 

The cohort is wildly diverse, both geographically and when it comes to the demographics of students the schools serve. It includes traditional public school districts like Aldine, Akron Public Schools in Ohio, Roanoke County Public Schools in Virginia and New York City Public Schools; and it incorporates more innovative public and public charter systems like the Rural Alliance Zone in Indiana, and the Springfield Empowerment Zone in Massachusetts. 

That wasn’t an accident. If the goal is to pursue high school transformation at scale, then the first step, Knowles says, is to prove that it works in states and districts that look like the rest of the country. 

“What is it that Aldine is doing — particularly preparing young people for careers in healthcare — and how does that actually work in a way that would be useful for other systems across Texas, but also anywhere, and then elevating those lessons and building evidence.”

While the programs are unique and, in most cases, speak to the needs of the local workforce, the through-line is the same: an endeavor to equip students with more meaningful learning. 

Northeast Academy for Aerospace and Advanced Technologies student Garret Wand explores the flight simulator with Kim Mawhiney, Director of STEM. (J.K. Yezdanian)

In Elizabeth City, North Carolina, students at the Northeast Academy for Aerospace and Advanced Technologies (NEAAT) choose between three science tracks: aviation, computer, and health. All high school courses are honors courses, and the majority of students also take classes at nearby Elizabeth City State University and the College of the Albemarle.

“We were dissatisfied with the opportunities our students had in the region, and decided it was time to do school differently,” says Andrew Harris, CEO of the academy. “We strive to graduate students who are ready for the real world, and that looks quite different than taking a bunch of multiple choice tests or sitting in rows or any of the things that we might have thought about from our own experiences. We try to make sure that students learn through experience.”

Roughly one in three students at NEAAT graduate with a two-year degree, and two out of three finish with at least one year of post-secondary coursework already completed. All students participate in local internships and are encouraged to earn 150 hours of volunteering in the community.  

“If I’m going to have heart surgery, it’s important that the surgeon has passed the test,” he says. “But it’s a whole lot more important to me that he can actually perform the surgery and has a history of doing it. We’re trying to make sure our kids can match this sort of technical knowledge with real world experiences.”

Appetite for the academy’s model is overwhelming. What started with 120 students in eighth and ninth has grown a decade later into 760 students in fifth through 12th. If the school had the funding, Harris says, it would expand enrollment by another 500 to establish a pre-K through fourth grade. The school handles enrollment through a lottery system and receives nearly four applications for every open seat. 

Carnegie is joined by several nonprofits and philanthropies to support the high school network’s efforts, including the XQ Institute, which has been pushing school leaders to rethink high school and embrace new models of teaching and learning for the last decade. 

“We wake up every day thinking about how high school needs to change,” says Keith Dysarz, chief academic officer at XQ. “We have all this data that shows what we’re doing now isn’t preparing students for success when they leave high school.”

For Dysarz, the most important part of the effort isn’t simply dismantling the current model; it’s gathering data and evidence of what works to support the types of policy needed for scalable and sustainable change. 

“There’s a lot of momentum in this work across the country right now, and this network is going to help us reimagine and envision new models for high school. We need these proof points, these examples that can turn into exemplars to really show that it’s possible.”

Disclosures: The Future of High School Network and ����Ӱ�� both receive financial support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, XQ and the Walton Family Foundation.

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.”

This was originally published on .

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.”

This was originally published on .

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.”

Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for ����Ӱ�� Newsletter

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.

About 500 educators will be receiving up to $8,000 in bonuses this month, but some school leaders aren’t convinced it will be enough to solve Hawaii’s shortage of career technical education teachers. 

CTE teachers lead courses ranging from broadcast media to engineering in middle and high schools across the state. The classes, which emphasize hands-on learning and projects, provide students with skills and training they can use in their careers. 

While CTE isn’t new to Hawaii, it’s  in recent years, especially under the leadership of Department of Education Superintendent Keith Hayashi. But as schools expand their CTE offerings, the teacher workforce may be unable to keep up due to low pay and barriers to licensing.

The DOE said it doesn’t collect data on the CTE teacher shortage, but approximately 25 positions remain unfilled for the 2024-25 school year. , the Hawaii State Teachers Association said it received estimates from DOE that half of CTE classes in Hawaii schools are taught by teachers who don’t have a corresponding license in the subject area. 

Hawaii licenses educators to teach CTE classes in six areas: arts and communication, business, health services, industrial and engineering technology, public and human services and natural resources. 

The DOE is now providing one-time bonuses to CTE teachers that range from $2,500 to $8,000 based on individual qualifications. Lawmakers also passed a bill this year that would ease teacher licensing requirements and allow those with a high school diploma and relevant work and education experience to qualify for a CTE teacher license.

Kimberly Saula, vice principal at Farrington High School, said she’s hopeful these initiatives will grow Hawaii’s CTE teacher workforce. But, she added, many CTE teachers have years of experience in fields like healthcare or auto mechanics, and it’s challenging to convince these professionals to make the move to the classroom. 

“It’s difficult to make teaching high school students appealing,” Saula said. 

“The Shortage Is Huge”

Keala Swain worked in tourism and hotel management for 10 years before coming to Waimea High School on Kauai. Swain, who now teaches CTE classes in computer science and information technology, said he loves working with students and sharing the knowledge he gained from the technology courses he took in college.    

But, he said, leaving his career in the hotel industry required him to take a pay cut of roughly $20,000 in his first year as a teacher. 

Because CTE courses can require specialized knowledge in fields like architectural design or nursing, schools try to recruit industry professionals to teach their classes. But switching to teaching can result in a significant drop in workers’ salaries. 

“The shortage is huge,” Waimea High School Principal Mahina Anguay said, adding that she recently lost a CTE teacher to a job at the Navy base that could likely pay twice his teacher salary. 

The lengthy process for licensing may also deter those considering a CTE teaching job. 

The pathway to receiving a teacher license in CTE can vary depending on a person’s educational background and work experience, said Erin Yagi, who oversees Leeward Community College’s CTE licensure program. 

Individuals need to show relevant experience or coursework in the CTE licensing field they’re pursuing and take approximately three to four semesters of coursework preparing them for teaching, Yagi said. Many people seeking their CTE licenses are working adults who need to balance their coursework with other responsibilities, she added.

“It is challenging to be a full-time employee and go through a program,” Yagi said. 

LCC is one of three programs in Hawaii that can prepare teachers for CTE licensure. Last school year, the college recommended 10 students for licensure. 

Some Hawaii schools are feeling the direct consequences of the teacher shortage. 

Baldwin High School Principal Keoni Wilhelm said he hopes his Wailuku campus will become a wall-to-wall academy by 2025, meaning that all students will be on a college or career-focused pathway with classes and internships preparing them for jobs in culinary arts, business and more. 

But Wilhelm said it’s been difficult to recruit teachers as the school expands its CTE offerings. For example, he said, Baldwin previously had a healthcare pathway and took advantage of its close proximity to Maui Memorial Medical Center. But when the health diagnostic teacher left in 2021, the school had to dissolve the pathway and hasn’t been able to find a replacement since. 

“It’s not for a lack of trying to recruit,” Wilhelm said. 

Potential Reforms On The Way

When DOE announced it would issue bonuses for CTE teachers this spring, Swain was caught off-guard. He hadn’t expected the extra money, he said, although he appreciates the extra $4,000 he’s receiving this month. 

But he’s not sure if the bonuses of up to $8,000 will be enough to attract more people to teaching.

This isn’t the first time DOE has used monetary incentives to address the state’s ongoing teacher shortage. In 2020, the  for educators who taught special education or Hawaiian immersion classes or were in schools located in hard-to-staff areas. 

Special education teachers received the largest bonus of $10,000 each year. For the first two years after the bonuses began, the recruitment and retention of special education teachers improved.  

But Andrea Eshelman, deputy executive director and chief negotiator of the Hawaii State Teachers Association, is skeptical of DOE’s strategy to address the CTE teacher shortage. Currently, the bonuses are only one-time payments for individuals who taught CTE classes in the 2023-24 school year. 

In the , legislators appropriated $2.5 million to continue CTE bonuses in the 2024-25 school year, but Gov. Josh Green has yet to sign the bill.

Most teachers aren’t willing to change their jobs based on the uncertain possibility of receiving a salary boost in the future, Eshelman said. 

“Do we think it’s going to move people? Perhaps,” she said. “But for now, they were told it’s just a one-time thing.”

Legislators also passed a bill this session that could make it easier for industry workers to transition to teaching. 

Currently, prospective teachers need at least an associate’s degree to earn a CTE license. Under , those with a high school diploma and relevant education and experience in their respective industry could also be considered for a CTE license. 

Not all trades require a college degree, and the change in requirements could provide more opportunities for more industry workers to become teachers, said Felicia Villalobos, executive director of the Hawaii Teacher Standards Board. 

If the bill becomes law, she said, individuals would still need to take classes on the principles of education and teaching in order to receive a CTE license. HTSB would also need to define what level of industry experience and training could qualify an individual for licensure.  

Green has until July 10 to veto bills or sign them into law.

At Waimea High School, building and construction teacher Dante Casillas said it took him about 18 months of classes and teaching observations to receive his CTE license. Teaching CTE classes for the past two years has been rewarding, he said, adding that his students are leaving a legacy on the school by building risers and picnic tables that their classmates and the community can use. 

“Having that kind of impact and be able to say, ‘I did this,’ that’s a cool thing for everybody,” Casillas said. “The kids are just proud of their work.”

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

This was originally published on .

The annual “end of year report card” from and the surveyed more than 2,000 students in grades 5 through 12, who gave their schools’ an overall grade of “B-” — the same score for the .

But students ages 12 to 19 had disparate opinions depending on their household income, with lower income students giving a “B-” compared to higher income students giving a “B” grade.

Stephanie Marken, Gallup senior partner for U.S. research, said students’ “neutral” remarks are concerning — particularly among those from lower income families who are “even more likely” to miss out on the support needed to thrive in school.

