Yaritza Dominguez glanced at her car’s odometer, which was showing one of those numbers that sticks in a person’s memory: 123,456. A month later, she’d added 3,300 miles. 

Dominguez’s 2013 Camaro serves as a kind of rolling office, the linchpin of her academic plan. A complicated tangle of chargers sprawls across the console between the front seats, which are stacked with files. Rosaries hang from the rear-view mirror.

“Since I’m on the road all day, I cannot let my phone die,” says Dominguez, 16, a rising senior at one of the country’s most innovative high schools. PXU City HS has no physical site — its 83 students create custom programs, choosing from a menu of some 500 options from Phoenix Union High School District’s bricks-and-mortar schools; its online-only program, internships; jobs; college classes; and career training programs.

The Camaro enables Dominguez to navigate this dizzying array of choices. When school starts up next week, every morning she will drive five miles to a high school in the city’s redeveloped Midtown district for two hours of classes. By 10:30, she’ll head home for lunch and log on to the few courses she needs to graduate. By 3, Dominguez will be on the road to Surprise, a far northwestern suburb about 30 miles away, where she is enrolled in a dental assistant training program. If she’s lucky and traffic has died down, she will be home again on the west side of downtown Phoenix by 7:10.

A decade ago, Phoenix Union was a plain-vanilla district of high schools facing the same problems as many large, impoverished school systems. With open enrollment and more than 20% of students attending public charter schools, Phoenix offers families lots of options, and the district didn’t have much that was attractive enough to make it competitive. 

Enter Chad Gestson, who recently ended an eight-year run as . In 2015, he announced a plan to operate 25 schools by 2025, with a goal of offering distinctive options throughout the district. In addition to comprehensive high schools with their array of athletics and extracurriculars, there would be medium-sized schools with attractive career and academic focuses and small, personalized microschools to choose from. Many of the new programs would be located in poor neighborhoods in the sprawling city, with free transportation for all students.

Phoenix Union was in the midst of a wholesale redesign when COVID-19 forced schools to close. Fortuitously, a fully online school was in the works, so the district was able to adjust to virtual classes relatively quickly.

But in the process, it became clear just how many high school-aged students were working, caring for siblings, filling in for their parents or significantly behind — or ahead and bored — academically.

While none are likely integral at most American high schools, they’re essential to students at Urban Assembly New York Harbor School on Governors Island, just south of Manhattan.  

Located on two campuses, one for classroom-centered learning and the other for water-based research, the 20-year-old Harbor School requires its 480 charges to choose among eight maritime-themed career and technical education pathways by the end of freshman year. 

Real-world opportunity allows students — sometimes clad in life vests, other times in protective goggles and welders’ masks — a chance to earn industry certifications in marine science or technology before graduation, bona fides that help them enter the workforce or pursue their education. 

Beatrix Alevras, 17 and a senior, was drawn to the Harbor School because of its focus on college and career readiness. 

“I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do and this gave me a good direction,” said Alevras, who hails from lower Manhattan and plans to study environmental science and aquaculture —  the breeding, raising and harvesting of fish, shellfish and aquatic plants — at Roger Williams University in Rhode Island this fall. 

Like many of the students in her program, Alevras’s resume is impressive: She’s already improved the local oyster habitat, created her own water filtration system and helped raise 2-ounce junior tilapia until they reached market size.

She’s unsure about her future profession, but is considering working on a research vessel or advocating for environmental policies, among other possibilities. 

The Harbor School receives roughly 1,000 applications each year for just 140 9th-grade slots, said Jeffrey Chetirko, principal since 2015. They are chosen by a lottery system but the school is also part of a diversity plan, with 70 percent of seats reserved for students qualifying for free or reduced-price lunch.  

Soon, even more students will enjoy the opportunity as the school is slated for a massive expansion: Two additional buildings on the 172-acre will allow it to accommodate 1,000 students by 2030, more than doubling its current size, Chetirko said. 

And while much of the campus is now housed inside older and well-worn red-brick buildings, this next chapter will bring the construction of a new, state-of-the-art facility housing a competition-sized pool, gymnasium and laboratory space for aquatic research. 

The School Construction Authority also will renovate and transform a circa 1938 building erected to support the U.S. Army into 32,000 square feet of additional classroom space. 

The athletic complex will cost $48.99 million and is expected to be completed in June 2026 while the school annex will cost $31.35 million and should be finished by September 2025, a City Hall spokesperson said. 

The plan is the result of a partnership between the Trust for Governors Island, the New York City Department of Education, and the New York City School Construction Authority, New York City Mayor Mayor Eric Adams noted in his .

Madison O’Brien, a 16-year-old junior, said the Harbor School was her first choice. 

So when other students at McGill-Toolen Catholic High School in Mobile, Alabama, started talking last summer about Flight Path 9, a new afterschool and summer program that teaches high school students early skills to build airplanes, Joseph was hooked.

A partnership between Bishop State Community College and airplane manufacturer Airbus, Flight Path 9 is a fledgling pre-apprentice program designed to put high schoolers on a path to careers at Airbus’ only U.S. airplane assembly plant located right in their backyard.

Berault and more than 40 other just-graduated high school seniors from across the Mobile area attended classes at Bishop State from 4 to 8 p.m. two nights a week this past school year. 

This summer, they pack a workshop floor at Bishop State for 32 hours a week to learn manufacturing skills like riveting, precision cutting and using multimeters. 

In August, most will become full apprentices at the Airbus Final Assembly Line, where they will be paid real salaries while they continue to learn and work on the A220 airliners used by Delta, Air Canada and Air France.

“Some students say, when you’re going into this two days every week, ‘I just don’t want to do that,’ because it’s taking up their senior year,” said Berault, who graduated this spring. “But I think it was completely worth it.”

“I feel like I feel like I didn’t know much of anything when I came into this program, but the amount I’ve learned in the past couple months is just insane.”

Fellow trainee Nicole Olivares, whose parents both work for Airbus, was also excited for a chance to work in aviation. She urged students to join the program, even with the classes two nights a week.