“At a time where we need an education experience to be anything but average, we continue to see students give their schools neutral scores on the metrics that matter most,” Marken said in a statement.

Here’s a snapshot of how students graded their schools this year:

Disclosure: The Walton Family Foundation provides financial support to ����Ӱ��.

A student in an elementary school drops an egg wrapped tightly in paper straws and tape to test whether it can survive a high fall. Next door, students engineer a solar oven out of pizza boxes, construction paper and aluminum foil. In another classroom, students construct a “biosphere” using foam balls, fake grass and dollhouses.

These and similar scenes from public schools around the country are more than just young learners having fun with recycled materials. This is STEM education in action: Hands-on projects help students develop critical thinking skills while sparking interest in science, technology, engineering and math.

Research shows that  provides them with a foundation to enter many STEM-related careers: as doctors, chemists, geologists, computer scientists and many more.

Introducing these fields in elementary school helps capture students’ imaginations and kindle their interest in STEM. Besides the fun, these hands-on learning experiences foster a mindset that embraces innovation, experimentation and collaboration. That foundation will support this generation throughout their lives as they face an increasingly complex, interconnected world.

STEM careers are among the nation’s  jobs. Early exposure to STEM education primes students to take advantage of these career opportunities — and the economic benefits that come with them. Without it, we risk perpetuating an exclusionary cycle that alienates underrepresented communities from STEM careers and fuels lifelong opportunity gaps.

As parents have become more involved in their children’s education, they deserve to know how and where STEM is coming to life in their schools — and, more importantly, how to make sure that their children can take advantage of opportunities.

This is especially important now, as inconsistent and inequitable access to these subjects continues to reinforce representation gaps in STEM careers. In today’s STEM workforce, Black and Hispanic adults represent  of the field, respectively. of STEM workers, they are overrepresented in health-related occupations compared to other areas like engineering and architecture.

We can reduce representation gaps in STEM and prepare more students to join the STEM-related workforce — but we have to start young. Students need opportunities to develop the critical thinking skills that will allow them to succeed in these fields.

That’s why , the nonprofit school information site that helps parents navigate education,  with  (PLTW), a nonprofit organization that encourages STEM-based careers for students through hands-on, project-based learning starting in pre-K.

Because of this new partnership, parents can now see whether a school offers STEM when browsing GreatSchools profiles. Families looking to specifically prioritize STEM programs in their school search can use GreatSchools’ enhanced search tool to display only schools offering these courses.

We believe that providing this information to families — especially those whose identities are underrepresented in STEM careers — will allow them to take advantage of these programs early on, potentially changing the trajectory of their child’s academic and professional lives.

Furthermore, in the wake of the pandemic, parents are , not just better. It’s not enough just to improve our schools — we also need to change the playbook from which they’ve been operating for decades.

It’s time to meet this moment with action. Here are some ideas I believe education leaders can and should be pursuing in terms of STEM:

• Make sure teachers have adequate resources. In addition to proper training, teachers need technological equipment — computers, internet access and software — to effectively teach STEM classes.
• Adopt a curriculum that exposes students to STEM early on. Infusing elementary school curricula with topics and skill development aligned with STEM careers opens students’ minds to a world of possibilities.
• Create mentoring programs that center underrepresented STEM professionals. Mentors can play a significant role in shaping students’ career trajectories by exposing them to different fields while helping them reach their goals. Giving students the opportunity to connect with professional STEM mentors — particularly Black, Hispanic and female mentors — can help them see themselves in those careers.

Now is our chance to reimagine public education to more equitably serve all students. Exposing students to STEM early in their education is a crucial investment for students, their families and society. Collectively, we all reap the benefits of a diverse, rich workforce representative of the best in our communities.

And yes, we can simply start with a pizza box, paper and foil.

 is chief executive officer of , a national education nonprofit that supports parents through every stage of their child’s education. He has more than two decades of experience in K-12 education, previously serving as a math teacher and school administrator.

This story about  was produced by , a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education.

It came last summer in a white envelope she couldn’t wait to open. Hillary Barber, 29, had already interviewed for a position at a soon-to-open coffee house in Sleepy Hollow, 45 minutes north of Manhattan, but didn’t know if she earned a spot. 

A witty and tenacious young woman with a megawatt smile, Barber has cerebral palsy, a condition that limits her mobility and makes it difficult for her to speak. Like so many other developmentally disabled adults across the country — and, particularly, in — she had trouble finding work after she graduated from high school in 2013 at age 19. 

That letter, she hoped, could change everything.

“It is with great pleasure that I extend the following employment offer to you,” read the invitation from the nonprofit Sleepy Coffee, Too, founded by former special education teacher Kim Kaczmarek.  

“I’m so happy,” Barber told an aide that night. “My life is complete.”

It would mark Barber’s first-ever paid work, an enormous victory for a young woman who was too often underestimated: Just were employed in 2022, up from 19.1% the year before, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. For those without a disability, the figure was 65.4% in 2022, up from 63.7 percent the prior year.

A smaller offshoot of what will soon be Sleepy Coffee, Too — called The Little Shop of Coffee and Dry Goods — opened in a cozy 700-square-foot storefront in June 2023, employing Barber and 16 other adults with developmental disabilities. Kaczmarek, 64, came out of retirement to open the store, staking $125,000 of her own money on the venture.

Many of her employees are her former students. The staff is devoted — they ask their families to reschedule vacations and other outings around their shifts — and eager to take on the working world’s challenges. That exposure has greatly improved their communication skills. 

“I had some kids who were virtually nonverbal who are now some of my best customer service employees,” Kaczmarek said. “They found their voice.”

As the employees are growing, so is the business. Sleepy Coffee, Too is poised to move to an adjacent downtown location in the next few months that will double its size and allow the shop to expand its hours. 

On a recent rainy Sunday afternoon, customer traffic was slow but employee Maggie Collier, 21, was ready to help anyone who walked through the door. Sitting behind the counter, she spent the afternoon brewing coffee and refilling the store’s milk, sugar, sweeteners, cups, stirrers and napkins. 

The store, neatly stocked with all manner of coffee, is packed with other items, too, including books written by and on behalf of disabled adults and sold by the family of a Long Island man with Down syndrome. 

A mannequin in the left-hand corner models a brown zippered sweatshirt and baseball cap emblazoned with the store’s logo while a waist-high display case offers cookies and granola Like many of its coffee house competitors, the store’s walls and shelves are adorned with signs bearing cheeky messages like, “Espresso Yourself.”

Collier, who learned of the shop through her father’s friend, the also now-retired schools superintendent in neighboring Tarrytown and Kaczmarek’s former boss, is eager for the new space to open. An avid baker, she’s excited about adding snacks to the menu.

“I’m looking forward to working with more customers in a larger coffee shop,” she said. “And I like working with people my age. I like taking initiative.” 

Dreams of a coffee shop during COVID

Kaczmarek has long known her students had a hard time beating employment odds. The pandemic made their plight even more difficult. During that dark time, the former teacher’s heart would break when she saw her former students on the streets of this Hudson River village that’s home to Washington Irving’s legends, the headless horseman and Ichabod Crane. 

Their regression was stark, Kaczmarek said. Young people whom she coached for years to meet her gaze and engage in polite conversation were now averting their eyes. The educator didn’t want further isolation to undermine any more of her — or her students’ — good work. But she didn’t immediately know how to help. 

The teacher reflected on the successful coffee cart she and her students opened — she used it to help them learn about operating a small business and to fundraise for their field trips — in her district’s administrative office in 2016 and how it grew even more popular at the high school. 

Neurotypical students designed and helped build a cart complete with display cases, lights and locking wheels. Students and staff proved devoted patrons: Sleepy Coffee’s brownies would sell out in minutes each morning.

“There was a respect toward my students that had never been there before,” Kaczmarek recalled. “I think it really changed the culture of school.”

She remembered how members of the football team would high-five her kids as they passed each other in the hall. Kaczmarek’s classroom was in the main hallway and her students were highly visible.

“The more they were out doing things that everyone else did, it made not just the students, but the staff realize we are more the same than different,” she said. “They want to have friends, a boyfriend or girlfriend, to be invited to places. It took the stigma away. It became normal. The other students got it very quickly.”

But how could she translate that sense of fairness and inclusion to the outside world? Would the general public have the same goodwill? Sure, she had seen it done before. But it had been decades.

Helping Adam

Kaczmarek was 11 years old when a developmentally disabled boy was born to a family across the street in her hometown of Briarcliff Manor, just north of Sleepy Hollow. This was the 1960s, an era when many such children were immediately sent off to live in institutions, often at the . 

Not Adam. 

His family wanted to keep him close, but they couldn’t care for him alone. So, they invited friends and family to work and play with him each day in shifts.

“His mother had a big schedule in the house and people signed up and were given fast training,” said Kaczmarek, who was among the volunteers. 

Back then, she said, the favored technique was “patterning,” a series of exercises meant to help children with neurological impairments. That, and trying to build Adam’s gross motor skills. 

“It really had an impact on me, watching my neighborhood come together like that,” Kaczmarek said. “It was an incredible time.”

And it taught her a lesson that would become her mantra. 

“There is always a way to solve any problem,” she said. “When people work together, miracles can happen.”

‘It turned out to be good’

Kaczmarek went on to earn a bachelor’s in special education from Syracuse University and a master’s from Fordham. Adam eventually became one of her students. 

She hoped — if she could only figure out how — to generate the same support for her former students today, and approached them to gauge their interest in opening a brick-and-mortar coffee shop. They were elated at the thought. 

Kaczmarek inherited the $125,000 seed money from her parents and remembered what her father told her just before he died: Don’t wait too long to do whatever it is you want to do with the rest of your life.

She’s then raised an additional $200,000 through grants, donations and fundraising and she’s always looking for more to add staff and expand their hours. 

Adam’s sister, Kaczmarek’s friend since childhood, grew up to run a successful coffee shop of her own and has become a valuable mentor. And another friend in the community alerted Kaczmarek to the bigger spot her shop will soon occupy: It was abandoned and available for rent at a reasonable price. 