“I think it’s so worth it,” she said. “You can still do other things. You have a life outside of Flightworks.” 

Based in France, Airbus is one of the two largest airliner manufacturers in the world. It’s also very used to training new employees at a young age. As is typical in Europe, its plants there start students as full-time apprentices at around age 15 or the equivalent of junior year of high school here.

But that’s part of the culture in Europe, where general high school education typically ends after 10th grade and students must shift into either a career skills or an intense university academic path. With the United States locked into its 12-year system of students working toward a general high school diploma, Airbus can’t just bring its European model here and start apprentices at 15. Students still have to finish high school.

But company officials knew even as they opened the Mobile plant in 2015 that they needed a pipeline for high school students to train to work there. Michelle Hurdle, director of workforce and economic development of Airbus Americas Inc., started visiting other Airbus facilities and began working with schools, community groups and Bishop State to create a curriculum and program that launched in 2019. After a hiatus because of the pandemic, the program re-started in fall of 2022.

“We want our facility to reflect our community,” Hurdle said. “So what better way to do that than to recruit and train and grow from within because that’s what creates loyalty.” 

Students in the program earn a certificate in Aviation Manufacturing Technology from Bishop State, several industry certifications for working with things like blueprints, sheet metal and multimeters and they also leave with 18 credit hours that can go toward an aviation manufacturing associates degree when Bishop launches that degree program in fall of 2024.

Having credentials that matter to most manufacturers, not just for Airbus, was important from the start, said Hurdle and Akareem Spears, dean of workforce and economic development at Bishop State,

“Just say 5-10 years from now, they don’t want to work at Airbus, they still have these credentials that they can take with them,” Spears said. “These individuals have something that are tangible that they can carry with them.”

During the school year, Bishop State instructors and others from a nonprofit created by Airbus teach the evening classes. Students are not paid for that time, but are given dinner at the school.

“No mama wants to cook at 8:30 when your children come home,” Hurdle said.

In the summer, students are paid a $40 per day stipend as they take classes for five weeks. Airbus declined to say what apprentices are paid during the 14-month apprenticeship. As apprentices, they are monitored and have their work checked by full employees and only work independently after completing the apprenticeship.

Airbus and the college want to go even further with Flight 9 over time.

“Hopefully, we can start younger, and start getting into middle schools, and maybe by elementary school,” Spears said. “We can introduce multimeters, and all those kind of things early on, and we built an ecosystem.”

Berault said he may go back to school some day to earn the Federal Aviation Administration’s Airframe and Powerplant license or to be an engineer. For now, though, he is anxious to start as an apprentice.

“I love the work.” he said. “I love being busy. I just like having stuff to do with my hands, like getting to drill, getting to do electrical, stuff like that.” 

Southern Illinois can be a mental health care desert, with residents forced to drive hours to seek care for mental health and substance abuse issues. 

But that is changing thanks in part to  from fossil fuels in places where coal plants and coal mines have closed.

The first round of funding under the state’s Energy Transition Community Grant program is helping communities add mental health care services, expand workforce training opportunities, and restore local budgets battered by the decline of fossil fuels. The grants were created by Illinois’s 2021 Climate & Equitable Jobs Act (CEJA).

Coal has deep roots around Randolph County, and like most Illinois coalfield communities it has suffered as coal mining jobs diminished and became non-union, and coal plants closed. Peabody’s local Gateway Mine closed (though its Gateway North is still operating), and Vistra Energy’s Baldwin coal plant has slashed generation and will .

“I come from a long family of coal miners — a grandfather who was a mule skinner and a coal miner, my brothers were both coal miners,” said county commissioner Marc Kiehna. “I’m the youngest of three boys, by the time I was out there on the market for jobs, coal mining was kind of on the decline.”

Randolph County is slated to receive $1.6 million that, along with federal Covid relief dollars, will allow it to transform a wing of an underutilized nursing home into a behavioral health center with 16 in-patient beds and space for group therapy and other programming.

“This will really provide some care for an underserved population,” said Kiehna. “We struggle here in the rural area with meth, fentanyl, opioid abuse, all that goes along with that. This gives us an opportunity to try to make families healthier and have a positive impact.”

All Illinois fossil fuel plants must close by 2045, unless they can capture and sequester emissions, under CEJA. And most coal plants will close much sooner, thanks to market forces. Since 2007,  have partially or entirely shut down in Illinois, according to Energy Information Administration data.

CEJA allocates $40 million per year through 2045 to provide grants to communities within 30 miles of coal plants or mines that have closed within the past six years, or are slated to close within six years. (A separate provision addresses nuclear plants.)

State officials recently released a list of more than 50 agencies that will receive the grants, provided they complete a phase two application detailing their spending plans and required stakeholder engagement efforts.

Agencies were urged to apply late last year for the inaugural round of funding, in a process some described as rushed to make sure that communities with already-closed plants and mines could benefit for the maximum number of years. The $40 million was divided among the applicants, with amounts based on estimated impact of coal closures.

“The 2023 grants were a pleasant surprise for many of the eligible entities,” said Prairie Rivers Network energy campaign coordinator Amanda Pankau. “I worked with several school districts who applied thinking they may get the minimum $50,000, and they all ended up with more than $500,000. While it was a welcome surprise, we do want communities to have more time to plan and involve community stakeholders in the future.”

The first round of grants went to school districts, park districts, and city and county governments in many of the state’s best-known coal mining communities: Harrisburg, Carbondale, Marion, Mount Olive, Galatia, Hillsboro. John A. Logan Community College in the heart of coal country got a grant, as did the Lake of Egypt Fire Protection District.

A $1 million grant went to , the northern Illinois city where an NRG coal plant closed last summer, and where residents have long demanded a voice and funding for just transition plans.

Learning in Harrisburg

In decades past in Southern Illinois, Harrisburg Unit 3 schools superintendent Amy Dixon remembers, students “could go off in the mines making more money than we do, and take care of their family.”