Kaczmarek’s students have been working on the project for well more than a year, meeting at first through Zoom and then in person as they opened the first storefront. 

“They are stimulated every day. They have an obligation. They are part of a business,” she said. 

Jake Loerker, 24, worked at a movie theater taking tickets, handing out snacks and vacuuming the floor before he landed at the Beekman Avenue shop, where he mostly handles money. 

“You know what?” he said of Sleepy Coffee, Too. “It turned out to be good. The customers are friendly.”

Elvira Juarez, who worked as Kaczmarek’s teaching assistant, serves on the nonprofit’s board of directors and whose child is among the shop’s employees, has watched her 31-year-old daughter blossom as her involvement with the coffee shop grew. So excited about work, she prepares for her shift days in advance. 

“On Thursday and Friday, she’s always getting her uniform ready even though it’s not until two days after,” Juarez said. “She’s always making sure it’s clean.” 

Hillary Barber, the young woman who got her first paying job at 29 and who uses adaptive technology to communicate, treats her job with the same dedication. 

Though it was a challenge, she was determined to operate the register from her wheelchair and after a few modifications to the store, she did just that. Janis, her mother and herself retired special education teacher, is grateful that Kaczmarek gave her daughter a chance. 

“She is definitely smart,” the mother said of Hillary. “She picks up things quickly. But this was really her first opportunity to work. I’m so grateful for Kim.”

Featured on our online panel: Dr. Keeanna Warren, associate executive director, PPHS Network; Dr. Gary Bertoline, senior vice president, Purdue University; former Indiana state Rep. Mary Ann Sullivan; ����Ӱ�� Senior Reporter Jo Napolitano; and Purdue Polytechnic junior Raina Maiga. PPI’s Taylor Maag moderates. 

Sign up for ����Ӱ��’s newsletter to follow our coverage of America’s innovative high schools and learn about future events.

Related coverage: 

• Rethinking High School: Upending Traditional Subject Structure at Purdue Polytechnic High School
• In This School District’s ‘Test Kitchen,’ Teens Go Beyond the Classroom to Build Drones, Research Cancer & Try Out Careers
• Indiana Looks to Make High School Curriculum More Focused on Career Paths
• Michigan Teens, Schooled in an Old Museum Without Classrooms, Eclipse Status Quo

Featured on our online panel: Dr. Keeanna Warren, associate executive director, PPHS Network; Dr. Gary Bertoline, senior vice president, Purdue University; former Indiana state Rep. Mary Ann Sullivan; ����Ӱ�� Senior Reporter Jo Napolitano; and Purdue Polytechnic junior Raina Maiga. PPI’s Taylor Maag will moderate. Please join us at 2 p.m. Eastern. 

, or tune in here at 2 p.m. to livestream the event.

Related coverage: 

• Rethinking High School: Upending Traditional Subject Structure at Purdue Polytechnic High School
• Watch: Educators & Experts Talk About How High Schools Are Innovating to Better Prepare Teens for College & Work
• Robotics-Themed NYC High School Fills Roster in Inaugural Year
• Watch: Inside Indianapolis’s Purdue Polytechnic High, an Innovative School Built Around Design Thinking That Offers a Direct Pathway to College

That will be the key question on the table Wednesday at 2 p.m. Eastern, when the Progressive Policy Institute and ����Ӱ�� present a special live streamed panel on the “Future of High School,” featuring Maryland state Sen. Alonzo Washington; Dr. Julius Davis of Bowie State University; Dr. Daria Valentine, principal of the Academy of Health Sciences at Prince George’s Community College; Dr. Jean-Paul Cadet of Prince George’s County Public Schools; and Sidney Foster, a sophomore at the academy. 

Panelists will examine a unique partnership between the Prince George’s County district and Bowie State, focused on developing strong college and career pathways for high-schoolers in the field of medicine. 

or refresh this page at 2 p.m. to watch the presentation right here. 

Background reading: Some recent coverage about how high schools and career preparation are changing:

• Changing Course: Indiana Looks to Make High School Curriculum More Focused on Career Paths
• Innovation in Iowa: Teens Are Spending Less Time in Classrooms, and Succeeding More — Here’s How
• Big Investment: $2.5M Gen Z Program Aims to Expand Career Options for High School Students

Multiple state offices are on the clock to and training programs that seek to graduate Hoosier students who are better prepared for the workforce.

The House and Senate compromised in the final hours of the legislative session on a massive that, at its core, seeks to expand work-based learning in Indiana high schools, like through apprenticeships and internships.

Paramount to the 85-page is a provision that would establish accounts for students in grades 10-12 to pay for career training outside their schools. The new framework is intended to enable students to earn a post-secondary credential before leaving the K-12 system. Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb .

Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for ����Ӱ�� Newsletter

So far, lawmakers have approved more than $20 million for the plan, although Indiana schools and various state agencies are expected to spend even more to get the programs started — and to keep them running.

Republican legislators said they were adamant in the 2023 session to “reinvent” Hoosier high school curriculum as the state tries to reverse its stymie other academic impacts following the COVID-19 pandemic and help fill open jobs around the state.

While Democrats agreed that Hoosier students need more training, those in the minority were largely opposed to the bill.

They questioned its effectiveness for students and cited concerns about oversight, especially in regards to intermediaries that will be entitled to state dollars for helping connect students with employers and training opportunities.

“This is the most complicated, jerry-rigged thing I’ve ever seen,” said Rep. Ed Delaney, D-Indianapolis.

Sweeping changes to career-ready education

House Bill 1002 was one of the last bills passed in the legislative session. A conference committee report for the proposal wasn’t approved until 11:49 p.m April 27 and was different, in several ways, from earlier iterations.

The plan got a vote in the House and a vote in the Senate.

As part of the overhaul, public schools must provide career awareness instruction beginning in the 2024-25 academic year.

The Indiana Department of Education (IDOE), in consultation with the Commission for Higher Education (CHE), are responsible for designating and approving a new course sequence, career courses, modern youth apprenticeships and other related programs.

The bill also requires public high schools to offer an annual career fair during regular school hours.

Separately, the new law requires the following to meet with a CHE-approved postsecondary educational institution, an intermediary, an employer, or a labor organization:

• high school students in grades 11 and 12
• college students receiving a 21st Century Scholarship or Frank O’Bannon Grant
• committed offenders nearing release

“Intermediary” is broadly defined in the bill as an “organization that connects individuals with companies looking for new workers.

IDOE and the State Board of Education (SBOE) must additionally establish new high school diploma requirements that make it easier for career education and certain alternative courses to count towards graduation, as well as honors diplomas.

Further, the bill stipulates that CHE will take over Indiana’s Office of Career and Technical Education. The eight-person staff is currently under the Governor’s Workforce Cabinet.

Indeed, the workforce cabinet was to be the home for the overall initiative in earlier drafts but shifted to CHE on the final night.

Indiana Secretary of Education Katie Jenner said during a SBOE meeting Wednesday that House Bill 1002 provides necessary new incentives for schools to build up career-ready students. It also gives state education officials “more flexibility” to create the framework for new learning options.

it’s already in the process of crafting the new diploma requirements and improving access to both high-quality work-based learning opportunities and high-value postsecondary credentials before high school graduation.

“House Bill 1002 has been tough for the  general public to wrap their arms around, but there are so many elements of really good opportunity in that which we must seize to hit the ball out of the park,” Jenner said.

The bill also expands the requirements for education programs to be qualified to accept grants from Indiana’s Career Accelerator Fund — — which is managed by INvestED, the state’s college loan agency.

Students in those programs will have two years — rather than six months — to earn a credential.

The income that graduates must earn within two years after they complete such programs was also dropped from 200% of the statewide per-capita income to 150%.

The interest-free loan program to help Hoosuers earn short-term certificates and other credentials launched in 2021 after state lawmakers rushed to spend the state’s surplus of federal COVID-19 relief money earlier that year. The General Assembly wrote in $75 million for the revolving fund without prior public discussion in the last state budget. No new appropriations were made in the next state budget.

Career Scholarship Accounts

Republican budget writers approved $15 million over the biennium , which will be similar to Indiana’s Education Scholarship Accounts (ESAs). Participating students can use the $5,000 CSAs to pay for apprenticeships, career-related coursework, or certification.

Starting in the 2025 fiscal year, students will first be required to create a graduation plan in order to qualify for the scholarship accounts.

It’s not clear how many students will opt to use the CSAs over the biennium, however.

The program is likely to grow over time, according to a nonpartisan legislative fiscal analysis, but it did not provide specific projections. their goal is to get 5,000-10,000 students to participate in the next fiscal year.

Still, the bill specifies that CSA accounts can be used to pay for certain postsecondary education and training, which could “significantly increase” participation in the program as more courses are approved.

Public schools — including career and technical education centers — can become CSA providers, which would allow them to receive money from the program.

If public schools are able to attract homeschoolers or students attending private schools, revenues would increase. But if students choose to forego those offerings at the public school and instead choose to get training through a different CSA provider, schools will see their current Career and Technical Education (CTE) grant revenues decrease.

That’s because schools will not be allowed to get separate CTE grants for students with CSAs.

Seven new funds

To support the CSA program and other career learning initiatives, the final draft of House Bill 1002 created seven new funds.

Three of those funds are specific to CSAs, while the other center around teacher training, career coaching and boosting the number of available work-based learning opportunities.

Career Scholarship Account Program Fund

Lawmakers appropriated $5 million for CSAs in the new state budget’s first fiscal year, and another $10 million in the second year. Any unused funds revert to the state’s general fund.

The Indiana Treasurer of State is tasked with administering the fund, with help from CHE and the state education department. A legislative fiscal analysis predicted the treasurer’s office will likely need additional staff and resources to administer the program, although the office can leverage the infrastructure it has already built for the ESA program.

House Bill 1002 requires an annual, independent audit of the fund to be made available to the public.

Career Scholarship Account Administration Fund

The fund covers the costs of managing CSA accounts and administering the program.