But many coal mines closed or reduced their workforces, and now “we need to equip our students with skills they can utilize here in our community,” said Dixon. 

Often that means jobs requiring Career Technical Education (CTE) — in carpentry, contracting and electrical work, including in the burgeoning solar economy. The Mid-America Carpenters Regional Council recently featured Harrisburg High on its , and students have gotten work with the trade union.  

“We have more students wanting to take CTE classes, and we also have a workforce that’s needing more electricians and plumbers and carpenters,” said Dixon. “We would love to give more students that skill set. But we have one building where we are trying to teach our welding and automotive and electricity and building trades all together. It is maxed out, we’re needing some more physical space so we can expand our CTE offerings.”

Now the school district can build a new pole-barn-style CTE training center, thanks to a $539,000 Energy Transition Community Grant. The district qualified based on three nearby coal mines that closed between 2017 and 2019: Galatia, Wildcat Hills and New Future. More than 50 people came to community meetings to talk about the plans. 

“This grant will be invaluable in helping us expand opportunities for our students,” said Dixon. “We wouldn’t have the money to do it otherwise. The community partners, the parents, businesses, education partners, students, staff — it’s just an outstanding example of how Harrisburg comes together to support our schools and each other.”

Pankau noted that while coal plants must inform grid operators in advance of plans to close, mines have no such mandate. Mines often ramp staffing down based on coal demand, and rely on contractors, meaning even the federal  about impending mass layoffs might not apply. 

“Unfortunately, we do not have information or advanced planning when it comes to the future of Illinois’ coal mines,” said Pankau. “We would like to see [the Illinois Department of Natural Resources] work with communities and industry to help plan for upcoming coal mine closures, so that those communities may apply for grants and begin to plan for the anticipated impacts of closure.”

Hope in Havana

Havana, a town on the Illinois River in central Illinois, saw its tax base decimated when the local coal plant closed in 2019, soon after energy company Vistra acquired Dynegy’s Illinois fleet. Grace Mott had just started her job as director of parks and recreation at the time, and within a month her workforce plummeted from 15 to three employees.

“My budget was cut by a full third when [the plant] stopped paying their taxes,” Mott said. “I had to cut everyone except maintenance — the recreation director, all my office staff, because we have 13 parks and nine buildings to take care of. Honestly I didn’t know if we would survive this. I spent the first year cutting costs every single place I could find.”

Mott made it her mission to keep the town’s popular parks running despite the funding drought, and she cobbled together grants for projects like renovating the historic pool and century-old gymnasium. 

“I was so new to the job, and so stubborn, I’ve just been working hard to make it happen,” she said. 

But finding grants for operations — including staff — is extremely difficult, and she found herself having to forego opportunities for new investments since she wouldn’t have the people to run them. That’s changing thanks to a $157,000 Energy Transition Community grant, which will be used to hire more staff.

“If not for the energy transition community grant, I’m still not sure we’d be sustainable in the long run,” Mott said.

The new investment in staff and operations will dovetail with infrastructure projects funded by a separate state grant — putting a roof on the riverside open-air stage that hosts a popular bluegrass festival, installing fitness equipment and launching e-bike rentals in the park, and building three teepees for scouting camps and visitors. Together, the investments will help build Havana’s burgeoning reputation as a tourist destination. The community energy grant can also pay for marketing to visitors.

“I wanted to go somewhere I could make a difference,” said Mott, who moved with her husband from DeKalb, Illinois, where she had started a successful online newspaper. “We’re certainly doing that here in this town — it’s been just wonderful.

Havana’s local school district, meanwhile, is getting a $757,000 energy transition grant, and the city of Havana was awarded $55,000. Schools superintendent Matt Plater said the schools’ grant replaces a similar amount that the district has lost through the coal plant’s taxes, although federal Covid relief funds — which the park district did not receive — helped tide the schools over. 

The energy transition funds will go towards a plan that Plater already had underway to replace the elaborate shingle roof on the town’s middle school, along with roofs on a transportation building and the ballfield restrooms and concession stand.

While just transition efforts often focus on job training for displaced fossil fuel workers, Plater noted that not many locals were actually employed in the coal plant. The tax base and opportunities for the younger generation are the bigger issues for the town, where almost two-thirds of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch.

“Ideally, sure, they’re thinking you could do job training, help employ displaced workers” with just transition funds, Plater said. “But these plants didn’t hire that many people. We didn’t feel a lot of that job impact in our community, it was the tax base, the assessed valuation that impacted us the most.” 

The energy transition grant will allow the district to pay for the roofing overhaul without taking out bonds, as a district would normally do.

“We’re not putting money in anyone’s pockets or giving a job to someone who lost one, but this allows us to do a project without bonds and keep our property taxes low as a result,” Plater said. “We’re not paying interest on a bond 15 years out. It’s a win-win-win for the community.”

Back in Randolph County

When the Baldwin plant was operating at full force, Randolph County received about $2 million a year in taxes from it, Kiehna said. Now they get about $300,000, and that amount will continue declining.

“It affected us in a lot of ways,” Kiehna said. “We probably lost 100 good-paying jobs, and with the tax issues, we’re trying to make sure we have funds to provide public safety, the sheriff, all the things we do. It’s been a struggle. We laid off staff, we’ve cut here and there to make sure we balance our budget.”

County leaders decided the behavioral health center was a priority, and the nursing home where only about one-third of beds were occupied seemed the ideal place to create it. The effort is also funded with federal Covid relief dollars.

“We said to ourselves, ‘What can we do to provide for a long-lasting benefit?’” Kiehna said. “If we can make our families healthier, guess what, our kids will do better in school and have better lives.”

Kiehna is hoping that  connecting St. Louis and Southern Illinois towns and the Shawnee National Forest could also boost tourism and economic opportunity in the region.

“I’d like to have some jobs here for my grandkids, let people live a good life down here. It’s a beautiful area.”