The treasurer’s office can transfer up to 10% of the appropriation for the CSA program to the fund in Fiscal Year 2024. After that, the office will be able to transfer up to 5% of the appropriation for the program to the fund.

Career Scholarship Account Donation Fund

This “non-reverting fund” will receive donations and transfer them to the CSA program fund.

Money in the fund at the end of each fiscal year does not revert to the state general fund but remains for future CSA program purposes, according to the bill.

Connecting Students with Careers Fund

The fund will be used to distribute grants to schools for the purpose of hosting career fairs. The state budget does not put any money into the fund, however. Rather, House Bill 1002 indicates that gifts and grants — including from private entities — can be added to the fund.

Teacher Higher Education and Industry Collaboration Grant Program and Fund

Teachers who want to participate in approved education courses or programs designed to improve their “knowledge and familiarity” with the application work-based learning can apply for grants made available through this fund.

IDOE oversees the program and the fund, but the Commission for Higher Education will help establish criteria used to approve programs and courses. Approved teacher education can be offered by postsecondary educational institutions or employers. It’s not yet clear how many grants will be available, or how much each teacher qualifies to receive. Those details will have to be hashed out by state officials.

Indiana’s next budget appropriates $1 million each year of the biennium into the fund.

Career Coaching Grant Fund

Under current law, the Governor’s Workforce Cabinet is tasked with establishing a career navigation and coaching system and administering an existing Career Coaching Grant Fund.

House Bill 1002 eliminates that fund and establishes a new Career Coaching Program and a new grant fund – with the same name — to instead be administered by the higher education commission.

CHE must develop and implement a new but similar program and award grants from the fund to schools, intermediaries or “career coaching providers” that agree to help establish or implement “comprehensive career navigation and coaching systems” for students.

IDOE will approve career coaching providers and determine who is eligible for a grant.

The bill does not earmark any dollars for the fund. The bill indicates that money for the fund can come from future legislative appropriations.

Intermediary Capacity Building Fund

Administered by CHE, the fund provides one-time grants to approved intermediaries to help increase their ability to serve a greater number of students. Lawmakers gave the fund $5 million for the fund in the first year of the budget.

The commission will approve entities in the program and help parents and students navigate how to connect with intermediaries. Each intermediary can get a one-time grant of up to $250,000.

An annual survey of program participants must also be completed.

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Indiana Capital Chronicle maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Niki Kelly for questions: info@indianacapitalchronicle.com. Follow Indiana Capital Chronicle on and .

Rhode Island is phasing in new standards for high school graduation after a multi-year evaluation revealed that nearly half of graduates were not meeting the minimum criteria for entry into the state’s public colleges and universities.

The class of 2028 — current seventh graders — will be required to take at least two years of a world language and complete math courses in geometry and Algebra II in order to earn their diploma. Seniors will also graduate having written professional resumes and completed the federal college financial aid form, known as FAFSA, a first nationwide, Rhode Island officials say. (Some other states have also made FAFSA a graduation requirement but offer students alternatives, such as filling out a state-level financial aid application instead or seeking an opt-out.) At the same time, Rhode Island will support high schools to add offerings in computer science, civics and financial literacy.

The new regulations also add flexibility for students who work jobs or are caregivers to receive credit for their real-world learning experiences. The changes will eliminate seat time in the classroom from being a criteria used to award academic credit, placing the emphasis instead on subject mastery and student proficiency.

The State Council on Elementary and Secondary Education the new standards in November and officials are now beginning implementation.

“This is going to be a gamechanger for us across the state,” Education Commissioner Angélica Infante-Green said.

The shift comes after the Rhode Island Department of Education partnered with the XQ Institute in 2020 to audit how well its high schools were preparing their students for success in college and careers. Researchers at the nonprofit analyzed more than 4,800 surveys and over 2,250 transcripts from a representative sample of students, finding that high schools were falling short on preparing their graduates for college and careers. They provided their work at no cost to the state.

While about 80% of students said they wanted to attend college, just 60% enrolled in the courses necessary to be eligible for higher education and only about 50% passed those classes.

“It was just really shocking to see the number of students that didn’t meet this bar of college eligibility,” said Keith Dysarz, who led the XQ analysis. 

Low-income students, English learners and students with disabilities saw even wider gaps, with the first two groups completing college prep coursework 42% of the time while the latter hit that mark in just 12% of cases.

In many cases, high schoolers would sign up for classes and have no idea that their selections could disqualify them from access to higher education, Infante-Green explained.

“Kids didn’t even know that they were not being provided the courses [they needed for college],” she said.

She and her colleagues were surprised to find the issues were pervasive in school districts not typically thought of as struggling. Several urban school systems in Rhode Island have a reputation for needing improvement, with Providence and Central Falls both actively under state takeover for underperformance, but wealthier suburban districts were also falling short on college and career preparation, the commissioner said.

In Bristol, an oceanside town with roughly 3,000 students in a regional school district, Madison Rodriques said the college entry requirements were easy to miss. The only time she remembers hearing she needed two years of world language to be college-eligible was during a high school orientation at the end of eighth grade. Though she luckily was paying attention, she believes many of her peers were tuning out. Now a junior at Bristol’s Roger Williams University, she had to step in on behalf of her younger brother, who is a high school senior, she said. 

“College wasn’t really on his radar when he was going into high school. I was the one to be like, ‘Oh, if you want to go, we need to do this and this,’” she said. “Not everyone has that older sibling or parent that’s going to be on top of that.”

After looking at the transcript data and holding 18 focus group conversations with students, state leaders acknowledged they had a problem to address. In the summer of 2021, they convened a working group that met over several months to hear the feedback of over 350 stakeholders.

“We do not want to be right; we’re here to get it right,” Stephen Osborn, the state education department leader spearheading the process, would tell educators and families.

Rodriques joined and spoke up about the disconnect between the courses laid out for her and her peers and the transcript requirements to be eligible for nearby colleges. She also advocated for more real-world skills like budgeting and how to do her taxes.

The leaders of the sessions “were so good at making sure voices were heard and elevated,” she said. “I could feel that they valued our presence there.”

The resulting proposal became the most commented-on set of K-12 regulations in the state’s history.

Now, schools are working to implement the new standards. Westerly High School Principal Michael Hobin is adding options for his students to gain certifications in life skills such as information technology, cosmetology or Spanish translation. He hopes that every member of the class of 2026, his current freshmen, will graduate with both a diploma and a credential awarded by an outside organization such as OSHA, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

“We want our kids … preparing for the rest of their life, whatever that means to them. If it means they’re going to go to college, then I want them prepared for college. If it means that they’re going into work, I want them prepared for work. If they’re going into the military, I want them prepared for the military,” Hobin said.

The new state regulations also call for more flexibility in awarding credit for the learning experiences students engage in outside the classroom. That’s a move to more equitably serve the numerous students in the state who are breadwinners for their family or caregivers, Osborn explained.

“Our kids are literally lifting their families out of poverty and then they’re being punished by their schools because they don’t have that time in their day to be able to go deeper into their academic schoolwork,” he said.

Schools may also combine courses for “flex credits” in two or more subjects, the new rules specify. That could mean delivering algebra in tandem with physics; English alongside performing arts or any number of other combinations, Osborn said.

Taken together, he hopes the standards send a clear message to school leaders.

“Coming from the Department of [Education], this is permission to be innovative.”

Disclosure: XQ provides financial support to ����Ӱ��.

Perhaps the biggest failure of the current education ecosystem is its inability to envision what the future holds for our students and to make systemic changes now to prepare them for that future. Shackled to a monolithic, change-resistant system, school and district leaders continue to make incremental and piecemeal changes to a broken system expecting to get different outcomes.

In an analogous way, almost all public-school systems are like Blockbusters in the late 1990s — unwilling to assess the impact of technological advances and consider how they might need to revisit their design principles. In the end, if an organization does not move purposefully toward some likely future, then any path forward will do, and it is likely to be the path they are currently on.

The workplace’s 2035 needs

Numerous studies and analyses already point to a fundamentally different workplace and different skills that will be required by 2035. Employers are already signaling that they need workers with “” such as critical thinking, communication, being able to work in teams and learning how to learn.

We do not know exactly how artificial intelligence will change the workplace by 2035, but we already know its impact over the last decade and can extrapolate forward. Similarly, we are witnessing in real-time the expansion of the “gig economy,” which will change the workforce in both positive and negative ways.

Indeed, there seems to be a growing symbiotic relationship between artificial intelligence and the gig economy. As artificial intelligence becomes more ubiquitous, forcing workers out of “left-brain” jobs, companies have greater labor options and can take advantage of outsourcing low-skilled tasks to the gig economy. Amazon’s Flex and DSP delivery programs presage this type of shift in the labor market and a trend that is likely to grow quickly.

Even if future workplace and workforce changes are more incremental and benign, graduates clearly need additional and different skills and competencies to be successful in the future. Reading and fundamental math skills will remain important, but they will no longer be sufficient.

Graduates with year 2035 skills and competencies will be in the best position to compete for higher-skill jobs. And as always, if schools do not help students gain these skills, then better-resourced families will have a competitive advantage.

My biggest fear is that poor and other disadvantaged students will neither gain reading proficiency nor be taught the 2035 skills. If social mobility continues to decline, the two achievement gaps — the traditional reading and math gap and the year 2035 competencies gap — will be “locked in” for the next 50 years.

“Wholescale” reform

The time for bold reform and desperate measures has come and gone — probably around the turn of the century. Now the only option for schools with large populations of struggling students is wholescale, systemic reform. Absent that, it is unlikely that school leaders will be able to close the opportunity gap or innovate in ways that will prepare students for the future.

If every system is designed to get the results it is getting, then we need a fundamentally different system to get different outcomes. But one cannot develop a new system through incremental changes to the old, failing system.

No number of refinements of the gears and mechanism on an analog watch can make it a digital device. No amount of change to the Blockbuster “system” of renting movies through brick-and-mortar outlets was going to make it an online system. Similarly, educators cannot continue to make incremental changes to the current way of operating and become a different system.