This article was Energy News Network

But Kellam began to change his mind after a local nonprofit presented a new opportunity during a career class last fall: , a new, three-year career and technical education program that not only was free, but paid students for their work.

Though he couldn’t both do Launchpad and earn a bachelor’s degree, the more Kellam learned about the program, the more he thought about changing his path.

“After learning that Launchpad was not compatible with a four-year college, I dropped” my plan, Kellam said. “I wanted to do Launchpad more than I wanted to do college because of the opportunities it gives me to get a better job.”

Kellam is one of 45 students who were selected last fall among an inaugural group of 90 applicants. Launchpad’s program is presented in four stages. 

In the first, which began in January and lasts through the semester, students attend weekly afterschool meetings to participate in a variety of workshops and activities. Offerings include learning about infotechnology and building a computer; going on private tours with local companies; and creating presentations to teach younger students about the tech industry.

In the second, students take half-days during senior year and the summer after graduation to complete online classes through Arizona State University. They also receive coaching from Launchpad staff and build relationships with local industry experts through networking and observing different companies. 

The third stage is an intensive bootcamp at Launchpad’s Philadelphia office after graduation. Participants will work at least 30 hours a week to learn technical skills, develop a portfolio of completed projects and earn more college credits. In the fourth stage, they transition into a guaranteed paid career with an industry partner, working with real clients. The goal is to place participants in jobs that pay at least $50,000 a year.

Dannyelle Austin, executive director of Launchpad, created the program’s framework in 2022. She said it’s crucial for students to start workforce development and career education early on. “So often, workforce programming waits until young people are disconnected from school and work to try to engage them, as opposed to saying, ‘We know there are young people that are not going to go to college — how do we tap into them when they’re still in high school, when they’re still connected and engaged?’” Austin said.

Launchpad’s mission is to show students that career success doesn’t require a college degree, she said. 

from the U.S. Department of Education found that by eight years after their expected graduation date, students who focused on career and technical education while in high school had higher median annual earnings than those who did not.

Launchpad was created by , a Philadelphia-based nonprofit founded in 2013 to help traditional schools transition to a competency-based approach, which values student performance levels instead of grade-point averages. The nonprofit uses the framework in two of its own high schools — Building 21 Philadelphia, which Kellam attends, and another in Allentown, roughly one hour to the north. It also coaches educators and schools around the U.S. to transform their curriculum to be competency-based. 

Austin said she hopes Launchpad can branch out to include more industries, but it’s starting with tech because of the variety of opportunities available.

“There’s such a need for tech — and coders, web developers in our [Philadelphia] community particularly —  and we also know there’s not a lot of Black and brown folks in tech,” Austin said. “We have to think about equity and really help our young people see themselves in this field.”

The students will be compensated through Launchpad, eventually earning up to $5,000 for their work and time by the end of the program. Austin said the program is funded by donations and grants.

The initial 45 students come from 10 public and charter schools around Philadelphia that have partnered with Launchpad. One, Belmont Charter High School, has three students participating. Malaun Yuille, Belmont’s director of college and career services, said Launchpad is a great fit for students who are already taking technology classes but might not want to go to college.

“Since our school does not currently have a career-technical education program, we look for different organizations and businesses within our community to provide our students with opportunities to gain job-readiness skills,” Yuille said. “I like that Launchpad provides them with different opportunities to gain skills as well as being able to find employment.”

She said students have told her they are enjoying the program so far and appreciate the hands-on experience.

Manora McCoy, a student at Mastbaum High School in Philadelphia, said her favorite part has been the project they’re working on right now: creating an interactive presentation that highlights local job opportunities in tech. McCoy wants a career in health infotechnology.

“My mom is very proud of me for getting into a tech career, because nobody in our family is really interested in that,” she said. “This program is amazing.”

Chip Linehan, Building21 co-founder,  said Launchpad’s first group of students have been “phenomenal, with amazing energy.” They have been ready to learn and are looking forward to the next three years of the program, he said.

“We are working really hard to connect these young people to the futures that they deserve,” he said. “It is so apparent that for these kids, the sky’s the limit.”

The Career Z Challenge is designed to highlight innovative efforts to provide real-world learning to high school students. It’s part of a Biden Administration initiative launched last fall called aimed at helping prepare students to fill millions of jobs as they graduate high school. Finalists will receive a portion of $2.5 million in funding to help guide the department’s efforts to expand sustainable, high-quality programs nationally. 

“An education system reimagined for the 21st century engages youth of all ages in the power of career-connected learning and provides every student with the opportunity to gain real-life work experience, earn college credits and make progress towards an industry credential before they graduate high school,” U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona . 

Amy Loyd, assistant secretary of the department’s Office of Career, Technical and Adult Education said they hope to expand promising examples of collaborative work between educators, businesses, industries, nonprofits and other community stakeholders.

What these efforts look like will vary, she acknowledged, pointing to examples like , a nonprofit that embeds college and career readiness advisers in public high schools in Minneapolis and St. Paul, and to match students with employers offering work-based learning opportunities. 

The administration wants to scale up apprenticeship programs in high schools, particularly in rural areas where students struggle to find lucrative careers and companies often have trouble finding skilled workers. 

Loyd also emphasized the department’s interest in helping communities access remote work-based learning opportunities.

She hopes to see career pathways that may be “leveraging technology in new ways so that students can stay in their hometown … and stay connected to the community and the global economy.” 

The deadline to for the is June 7. The department will reward new work-based learning programs and expansions of existing ones.

Apprenticeships, trade schools expand

of all U.S. high school graduates were ready for college or career last year as employers scrambled to fill more than 11 million job openings, especially in sectors like tech, clean energy and health care, according to a report from the Education Trust.

There has been a growing movement to create more internships and apprenticeships for young people, both to help their job training and fill open positions as people shift careers after the pandemic and Baby Boomers retire. 

The number of , before dipping during the pandemic. The department’s is part of a national push. 

At the same time, — just as enrollment at traditional four-year colleges and universities has .  

Enrollment in mechanic, culinary and repair programs saw enrollment increases of more than 11% from spring 2021 to 2022, . And enrollment in construction courses increased by 19.3%. 

Students typically cite affordability and a desire for a clearer career path as rationales for choosing trade programs over a more traditional college path.

To prepare students for such programs, career academies and similar efforts that allow students to earn college credit in high school have grown. But such programs hinge on the needs of local communities.

That’s why the department is looking at how such communities are designing work-based learning programs to “respond to the needs that employers have today and the needs that we’re projecting into the future,” Loyd said.

OMAHA — On his first trip to Nebraska, U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona held a turtle named Oogway in an urban agricultural lab. He rapped a bit in Spanish with teenagers in a construction-focused academy.

And he left Wednesday’s tour of Omaha Bryan High School saying that its career-connected technical academies, which prepare students for college or direct entry into a job, represented what the Biden administration wants to see more of across the country.

“We chose this school today, the day after the State of the Union, because I want to lift up what we’re seeing here,” Cardona said.

Get stories like these delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter

High-paying jobs

What he said he saw in Bryan students — and programs featuring Urban Agriculture; Design & Construction; and Transportation, Distribution and Logistics — are examples of how the country can better meet future demand for “high-skilled, high-paying” jobs expected through the CHIPS and Science Act, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act.

Locally, there’s a movement to pave the way for some of those jobs in Nebraska. A bill before the Nebraska Legislature would authorize a state match for any federal funds a manufacturer locating in the state would obtain under the CHIPS Act, which the president signed into law in August. The act allocates $54 billion to help rebuild an industry that had fled overseas.

Cardona was escorted through Bryan’s 1,800-student “Bear” territory by students who led him to the urban ag academy’s greenhouse (that’s where he met Oogway the turtle), the logistics warehouse and the hall where students work on framing small houses and other construction projects.

Along his route to different classrooms, he chatted with kids in the hallways, and on a few instances, the former teacher with Puerto Rican heritage threw out some Spanish phrases. Though located in Bellevue, Bryan is part of Omaha Public Schools and prides itself on cultural diversity, as students from more than 30 countries who speak 33 languages are represented in its classrooms.

‘Raise the Bar’

The education secretary has underscored the benefit of speaking more than one language. In his recently announced “Raise the Bar: Lead the World” initiative, he said that learning multiple languages should be expected of U.S. students. And he spoke of administration goals for 2023 that included the need for “reimagining college and career pathways” and to challenge the view that “it’s four-year college or bust.”

Dual enrollment courses for local colleges, Cardona has said, should start at 11th grade and allow ambitious high schoolers to graduate with an associate’s degree or a credential “without paying a penny.”

He has said that the U.S. Education Department will expand opportunities for technical assistance and use of federal funding, and that if the department’s recommended pathways are forged, students could compete better on a global stage.

Highlighting Cardona’s visit to Bryan was a roundtable conversation with about a dozen students who spoke to him about their academic journeys and related job internships — Bryan pairs its students with up to 90 employers that offer job experience.

Making sure he heard from each teen, Cardona said he measured success in part by how the young people viewed the programs. After hearing from the students, he said he was impressed with the “options” the career-connected academies seemed to offer the budding workforce.

“You’re getting valuable skills that are transferable,” Cardona said.

Connection to outside world

For example, Leslie Lopez is in the transportation and logistics academy, where, as part of the curriculum, students pack up boxes filled with food for a pantry. Lopez plans to go into the medical field but said she gained appreciation in the academy for service and “helping people” that she expects to carry over to her future as a doctor.

Also at the roundtable was Bryan Benitez, a senior who already has racked up 38 college credits while in high school. He saw his time in the Advanced Academics academy as a “starting point” for his dream career: neurosurgery.

Cardona said he was impressed with the internship partnership Bryan has with employers, saying internships could lead to a lifelong job. “It gives us that connection to the outside world,” he  said.

Senior Arian Gomez said he chose the transportation and logistics pathway because it aligned with the trade his dad works in. As part of the program, he has an internship with a car dealership.

When he graduates, he hopes to get an associate’s degree to work as an automotive technician and get a commercial driver’s license to drive a truck. Ultimately, he intends to work on a bachelor’s degree so he can move up into the management side of a business.

“You could take your father’s business to another level,” Cardona said. “That’s exciting.”

‘We see you, we see you’

Of Cardona’s visit, Gomez and Benitez said they were proud to be able to showcase their school and teachers.

Dr. Rony Ortega, Bryan’s principal, said that while the technical academies were available in the past at Bryan, this was the first year for “wall-to-wall” academies, meaning that all students must participate in one. Among other officials at the secretary’s visit were OPS superintendent Cheryl Logan. Ortega said he appreciated the Nebraska stop, which marked Cardona’s 38th state he’s visited.

Said Ortega: “Having the education secretary come to Bryan tells our kids, ‘We see you, we see you.’”

For Gomez, the visit by the Latino cabinet member — who told the students he used to earn money by fixing cars — was particularly meaningful because of the auto connection.

“We got to express ourselves with someone recognizable in this country,” said Gomez. “It felt really good.”

After Bryan, Cardona went to La Vista’s Educational Service Unit #3, where he participated in another roundtable conversation — that time with principals, superintendents and therapists to discuss the mental health services provided to students.

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Nebraska Examiner maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Cate Folsom for questions: info@nebraskaexaminer.com. Follow Nebraska Examiner on and .

For first-generation college students, the answers to these questions are often difficult to come by, leading to . These young adults are less likely to enroll in and graduate from college than those who have a parent with a degree, and, if they do earn a bachelor’s, tend to have lower incomes. 

Paid internships during high school may not seem like they have the power to address these challenges. However, at , a nationwide program that provides high school students in underserved communities with eight weeks of targeted skills training, paid corporate internships, college and career coaching, and alumni support, we know that they do. We’ve seen time and again how internships have transformed the lives of the young people we serve — 72% of whom are first-generation college students and 91% of whom are people of color.