Millions of dollars are spent on after-school tutoring, new and improved professional development, one-on-one laptop initiatives, tweaks to the salary schedule, smaller class sizes, stronger teacher prep programs and more interventionists. But none are systemic changes, and none will make more than a marginal difference.

Add to that an army of educators, vendors, consultants and advocacy organizations who are vested in the status quo and one can easily see why reform has not been systemic. This is why the current, broken, system will continue to move forward like the walking dead.

No, the only way to transform education is through wholescale change.

For change to be truly systemic, one has to change the design principles and ways of operating in order to achieve different outcomes. Imagine, for example, if schools were intentionally designed to help students learn how to learn and learn how to think. What if that same school outlined the specific year 2035 competencies students should acquire, such as problem-solving, working in teams, critical thinking, information literacy and communications, and was held accountable for achieving those outcomes?

Imagine if schools not only taught reading, math and science, but also required different “experiences” that students would have to complete in order to move from the early grades to the middle grades and then to the higher grades. And what if those experiences could be completed outside of school and with experts who are not teachers? Imagine if schools paid a professional wage in a teacher’s first year and also eliminated all non-instructional tasks from the teacher role. What if the teacher in such a school did not have to make lesson plans, make copies, grade papers, handle discipline or do any work after 4:00 p.m.?

None of these specific examples can be accomplished piecemeal, but all of them can be accomplished at the same time if a school or district underwent a wholescale systemic change. The schools in the network in Texas have proven that it is possible and are quickly expanding “proof points” for other schools and districts to emulate.

Districts need a split-screen approach

While changing a school or small network system is certainly possible, it is next to impossible to transform a district. There are just too many interrelated and financially connected parts — too many vested interests and too many political barriers. Still, there is one approach that takes advantage of the nimbleness of innovative schools, while adhering to the traditional incremental approach that public education is used to and prefers.

For any existing district or network of schools with more than a handful of schools, the best strategy for implementing systemic change is a combination of the , authored by Ted Kolderie, and the “proof point” strategy.

Using a split-screen strategy, a district would not attempt to make systemic changes district-wide. Rather, it would implement transformative changes in one or two schools while continuing to make incremental improvements in the rest of the district. Once the schools operating with the new system principles achieve the outcomes and succeed, they will become proof points to allow the district to implement systemic change in even more schools over a period of time.

Wholescale, systemic change is happening in a relatively small percentage of schools in the country, and we are out of time. But hope springs eternal and a small number of leaders could still change the public education system before the opportunity gap is locked in. We could change the course of public education and better prepare students for success if:

• District and school leaders outline year 2035 competencies and the outcomes they believe schools should attain.
• District and school leaders use the split-screen and proof-point strategy to begin wholescale, systemic transformation.
• State legislators expand support for schools attempting wholescale systemic change (such as the partnership legislation passed in Texas in 2017).
• State legislators provide parents with greater ability to choose schools that focus on year 2035 competencies.

The profession has been talking about changing the system for quite some time. Time’s up — we have to act now. With a nod to the movie Interstellar: we know it is not impossible, but in any case, it’s necessary!

Mike Miles is founder and CEO of Third Future Schools and former superintendent of the Dallas Independent School District

is a nonpartisan quarterly journal from The Bush Institute that operates from the belief that ideas matter. They shape public policies, spur action, and lead to results. Each issue presents compelling essays that address a central question or theme. Along with Bush Institute directors and fellows, The Catalyst convenes leading experts and writers, as well as new and rising voices, to address each topic.

The modern economy and the education system’s ability to better prepare students with the skills they’ll need for the jobs of the future was the theme of a recent expert panel discussion organized by ����Ӱ�� and the Progressive Policy Institute. 

Panelists included Maryland state Sen. Jim Rosapepe; Don Fraser, Education Design Lab chief program officer; and Lateefah Durant, vice president, Cityworks DC. The event was moderated by Taylor Maag, PPI’s director of workforce development efforts. You can stream and replay the full conversation right here.

Recent news coverage about schools and preparing students for careers: 

Indianapolis Students Get ‘Leg Up’ On Careers With European-Style Apprenticeships

Irked by Skyrocketing Costs, Fewer Americans See K-12 as Route to Higher Ed

‘Academic Career Plans’ Have Students Exploring Careers as Early as Kindergarten

New Data: Female College Enrollment Drops at Twice the Rate of Male Students

Panelists include Maryland state Sen. Jim Rosapepe; Don Fraser, Education Design Lab chief program officer; and Lateefah Durant, vice president, Cityworks DC. Taylor Maag, PPI director of workforce development, will moderate. or watch the livestream at The74Million.org beginning at 2 p.m. ET Thursday.

Recent coverage from ����Ӱ�� about schools and careers:

• Indianapolis Students Get ‘Leg Up’ On Careers With European-Style Apprenticeships
• Irked by Skyrocketing Costs, Fewer Americans See K-12 as Route to Higher Ed
• ‘Academic Career Plans’ Have Students Exploring Careers as Early as Kindergarten
• New Data: Female College Enrollment Drops at Twice the Rate of Male Students

A community ecosystem fuels success

The ecosystems in Midland and Longview are a point of distinction. Both have traditional support from organizations like the local Chamber of Commerce, which typically understand the importance of an educated workforce to help fuel the local business community. Yet in Midland, leaders from business, philanthropy, and education are actively advocating for improvement in their school system.

The, a collection of business and civic leaders and organizations, has become a catalyst in focusing the community on the trajectory of the Midland Independent School District. (Acknowledgement: Former Commerce Secretary, the Chairman of the Permian Strategic Partnership, chairs the board of the George W. Bush Presidential Center.) The PSP website acknowledges that: “The public schools in the Permian region compared to other areas of the state.” The site also makes clear that, “Our schools the next generation with access to highly qualified teachers and a robust curriculum.”

As happened in Dallas a decade ago, when leaders concerned about the city’s schools pushed for improvements, Midland’s education reformers are using outcome data broken apart by race, ethnicity, gender, socio-economic status and special education status to better understand where the school system is working for kids — and where it is not — to help identify solutions.

As one example, the reformers invited in the Partnership, the Dallas-based collective impact organization, to help the community better understand the depth of Midland’s educational shortcomings. “Data is a tool, not a weapon,” said Midland civic leader Ronnie Scott in emphasizing the need for quality data.

Civic leaders also researched regions that exhibited educational progress, including how they use charter schools to improve student achievement. Midland ISD trustees have taken advantage of a Texas law that allows charter operators to take over failing campuses.

For its part, Midland College is working to bolster the local K-12 system. Midland’s successful Early College High School, which earned an A on the state’s 2021-2022 rankings, sits on the Midland College campus. Also, the community college now offers a four-year degree .

Scott cites the latter move as key to Midland preparing more of its own teachers. Attracting talent to communities far away from Texas’ metropolitan areas is hard. But members of Midland’s active ecosystem contributed about $30 million in private funds to create this initiative.

Community volunteers like Christine Foreman are playing a key role, too. Raised in Midland, Foreman noticed Midland’s public schools had hit rock bottom several years ago. She took action by leading Midland ISD’s 2019 bond package, which Scott, a business executive, helped craft and supported publicly.

The election drew an impressive turnout of about 23,000 voters, but . Midland’s staunch anti-tax culture contributed to the defeat, as did an insufficient number of young people turning out to approve the package.

Mobilizing enough voters in a staunchly anti-tax city to support another new bond package is a tall but important task. A city that rightly prides itself on freedom and opportunity should appreciate how much quality public schools can expand the important guiding values of the community.

Most important, Midland’s business, civic and education leaders must keep playing the role of truth-tellers. The city once had a strong set of public schools. Now, it must rebuild them. That’s not an easy message to deliver, much less hear.

Longview leaders could learn from Midland’s example. Longview ISD has a commanding leader in James Wilcox, the district’s superintendent since 2007. Through his leadership, Longview took advantage of the same state law that Midland has used to create charter schools. Except in Longview’s case, Wilcox turned the state law, , inside out to make every one of Longview’s schools into a charter campus.

What the district needs now is a broad ecosystem, one that involves a range of organizations, leaders, and citizens in the conversation about Longview ISD’s path. Wilcox has set the vision, but widespread engagement will allow the district to build upon its progress over time — and ensure an eventual successful transition when Wilcox decides to retire.

A broad ecosystem also would help the entire 82,000-person city navigate through the maze of three school districts that serve Longview. Competitive tensions inevitably mount. A network of civic and business organizations could ensure the competition benefits the entire community.

And, as in Midland, Longview business, civic and education leaders must play the role of truth-tellers. In Longview’s case, the most recent A grade it received from the Texas Education Agency is a triumph. But it doesn’t mean that all students are having an A experience in terms of quality instruction and academic progress. The A campuses in Longview provide great opportunities to learn what interventions and approaches may better support students on lower-ranking campuses.

An innovative use of government programs

Wilcox has made International Baccalaureate curriculum and the development of Montessori schools a priority for Longview ISD. Research supports those approaches as strategies to stimulate early learning and prepare students for an education beyond high school.

The longtime superintendent is making his priority a reality through an unusual use of SB 1882. The law uses incentives to encourage districts to partner with nonprofit charters to turnaround struggling campuses. In return, the districts receive an increase in state funding for that campus.

Through Wilcox’s opportunistic use of SB 1882, all Longview ISD schools are now charter campuses. At the same time, the district is using the money from the law to finance the expansion of IB or Montessori programs, including training teachers in these models. (Not all Longview schools have one of those programs, but efforts are underway to spread them district-wide. Teachers are not currently required to be certified in IB or Montessori to be hired by the district.)

Although the three charter organizations operating in Longview have their own boards, Longview ISD essentially runs the schools since it employs the teachers and administrators in each charter. Autonomy is at the heart of charter schools, particularly autonomy around hiring, salaries, use of instructional time and curriculum. Autonomy in Longview is somewhat murky at present, particularly given the governance structure and the fact that teachers and principals are employees of the district, not the charters. Next year, when the charters come up for review, the district should run a competition to select the best charter operators, including being open to charter management operators who insist upon employing their own educators and administrators.