While it’s important to make sure that young people have the guidance and resources to make informed decisions about their future — keeping them on a pathway to a career — a paid internship provides something that no college counselor can.

Some of the benefits are obvious. A paid internship engages students who feel pressure to earn money while attending school. Rather than getting stuck in a minimum-wage job, uncertain about how to achieve their goals and economic self-sufficiency, high school interns can experience a corporate environment at companies like Accenture, TransUnion and Medtronic, and feel like valued members of their teams. An internship can change their perception of themselves and what’s possible. 

It can also expose students to new industries and allow them to build their professional networks, providing them with the social capital that is so critical to launching a successful career. One of our students in Chicago had never envisioned himself working in finance before his internship at the Collateral Department at The Private Banks (now CIBC). Now, he’s a private equity analyst for an independent financial services firm. His internship gave him access to a network that guided him along his professional journey, illustrating the power of connecting young people to non-parental adults as mentors. 

And an internship can give students a lifelong career boost. After one of our students completed his senior year internship in tech support, the company extended the arrangement through college and hired him after graduation. Some 20% of young people who successfully finish the year-long program work full time for the companies they interned with during high school, in industries such as finance and technology. 

The less obvious benefits of an internship pertain to college outcomes. A network of professionals — including internship supervisors and seasoned colleagues — can offer students guidance on their career path and help them understand the link between a particular degree and work. Nearly half of our alumni stay connected with their internship supervisors and co-workers after their internship ends.   

As a result, 72% of our alumni graduate from college, compared with 45% of U.S. adults over 18, and report median earnings of $50,000 a year within six years of graduating high school — than the average income of many individuals six years after they enroll in college.

I believe every high school student would benefit from a paid internship. Purposeful interactions and interventions at the high school level result in improvements in college enrollment, degree attainment and early career success. For first-generation college students, meaningful professional experiences are especially vital. High schools that want to support their students’ long-term success and help them achieve their education goals should look into partnering with organizations, like Genesys Works, which have a portfolio of companies that they work with and that understand their needs. 

When vetting a potential program partner, high schools should make sure they can:

• Speak with local employers about their talent needs and how high school interns could fill certain roles after some targeted skills training.
• Highlight the return on investment for employers in terms of tapping a diverse talent pipeline.
• Discuss additional career benefits, such as professional development, for existing employees who are preparing for management roles. The opportunity to mentor interns can be a valuable experience for everyone involved. 

High school interns can be tremendous assets to any organization, following some short-term skills training and ongoing support. These opportunities are a win for students, schools and local employers — and they can make all the difference in the trajectory of a young person’s life.

Students back then didn’t have the opportunity to earn an industry-recognized credential in construction or any other field. Today, these certifications, conferred by businesses, industry groups or states, attest to a student’s knowledge and skills in a particular domain. High school students earn credentials most often through career and technical education.

While it’s encouraging that of states now include attainment of these certifications in their school accountability systems, there’s more they could do to help these programs live up to their potential. A authored by the University of Texas’s Matt Giani and commissioned by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute points out some areas for improvement.

One key problem the study found is that many students who earn industry-recognized credentials don’t end up employed in the industry most closely aligned to them (if they enter the workforce) or major in related fields (if they attend college). 

It’s discouraging, and more than a little baffling. Why would students go to the trouble of earning an industry credential that they don’t plan to use, at least not immediately? 

Student focus groups provided some surprising answers. It seems that high schoolers value career and technical education in ways that policymakers aren’t recognizing. Some said they took CTE courses solely to explore new interests, not necessarily to attain a credential — but also because they found their other classes dull. This tracks that shows high schoolers are out of their minds — but consider more interesting than other courses. One survey reports that students find CTE particularly attractive, since they get to “spend half of the day away from high school.” An analysis of a popular reveals that taking CTE courses in the sciences is linked to increased engagement at school, particularly for low-income students. 

On the flip side, some in the focus groups said taking CTE classes helped them decide what they weren’t interested in — like the cosmetology student who enjoyed the program’s collaborative nature but discovered she hated cutting hair. 

Still others enrolled in credentialing programs with a practical interest in a field that already appealed to them, or wanted to acquire loosely related workplace or general life skills. A student in the automotive technology program, for instance, planned to become a veterinarian but, hailing from a family of mechanics, didn’t want to pay someone else to fix her car. Another, who planned to go into real estate, thought enrolling in a construction program could help him flip houses on the side. A third, who signed up for culinary arts, simply wanted to learn how to cook.

Given this variety of motivations, schools could use a more flexible system that acknowledges student intent. One sensible solution is to offer exploratory courses, followed by a of credentials that among the type and purpose of each. 

Exploratory courses would not count toward a credential, but simply give curious students a taste of what a field is all about and a chance to roll up their sleeves. Starting these courses in would allow older students to maximize their high school years. 

Level 1 of the hierarchy would accommodate students who have a practical interest in obtaining an entry-level credential but aren’t necessarily looking to build upon it. This category would include job safety and general work readiness, including basic first aid, word processing and financial literacy, and could encompass certifications from the , Microsoft and the American Red Cross. 

Level 2 would appeal to students who have at least some interest in a specific field and might want to augment it. These certifications would be stackable, meaning that initial skills in, say,  computer science, health care and manufacturing could be expanded via subsequent certifications. For instance, relevant certifications in manufacturing technology might begin with electrical maintenance, then progress to industrial electronics, then to mechatronics. Likewise, manufacturing production might begin with certification in basic welding, then welding fabrication, then metal fabrication.

Level 3 would meet the needs of students who’ve decided on an occupation. It would comprise capstone credentials that demonstrate mastery and truly advance careers. In radiology, for instance, that would mean a radiologic science management bachelor’s degree, potentially earned after attaining a limited medical radiologic technologist certificate and a radiologic technology associate degree.This type of hierarchy would better reflect how students think about and approach CTE courses and credentials. It would also help point the way to occupations, which often sound good in theory but lack pathways to take students there.