For its part, Midland is focused on strengthening early childhood education, teacher development, career and technical education, and long-range facility planning. Midland also has tapped into the innovations that external charter operators like and use to improve student learning.

Third Future Schools, launched by former Dallas ISD Superintendent Mike Miles, redesigned once-failing Sam Houston Collegiate Preparatory Elementary with innovations like paying higher salaries based upon a teacher’s classroom performance, assigning apprentice teachers to nurture young educators, and using a curriculum that includes a concentration in the art of thinking. Sam Houston went from a F rating in 2018-2019 to a from the Texas Education Agency for the 2021-2022 school year.

In 2020, Public Schools opened the first , thanks to local foundations and leaders $55 million to fund the expansion of charters in Midland and Odessa. IDEA took over Travis Elementary School, a campus that the state gave a F grade in 2019. By contrast, TEA in 2022.

To its credit, IDEA focuses on the fundamentals of quality classroom instruction and developing effective teachers. The charter management organization notably offers a housing benefit to prospective teachers as part of its goal of developing a local pipeline of quality instructors.

As IDEA has shown with its progress in Midland, innovation need not be new. It may mean something as old-fashioned as strong instruction and a strong, welcoming culture for students.

Whether through a charter school or a traditional campus, Midland ISD will help prepare students for the world that awaits them by remaining open to innovative educational strategies.

Clear and inspired governance is key

The biggest governance challenge for Longview ISD is simplifying its unique but overlapping set of school boards. The district’s three charter operators have their own set of directors. But the charter operators eventually answer to Longview ISD’s school trustees and superintendent. Who, then, really is in charge?

Simplifying lines of authority would ensure the charters are not like a cautious driver looking back over their shoulder for approval from passengers in the backseat. Timidity leads to trouble, even danger. Longview students would be better served if the district remained the authorizing agent, while letting the charters manage their own work.

Giving quality charters freedom to operate, whether through rearranging school days, experimenting with curriculum, and using their own hiring and salary practices, has worked around the country. , Public Schools, and Public Schools provide three good examples.

The most important decision facing the Midland school board is hiring a superintendent to replace Angelica Ramsey, who decided in September to become Fort Worth ISD’s leader. She was hired to stabilize and advance the district after it had churned through two leaders without much progress. Ramsey was headed in the right direction by working closely with the Midland community, building the leadership capacity of principals and assistant principals, and staying on top of district data. The board would be smart to find someone with similar visionary instincts.

Midland voters elected 3 last month. The board has made strides toward concentrating on the most important variable: student performance. In fact, Scott and others credit trustees for being intent on improving the district, focusing on such priorities as attracting talented instructors to West Texas.

Trustees also have participated in Lone Star Governance, a Texas Education Agency spinoff that focuses on effective governance. But, as in other districts, board members need to know what to do with poor results and to stay the course once they find an evidenced-backed pathway. Parochial or minor matters can dominate school board’s discussions in any district — it is easy for board agendas to be filled with matters that have the gloss of relevance but lack any substantive impact on students.

Recommendations for Texas and lessons for beyond

As we saw in our look at Texas’ big metros as well as this look at our state’s smaller cities, adult leadership matters everywhere. Smaller cities and towns are, by definition, smaller ponds. Big fish can have outsized impact, to the good or the bad. Civic engagement and service is critical in small towns, particularly for those who want their hometowns to keep their homegrown talent.

Schools that prepare young people well for real local opportunity is a strong strategy for any Texas town. We recommend that leaders in smaller cities consider these recommendations when working to improve outcomes for all young people in their towns.

Show up and engage. In a smaller city, engagement by adults really matters. Citizens need to understand the outcome data and the community context, contribute to solutions with their time and treasure and vote in school board elections. Midland’s ecosystem is pushing forward with the priorities identified before their superintendent resigned for another role. The ecosystem in Longview is less well-organized and defined.

Distribute the leadership. Transitions will happen in the central office. In smaller cities, distributing responsibility and information across district leaders ensures that improvements work and a focus on goals continues even when leadership may change

Take advantage of charters and SB 1882. As both districts show, partnering with charters through brought new approaches to struggling campuses — and generated revenue for the districts. District-charter partnerships provide opportunities for learning and innovation when executed with fidelity. Taking advantage of policies like SB 1882 can help smaller cities access new ideas and resources.

Use the data. There is no way around using student outcome data to measure progress. It is impossible to meaningfully improve outcomes for students without using comparable data to understand who is on track and who is lagging. Tests are not solutions in and of themselves. They are simply the tool that helps illustrate academic progress. Breaking apart that data to understand what is happening on each campus and within each subgroup of students is also important to know if all students in the district are having comparable experiences.

The Texas miracle of economic growth and opportunity is both tantalizing and sobering. Texas is the fastest-growing state in the union per the 2020 Census. People of color account for 95% of that population growth, and we need everyone in the state to have opportunity within reach for our state to thrive. We know that the progress made by Texas students through the 1990s and 2000s stalled before the pandemic — and that stall became a major crash for far too many young people thrown off track by COVID-19 disruptions to school and home.

Recovery for today’s students is not a lost cause. Texas can still cultivate and benefit from the collective ingenuity, knowledge, and leadership of our young people if adults stay the course to build and support school systems that work for all students. Adult leadership and vision matter now, more than ever.

Diane Tavenner shares with Michael Horn her excitement about a school visit she recently did in South Carolina to the Anderson Institute of Technology — which raises the question of why aren’t there more schools like what she saw?

Listen to the episode below. A full transcript follows.

Diane Tavenner: Hey, Michael.

Michael Horn: Hey, Diane. How are you?

Tavenner: Michael, I am so excited to talk with you about a school visit I recently did, and it’s just giving me so much hope for what’s possible.

Horn: All right. Well, Diane, I’m just going to be honest for the listeners out there, you don’t get that excited about school visits all that easily. Maybe like 10 years ago you did, but you’ve got a little bit more jaded and skeptical maybe. I don’t know. But this sounds curious and maybe even hopeful. And obviously we launched this podcast with the belief that the crisis of COVID could lead to the redesign of schools, and four seasons later we’re into this. We’re still waiting for that redesign. So I’m excited to hear what might be promising and what’s got you excited. Let’s dive in. Tell me about the visit.

Tavenner: All right. Wow. OK. Where to start? So I visited the Anderson Institute of Technology, or better known as AIT, which is in South Carolina. I think it’s fair to say this is a relatively rural area in the northwestern part of the state. And I’ll start by saying I know firsthand how much work it is to host visitors, and so I just am incredibly grateful to the AIT team and their students, Dr. Couch, Kelly, Cecil, Dana and Stephanie. I mean, they were amazing, Michael. They were so open and generous with their time and I just left feeling really inspired in a way, as you said, sadly, I’m a little old and crotchety now. I don’t get as excited anymore. And this one really got me fired up. So AIT is four years old. It’s literally only four years old. They launched in the fall of 2019 and yep, if you’re doing the math, that means they weren’t even open a year before COVID hit them. That was not a nice time to be launching a school.

Horn: No, not at all.

Tavenner: It’s been hard for all of us, but they don’t seem to be deterred by it and have come through it. AIT is a school where high school students from three school districts come to spend half days or full days in 18 different career pathways, and they are focused on preparing students for college and career readiness. And Michael, almost everyone says that now. So I think they’re taking it to the level that we would hope for because their learning experiences are incredibly hands-on. They ground them in solving real problems and projects.

And so this will sound familiar to folks who listen to us. They’re very real-world, and the school itself is designed to completely support these objectives. The learning spaces literally replicate real world settings like doctor’s offices and welding shops, and a state-of-the-art barn and a green room that Michael rivals that of most production studios. And that’s just to name a few of the spaces that we saw. The culture is so self-directed, they really think of it as a college or a company-like culture. It does not feel like high school and AIT is partnering with tons of local companies and businesses as well as colleges and universities. So the connections are real and present. I mean, Michael, so many people say they’re preparing students for college and career, but these folks seem to be doing so in honestly the realist way that I’ve seen.

Horn: Wow, that’s strong words from you. I mean, I’ll note that when I hear it, I think of other schools that I think of as doing a really good job on this front. Obviously, Big Picture Learning schools, a network of schools that have been doing this for a long time. They get students out into real world internships as part of their schooling experience. Very neat projects that they end up working on. I’ll say, I think of Korea where I saw the Meister Schools master and they’ll have real semiconductor plants with the former CEO of a semiconductor company leading these students, although they don’t have the choice that you’re talking about by any stretch of the imagination.

And then I think about vocational high schools near me and in New Jersey that are not maybe the voc tech that sorts based on racial characteristics or gender, let’s call it what it used to be, and actually carry some element of prestige with them. But this does sound different, and it doesn’t just sound sort of blue collar. It sounds way more diverse than that. I’ll also say, I think you’re right, there’s a lot of momentum or at least talk in this direction right now. So I’m just sort of curious what is distinguishing this from maybe other efforts around in the water right now toward being really not just the college-ready, but the career-ready? Because I think you’re right. That’s a buzz phrase. It’s a throwaway line. This sounds more serious about it. I’d love you to dig deeper.

Tavenner: Yeah, let’s start with something that I do think some people certainly do. I mean we do this to a certain degree, but I think they’ve really taken this idea that there must be a value proposition for students in everything they’re doing that’s beyond just the learning. And I don’t say that lightly because obviously the learning is important. But what I mean by that is all of these students who are engaged at AIT have dual enrollment or dual credit options with the courses they’re taking with colleges. They can get industry certifications. All of the pathways have honors credit options. There are apprenticeships and internships attached with all of these things. So there is this real life positive benefit from what they’re doing beyond the learning and the experience that comes in a valuable credential, or a certification, or a credit or something like that. Again, I think a lot of people are trying to do this, but I just found it to be true in every single pathway and at a much more greater depth than what I often see in places who are trying to do that. So that’s one.