The pandemic has accelerated a workforce crisis in the STEM fields and a persistent gap in science, technology, engineering and math education. Across industries, the . Yet millions of potential professionals from diverse backgrounds are not being tapped. In 2017, while Black, Latino and Native American students comprised 34% of prospective college STEM majors, only 18% of them actually earned a STEM degree. 

The probability that a STEM-focused white male student who receives a C or better in all introductory courses will earn a degree in the field is . But for a similar Black male student, the chances are 31%, while Black female students have just a 28% chance. Yet, there is between those introductory grades and career success or job performance. That early C has no bearing on how good a doctor a student will become. And when it comes to innovators, to success: As grades go down, invention goes up.

To increase the number of women and students of color who will become the country’s next generation of doctors, engineers, and epidemiologists, educators need to listen to what they really need — and why they drop out of STEM majors at rates disproportionate to their white male counterparts. A new study called the — through which 600 diverse young people shared their experiences — identifies one key ingredient that can either keep students in STEM courses or push them out: a sense of belonging. 

Samantha Guerro, who attended high school in Texas, shared her experience with STEM courses through the story collection project, powered by Beyond100K (formerly 100Kin10). “I think a really important part of this spark of interest was the teacher,” Guerro said. “They’re excited to actually teach others, and they want to make you understand.”

Guerro’s love of science was nurtured by her Advanced Placement chemistry teacher, who made it “so that you can feel like this is something you can do. It’s not something reserved for only the elites of academia.” 

That sense of belonging and connection fueled Guerro to persist in STEM through high school. It’s no different in college. Belonging is correlated to persevering in STEM. And persevering past that first bad grade can make the difference between success and failure.

Most anyone who’s taken an introductory STEM course knows that one of the first things students hear, whether that course is calculus, computer science, or organic chemistry: “Look to your left, look to your right; only one of you will be here by the end of the semester.” 

Such a mindset is not only outdated; it’s likely to replicate the very inequities and shortages the STEM sector is trying so hard to address. Instead of aiming to weed out students, introductory courses should be designed to create as many pathways to success as possible. By creating classes that prioritize nurturing a sense of belonging for students — especially those who might be the first in their family to study STEM — schools won’t have to choose between high expectations and high success rates.

The field has many bright spots to learn from. The University of Texas at Austin, for example, has focused on fostering belonging as the centerpiece of its to help first-generation college students graduate. First-generation college-goers at UT Austin earn their degrees at a rate of nearly 65%, compared with a national average of 27%. The hallmarks of the program are small classes, peer mentors, tutoring, engaged faculty advisers and community-building. But little things also help: older students record short videos about times they doubted themselves and felt alone, and how they persevered, which reinforces the message that students belong and can succeed. 

In Massachusetts, mandatory at Bridgewater State University not only increased student success in introductory STEM courses, but overall retention in STEM majors. Xavier University in New Orleans, than any other university in the country, uses early quizzes to flag students who need support into tutoring and study groups and encourages peers to help those who need to catch up. University of Maryland, Baltimore County, created an aspiring to STEM careers, primarily kids of color, with high expectations and a strong sense of community.

The common denominator across all these efforts: belonging.

The U.S. Department of Education’s new initiative to modernize STEM education spotlights this very connection between rigor and belonging. Called , its aim is that all students, no matter their background, get a world-class STEM education to prepare them and the country for the future. To get to that future, students first need to know that they belong and can succeed in STEM.

In no other major is the goal of college introductory courses to scare passionate students away. Why are STEM courses so different? If all students are helped to persevere; if they feel they belong in STEM, whatever their background; if they understand that their unique experiences are essential in bringing forth unique contributions to the fields of science, technology, engineering and math, who knows what inventions, cures and breakthroughs await.

While the divides seem stark between red states and blue, policy leaders and practitioners from Texas to Tennessee and California to Colorado are collaborating to create innovative career pathways for students. 

In my home state of Delaware, we’re constantly learning from those other states. John Fitzpatrick, executive director of , serves on the board at my nonprofit, Rodel, and has urged the nation to rethink early college high schools and the expansion of Pathways in Technology Early College High Schools (), in which students earn credit toward an associate degree and hands-on work experience in high-demand, high-wage careers. I serve as an adviser to some exciting work that is leading called , in collaboration with the Colorado Department of Higher Education. This initiative recognizes that not all students want or need to graduate high school in four years and provides scholarships for college courses and high-demand certificate programs. More formally, the nonprofit skill-building organization has created , in which , from blue California to red Tennessee, learn with, and from, one another.  

What are the products of these collaborations? Students gaining meaningful work experience through internships, apprenticeships and completed college coursework or certifications before they’re 18. These pathways — a combination of targeted in-school curriculum and outside, real-world experiences — are aligned with broad sectors like health care or information technology. For example, as is big in my state, a new LLC under Rodel called the is building stronger connections among employers, training providers and high schools. The work is so popular that it has grown from 27 students in 2015, to over 26,000, or more than half of the state’s high schoolers, in 2022. 

These efforts include traditional vocational education but are meant for all kids, regardless of what they want to do after high school. Pathways are not about locking a young person into a career choice at age 14; rather, about helping them make better-informed choices. But as the hard lines between school and work soften — what Jobs for the Future calls the — career exploration is starting earlier and is expanding into middle school.

This reflects a historic shift. In 1910, about 7% of Americans had a high school diploma. By 1940, that figure approached 70%, giving the U.S. the best-educated workforce in the world for much of the 20th century. But many countries have caught up or surpassed us, and a high school diploma isn’t enough anymore. Economists project that by 2027, 70% of family-sustaining careers will require a degree or certification beyond high school. 

Even before the pandemic, the pathways idea was gaining steam. Young people want agency over when, how, what and where they learn. Pathways give them a chance to learn important people skills, and to figure out what they want to do (and don’t want to do).  