The second one, I just want to, you touched on it, but we should go back to it is, this is not the voc ed that everyone’s afraid of. So a lot of people really fear this direction because of this long history we have of just really tracking students and really what we would call dead end or closed door experiences that they had in traditional voc ed. This place is fascinating because every single pathway is explicit about what you can do if you do this work in high school and don’t go on, what you can do with an associate’s degree and what you can do with a bachelor’s degree and in some cases hire post bachelor’s degrees and the pathways and the job prospects. They’re really explicit about what the careers are, the salary ranges for those. It’s on the wall. It is literally in all the catalogs. It’s super clear.

I mean, just as an example, there’s an electrical design and integrated smart systems pathway, and I love this one because so many people always use their electrician or plumber as the example of why do we not go into career? Because our plumbers are making a $100,000 a year, and according to the catalog and the center of this particular pathway coming out of high school, you can become an electrician’s helper or an apprentice at about a $46,000 a year income, which is pretty phenomenal, especially for that part of the country. An associate’s degree opens the door for an electrical technician, a controls technician, a smart system network technician. Now we’re talking $78,000 range. And a bachelor’s you can be an electrical engineer, a project manager, engineering maintenance management in the $90,000 range. And it’s all laid out here for every single one of the pathways and the steps you need to take and the type of things you’ll be doing. 

We talk a lot about “ings,” Michael, and they actually speak to those here, like helping kids explore and discover what they’re interested in.

Horn: Very cool. Very cool. Keep telling me more. I’m just sort of curious. So there’s these pathways, they mark this out. What’s the rigor like? How are they embedding these experiences to really make sure it’s creating that optionality, that mastering the “ings” gives you and not perhaps sorting you into a pathway?

Tavenner: Totally true, and I think one of the interesting things here is I don’t think I’ve seen this many pathways. I mean 18 different pathways and they are ranging from the electrical one I just told you about to digital art and design, a few in the health sciences and the biomedical sciences, pre-med. We met with a bunch of kids who really are on that pathway. Cybersecurity, network fundamentals, computer science, aerospace engineering. I mean, they literally have flight simulators in this place where they’re practicing flight simulation. Also, Michael tractor simulators. I didn’t know there was such a thing, but you really have to learn how to drive a tractor and so there’s simulators for that.

Horn: That’s awesome.

Tavenner: Yeah, and I just found in talking with the students is, they were very wide-eyed about the prospects and the pathways and just really clear, it was clear to me that they really are being exposed and exploring what the possibilities are. And I met some who’ve changed pathways. They got in there, they tested something out, they learned about another one while they were in the building that was more attractive and flipped over. So I think that’s all great. The question about rigor always comes up. I find it, I think it’s really fascinating what happens to teenagers when adults signal their trust and belief in them. And so just the space of it is so professional, it’s so clear that they’re working with the machines and the technology that are present in the industry. They’re being taught by industry people who are super carefully selected for the right mindset about how this teaching happens, very hands-on, very self-directed, and then just this problem solving orientation.

So I love this particular experience we had there. We got to see a group presentation by one of the networking, it’s a small group in the networking pathway, and they had observed this problem that their teachers were having, which was because the students come from multiple different high schools, the teachers had to open up PowerSchool for each different high school in order to take attendance. You and I would appreciate this, but I was like, wow, you guys noticed that and you appreciate that? And they’re like, this was really not efficient. It was hard for the teacher to try to manage. They had all these instances of PowerSchool up. So they decided to try to solve that problem. They went and noticed that there are these thumbprint scanners that are used across the building because a lot of these pathways require you to log hours in order to get the industry certification. So that’s apparently how they do it. It’s a whole other conversation, Michael, I can see your face,

Horn: Yeah, we don’t have to go there right now. Yeah.

Tavenner: But anyway, they notice these fingerprint scanners and they’re like, why can’t we use that for attendance purposes? So they are going about solving this problem, and they’re doing it by connecting with the company who does the fingerprint thing and potentially PowerSchool. And they realize there needs to be a connector in between. All of that to say, usually what I find in programs like this is in that instance, they would be trying to teach those kids to be entrepreneurs and build a bazillion dollar company. Right. It wasn’t a bazillion dollar company, I don’t think it is. I think it’s a really real problem that they were being super creative about how to solve in a very cost effective, very partnership oriented way that had appropriate rigor for where they are in their lives right now. And so it was stuff like that, that just, I was like yeah that’s what it should be like.

Horn: That’s incredible. That’s incredible. How do the students think about sort of the athletics or maybe some of the typical trappings of a high school?

Tavenner: This is one of the many smart things that this design has enabled is, they’ve really dodged those questions Michael. All of these students belong to a home high school that is comprehensive in nature. As I understand it, it really, they all have football, they all have cheerleading. And so AIT doesn’t have to worry about those things. They are really focused on what they’re doing. The students have connections in both places. What I found fascinating is, I talked to a lot of seniors who, having had a couple of years experience here, had worked it so that they could spend the whole day at AIT. And it was such a fulfilling experience for them, and they really are enjoying the freedom. They see their pathway. They seemed less concerned about what was happening back at the home high school. And so just to, I think a reminder, we’ve talked about this often, this pressure to be comprehensive and do everything means that you don’t do anything terribly well. And so what a great way to address that issue, I think.

Horn: Yeah. That’s, wow. So OK, this is clearly something different from anything I’ve seen. I’ll say it’s comprehensive in a different way in terms of the number of pathways it has, but I love that it gives students a chance to test and learn what we’ve been talking about in this season of Class Disrupted about themselves.

Tavenner: Yes.

Horn: Where does it fit me as I start to work in this field? Do I build a passion about it? I’m not one of those people that think we automatically have a set number of passions, do I build it? It’s just not landing and I want to try something else. Great. And it also, I didn’t realize this when you started it, it sounds like students are able to enroll part-time, still be part of their home high school, which is very unique, I think. And I will say again, though it does feel like something is starting to bubble in this general space, Diane, so maybe we’re going to see a lot more of these. I don’t know. What do you think?

Tavenner: Well, that’s the part that started to get to me while I was on this visit. As you might imagine Michael, I had a lot of questions about that, like why aren’t more people doing this and where did this come about? And so I do think it’s important to just talk a little bit about the leader of the school and the man who founded it, Dr. Couch, because he appears to be a bit of a unicorn to me, Michael, and this might be why we’re not seeing more of these. He was a successful educator with sort of a good career. He then goes to the Department of Education in South Carolina. He spends 20 years there. This is where he learned about these models. He actually led a delegation that went to Europe and looked at models that are largely the inspiration. He is the one who works on the passage of the legislation in South Carolina that creates graduate profiles and enables and encourages this type of school and learning.

And then he sits back and no one in the state is actually doing anything about that legislation. Schools aren’t opening, programs aren’t happening. And so I totally admire him. What does he do? He rolls up his sleeves, he goes back and he starts a school. That’s like this, that’s meant to take advantage of the legislation. He did that one and then felt like some of the sort of traditional regression stuff was happening that we talk about. And so he’s now moved on to do AIT. But Michael, my worry is can anyone who’s not Dr. Couch, who doesn’t know everyone in the state, who doesn’t understand the legislation inside out, who hasn’t visited Europe, who has relationships with all of these companies and community organization, can a mere mortal actually open a school like this? Because when I poked and prodded, he was pulling on that expansive history and who he is to get this done.

Horn: Super interesting. So before I come in with thoughts, I’m just sort of curious what else you think might be holding people back from doing this or what other parts of his background make him a unicorn against this context?

Tavenner: Yeah, I mean I think the other thing coming up for me is policy. And so I’ve got quite a few experiences now with different states where the state level policy makers really genuinely seem to believe that they have policies on the books or they have past policies that enable and encourage people to do things like this. And it seems like that’s what they want them to do, but then they feel frustrated because no one’s doing it. And in some cases states will say, we will give waivers for anything like this. You can get a waiver for everything, but no one’s taking advantage of that or that they’re just not using the funding that is allocated in the way they want them to. And for me, there just feels to be a real disconnect between what it actually takes on the ground and the policy makers that, and I’ve thought a lot about this and my sense is that when these policies are passed, they don’t actually clear out a bunch of the other demands and requirements.

And so there becomes this sort of net or web that you’re trying to work through as someone who’s creating one of these schools that maybe, yeah you gave me freedom over here, but you’re holding me accountable to all this stuff over here and I can’t make the two work. And it just feels very familiar to me from, it’s different, but in the charter world where, yeah when just even on credentialing, like the teachers who are in this building are from the industry. They don’t have necessarily the normal certifications and whatnot. And that just right there alone can be a huge blocker and a determinant of success or not. And there’s 100 other things along those lines.

Horn: No, that makes a ton of sense. I think it’s where I want to land this Diane, which is that my take is that innovation in the pursuit of student outcomes should be the default, not something that you have to claw your way through the regulations and unroll this and unpack that and ask for permission to do through waivers or applications. And I think shortly after you were at this visit, I was with a group of state policy makers actually, and they were talking about all the work they were doing to help districts learn about all the innovative things and pathways that they had created in state policy under waivers. And so this is stuff for personalizing learning or competency based learning or career connected learning, like you name the buzzword, right, there was a pathway and they were all boasting things like, oh, we simplified the application process or we made them aware of what they could do.

Or we reduced it from, get this one application for every single regulation you want to get around to just one application for all the regs. Or maybe one was now providing consulting support to help with the waivers on and on and on. I get the spirit of all that, but I hope folks who’ve been listening to this season have gotten the sense that when you decide to innovate or pilot, it’s a lot of freaking work. I mean, if they’ve listened to what you go through with your innovation, I don’t need to tell you that. You do it, but to ask someone on top of that, not just someone, by the way, lots of different entities with lots of different people to get permission from all these regulators and policymakers. And maybe by the way, you want these initial pilots to be done out of the limelight so the community, like, isn’t up in arms about that one thing you’re changing or whatever else.

So having to apply actively on top of all the time and money and so forth, and the uncertainty of the process, it just creates so many more opportunities for it to backfire that I think it just, it’s crazy that we think that a waiver process is going to stimulate innovation. I think that’s the bottom line is that innovation shouldn’t be a permission issue. It should be the default in the pursuit of student outcomes. And I’ll just say one more thing because I heard this as well a lot of the conference, which is that there’s a lot of folks in the innovation world quote, unquote who will often imply that innovation is at odds with outcomes and such. I will just say very clearly, it is not innovative unless you are helping students or the stakeholder you’re serving make progress, period. End of the thought.

Tavenner: Michael, I couldn’t agree with you more. And having looked at the waiver processes in multiple states and chosen never to go down those pathways and you know we’re very aggressive and we’re well resourced and we can do that, it doesn’t seem like a viable pathway. And I think I would just suggest as evidence to that, and maybe I’ll leave it here, but it was so telling to me when I asked Dr. Couch, “Who are your peers? Who do you talk to? Who do you get inspiration from? Who do you work with across the… Who?” And he paused for a long time and he finally said, “Well, I visited High Tech High once. I visited Thomas Jefferson in Virginia.” And then he just had nothing more to say. And I said, “So you don’t have people you’re talking with or working with or engaging with regularly.” And he just shook his head.

And what I will say, Michael, is as someone who sort of in the space of innovating in schools and whatnot, I felt very connected to that feeling of just kind of being alone in the work and no one else is doing it. And like you said, sometimes you want it to be that way because when people know about it, there’s often a negative reaction. But also what a problem if we have such, I mean, education is a massive industry in 50 states, and the educators aren’t taking advantage of these waivers, whatever we’re doing is not incentivizing innovation and there’s not even enough of them to be connected or talking to each other, it just doesn’t suggest there’s a lot of hope there. So I think we’d need to be doing something different if we want folks to actually innovate.

Horn: Oh, I think let’s leave it there. Great inspirational overview of a school that you visited, AIT in South Carolina. Thanks for sharing it, Diane. And thanks again to the team for not just hosting you but also letting you share the story. And as we wrap up here, I’m just curious what you’re reading, what you’re thinking about outside of these topics?

Tavenner: Well, I’m going, you might be surprised by this one, Michael, but I’m reading by the Nobel Prize winning economist, Abhijit Banerjee. I think I just brutalized that. I apologize. And Esther Duflo. Honestly, I can’t believe that the 2024 presidential cycle already has begun. That’s all I have to say about that. But I did want to get smarter on a lot of the key challenges that our country and the world are facing. And I wanted to come at it from a different lens. And this book certainly offers that. I’m learning a ton already. It’s fascinating. So that’s what I’m into. What about you?

Horn: I love that you’re diving into this, Diane, and I’m diving into fiction. I finally finished Anna Karenina.

Tavenner: Oh my gosh.

Horn: Tolstoy’s long novel that you made fun when I started it and I actually finished it. So that is my big triumph for the, probably not week, but several months, shall we say, Diane.

Tavenner: Congratulations.

Horn: And with that, we’ll leave you on that hopeful note. And thank you again for joining us on Class Disrupted.

Michael B. Horn strives to create a world in which all individuals can build their passions and fulfill their potential through his writing, speaking, and work with a portfolio of education organizations. He is the author of several books, including the award-winning and the recently released . He is also the cofounder of the Clayton Christensen Institute, a nonprofit think tank.

Diane Tavenner is CEO of Summit Public Schools and co-founder of the Summit Learning Program. She is a life-long educator, innovator, and the author of

Towering metropolitan populations dominate the storyline of modern Texas. The 13 largest cities in the United States include five from Texas: Houston, San Antonio, Dallas, Austin and Fort Worth. The Texas Triangle, a megaregion in the middle of the state that includes those five main urban centers, is home to nearly 21 million of the state’s 28.6 million residents. The rest of the state’s 7.5 million residents — still greater than the population of 30 smaller states — live in rural areas, small towns and moderately sized cities.

The foundation of the state — and often its mythic image — rests in the vast stretches of land far from the office towers of Texas’ urban and suburban skylines. No regions of the state capture more of that heritage than West Texas and East Texas. They provided the oil, cattle, timber and cotton that allowed a frontier state to eventually develop an economy that would rank ninth in the world if Texas were a nation.

We chose Midland and Longview, two longstanding Texas communities that help anchor West and East Texas, respectively, for a closer look at opportunity in Texas beyond the state’s urban core. Both cities sit in growing counties in our fast-growing state, according to the 2020 Census. (Midland County grew over 24% over the last decade, Gregg County grew a more modest 2%.) They are also blessed with young people. Will those young people stay in their cities? Will they be well prepared for opportunities?

Midland sits 325 miles west from Dallas/Fort Worth in the center of the oil-rich Permian Basin. The city’s thriving energy industry long has attracted pioneering entrepreneurs and educated professionals to its windswept plains. None have been more prominent than a young George H.W. Bush, and his wife Barbara Bush, who arrived after World War II in search of opportunity.

Midland continues to attract college-educated engineers, geologists and executives, at least more so than neighboring Odessa. Yet the boom-and-bust cycles that roil the energy industry require Permian Basin residents to retool themselves — or become unemployed — when downturns hit.

Longview became an industrial hub in the Piney Woods of Texas after long-ago becoming a center for shipping cotton and timber. The East Texas town also capitalized on the discovery of the nearby East Texas Oil Field in the 1930s. Fortunes were made from that field, benefitting towns and families across East Texas.

Today, Longview houses a number of manufacturing operations, but only about 22% of the town’s population has a . By contrast, the state average for a bachelor’s degree or higher is almost 31%.

These communities face the same question that big cities like Dallas, Houston and Austin encounter with their school districts: How do they best prepare students for a meaningful life in the modern workforce?

Towns like Midland, with its 176,000 people, and Longview, with its 82,000 people, need to grow their own talent to become their communities’ next teachers, doctors and entrepreneurs. Big cities have more people moving in, but the futures of Midland and Longview are tied to how well they can prepare their young people for opportunities in adulthood.

This urban-rural dynamic plays itself out across America, no matter a state’s size. As people flock to cities, what happens to the communities they leave behind? What happens to their workers, their families, their children? What becomes of their institutions, not the least of which are their schools? Look at any state in the union, and this story applies.

What data says about Midland ISD and Longview ISD

As the energy capital of the Permian Basin, Midland is a major force in world energy markets. As of June 2022, the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank , the Permian Basin produced almost 44% of the nation’s oil and about 17% of its natural gas.

The production is vital to the economies of Midland and the nation. Yet the roller coaster nature of the energy industry means that Midland’s schools must continually produce innovative students who can help their community adapt to financial booms-and-busts.

Young families once knew they could place their children in a Midland public school and their education would ready them for the world. In the ensuing decades, the community continued to provide a decent education at a below-average cost.

Now, student performance in the Midland Independent School District shows something different.

In the 2018-2019 school year, the Texas Education Agency gave in the agency’s A-F annual rankings of public schools. The earned only mediocre marks for overall student achievement on the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness exams. Its students demonstrated marginal year-over-year progress on the annual tests. And the state ranked twice as many Midland ISD schools as failing compared to the previous year.

Fast forward three years, Midland ISD students improved on the As a whole, the district of 26,387 students moved from a C rating in 2019, the last year TEA handed out letter grades, to a B for the 2021-2022 school year. The progress is encouraging, especially given the pandemic’s impact on students.

Similarly, Midland ISD educators should celebrate that their students improved in reading in grades three through eight. And across all subgroups of students, whether by race, income or English proficiency, the district met the state’s target for .

Still, Midland’s overall B rating sits on the border between a B and a C. The district barely scooted by with a numerical score of 80 out of 100 to claim that B grade. In part, that is because on the state’s expectations on all STAAR exams, trailing the Texas state average of 48%.

The “meets” mark is critical because it means that students are able, as TEA reports, to “generally demonstrate the ability to think critically and apply grade-level knowledge and skills in familiar contexts.” In Midland’s case, 58% of the district’s students are not showing they can apply their knowledge in a way that is appropriate for their grade level.

Longview ISD is also showing some signs of improvement, but not all of the East Texas district’s metrics are encouraging. Like Midland ISD, Longview can’t claim victory.

The big headline is that the district of 8,223 students earned a coveted A from the state for the 2021-2022 academic year. That top mark was up from a B in 2018-2019. Equally encouraging is that Longview students beat the state average on all STAAR exams except for social studies.

Of course, trumping a fairly low state average is not a major victory. It is particularly troubling that only 44% of Longview ISD’s Black students, who make up 34.5% of the Longview student body, . Their passing rate trails the average passing rate for all Longview ISD students by 10 points.

While it is good that Longview earned an A rating, an A rating may not mean an A experience for all of a district’s students. And Midland’s B rating is a positive sign of growth, but it also does not mean a B experience for every student.

As we saw in our study of Dallas, Austin and Houston, strong high school graduation rates do not guarantee future success.

The charts below illustrate the challenge facing young people in Midland County and Gregg County, in which Longview is located. Third-grade reading scores show gaps by race and ethnicity — gaps that appear to be largely eliminated when we consider high school graduation rates across those same racial groups. Maddeningly, however, those gaps reappear across higher education attainment and wage measures.

A proxy graduate profile shows that many students were well behind on reading in third grade and math in eighth grade, but a high percentage of students graduated from high school. This begs the question, were they truly prepared for opportunity and their next step, or did we set them up to fail by passing them along in the system?

In our next article, we will examine how the governance and leadership of these two mid-size districts impacts student learning, how well the districts use innovations and fundamentals to improve student outcomes, and the degree to which the community ecosystems support and drive school progress. We also will provide recommendations on how Midland ISD and Longview ISD can best deal with the realities they confront.

For now, we conclude with the voices of students who explain their experiences in Midland and Longview. Their voices are the most important ones, after all. Their opportunity to enjoy a meaningful, purposeful life is at stake.