Pathways make sense to parents as well. Given the cost of college, families like the idea of their kids getting up to 15 college credits while still in high school and making sound postsecondary decisions to avoid dropping out with .  

Building seamless connections among business, high schools and colleges helps young people and their parents struggling to navigate smart postsecondary decisions, and it helps employers struggling to . And a well-built pathway for an 18-year-old can also work for a 48-year-old looking to update needed work skills. It’s a policy two-fer.

What to do with this common ground? At the federal level, policymakers can set some North Stars. For example, what would it take to increase apprenticeships tenfold? There are only 440,000 registered apprentices in the U.S. today. If America created as many apprenticeships as a share of its labor force as England, Australia and Canada, that number would climb to . 

Similarly, although a growing number of good jobs do not require a four-year degree, federal funds tend to heavily favor bachelor’s degree attainment over other training models. Deepening investments in one- and two-year certification and degree programs would not only even the playing field for new entrants, but aid millions of mid-career professionals. The upcoming of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act presents an opportunity to remedy this.

At the state level, governors and legislatures have a unique opportunity to not only advance an issue that’s good for students and their states, but for the country. Leveraging 50 state-level experiments could create a national conversation to jump-start America’s reinvention and add to the international discourse on how to provide all young people with a fair shot at a meaningful career and a good life.

New York City schools are reeling from COVID-19 and have yet to fully assess the damage wrought by three academic years of disrupted instruction. Adams will take charge amid concern for missed learning and disenrollment, in addition to issues that pre-date the pandemic, including and .

Get stories like these delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter

With mayoral control, Adams has wide discretion over the Department of Education, though how deeply he will seek to leave his imprint on the city’s roughly 1,600 schools over the next four years is unclear. Though mayoral control is technically set to expire in 2022, Adams is to request an extension from the state.

Multiple Adams to tap his close advisor David Banks, founder of the Eagle Academy for Young Men, as the next schools chancellor. But the Brooklyn native may also maintain current Chancellor Meisha Porter, a longtime NYC public school teacher and administrator who is a friend and former employee of Banks.

The mayor-elect is a retired police captain known for his within the department, and will be only the second Black New Yorker elected to run City Hall. His commitment to education is closely tied to his experiences with the criminal justice system.

“If we don’t educate, we will incarcerate,” he said in a recent mayoral debate.

Adams also shared that, as a young person, he struggled with a learning disability that went undiagnosed until college. 

“I overcame a learning disability and went to college and was able to obtain my degrees. And now I will be the mayor in charge of the entire Department of Education,” he joked in his Tuesday night.

Adams plans to expand screening for dyslexia in city schools, and has articulated his intent to reconceptualize the education system as “birth to career” rather than K-12, including an emphasis on career and technical education.

But even as he prepares to take office, few specifics of the incoming mayor’s education agenda are known. 

Here are three key issues that will demand his attention:

1 Gifted & talented education

In October, Mayor Bill de Blasio made headlines for announcing that he planned to overhaul the city’s gifted and talented education program, long criticized for its stark failure to include Black, Hispanic and other students. 

The program, which uses a single test administered to 4-year olds to determine admission, serves about 2,500 of the city’s roughly 65,000 kindergarten students each year. De Blasio announced that he sought to scrap the test and implement “” for all youngsters through second grade, with screening for subject-specific advanced coursework not coming until the start of third grade.

Adams, however, said that he plans to keep and expand the city’s gifted program. In a debate, he noted that he intended to make the tests opt-out, rather than opt-in, so that more families have access.

“This way, we would catch all the children who are capable of being gifted and talented,” said Adams.

But the mayor-elect has also signaled that he harbors misgivings over the program’s admission process.

“I don’t believe a 4-year old taking an exam should determine the rest of their school experience,” he said during an Oct. 20 debate.

For older students, Adams entrance tests to the city’s selective high schools, which have infamously let in of Black students. Teen activists calling for integration of the city’s schools have also demanded their overhaul and have a federal civil rights complaint pending against the use of all NYC school screening practices.

2 Student vaccine mandates

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention endorsed coronavirus vaccines for children ages 5 to 11 on Tuesday, meaning virtually all K-12 students are now eligible for shots. 

Naturally, questions swirl over whether the nation’s largest school system will require children to be inoculated. De Blasio enforced the city’s vaccine mandate for school staff, which took effect in early October and of teachers to receive their shots, but he has taken a softer approach on student vaccinations. The outgoing mayor has supported schools to set up clinics, but has not gone as far as to require shots. On Wednesday, he announced that every school serving students aged 5 through 11 will host vaccination sites starting Monday.

Adams, however, is mulling student vaccine mandates, and has said he is “open to having the remote options of education” for unvaccinated learners.

K-12 vaccine mandates for students remain relatively rare, with a handful of California school systems, including Los Angeles and Oakland, as well as Hoboken, New Jersey among the only districts with such policies.

3 Disenrollment

Enrollment in New York City schools dropped 1.9 percent this year, with 938,000 students now in traditional public schools, down from 955,000 last year and slightly over 1 million in the 2019-20 school year.

Though the relative drop is less than other major cities like Los Angeles and Chicago, the continued bleeding of students provides further evidence of the profound disruption that the pandemic has had on NYC public education. The Department of Education has yet to release figures on the share of students missing so much school that they may be academically at risk, and some officials fear that wide swaths of students, especially in under-resourced communities, may be disengaged from school.

Re-engaging disconnected students will be a chief challenge of the mayor-elect’s effort to bounce back from pandemic schooling.

​​As district schools lost students, enrollment in independently run city charter schools rose 3.2 percent this year, to 143,000, following national trends. Adams has said that he intends to keep the current cap on charter schools, while also adding that successful models should be duplicated and failing ones shut down. De Blasio was known for his battles with the city’s charter sector.

“We look forward to working closely with [Mayor-elect Eric Adams] and his administration to create a partnership that will benefit all NYC public school students, including the 143,000 attending charter schools,” said James Merriman, CEO of the New York City Charter School Center in a statement.