The traditional high school model isn’t working for many of today’s teenagers. Coursework often fails to inspire, as evidenced by high rates of student disengagement and absenteeism. And a disconnect between the classroom and real-world learning leaves countless students unprepared to make informed decisions about post-graduation plans.
Experts, from policy analysts to state lawmakers to educators themselves, have begun to call for change. Some states, including Delaware and Indiana, have emerged as trailblazers in the quest to redesign the high school experience.
Indiana’s diploma redesign plan, which aims to give students the flexibility to experience work-based learning, received final approval from state education officials a year ago, after a tumultuous drafting process. Educators had pushed back against earlier proposals they felt leaned too far into work experiences and away from college readiness, but the final model was supported by all of Indiana’s public colleges and universities. Meanwhile, the Delaware Pathways initiative, a collaborative effort between education, business, and community leaders, centers on a work-based learning component.
Earlier this month, Education Week hosted a webinar on how best to prepare high school students for college and career, featuring district leaders in both those states.
Kate Marvel oversees career and technical education at the Smyrna school district in Delaware. At the district’s single high school, every student selects at least one of 20 career pathways—from education to culinary and hospitality management to finance—and completes three sequential levels of related coursework alongside their traditional academic classes.
Each pathway also offers students the option to participate in a work-based experience, like an on- or off-campus internship. This year, an estimated 43% of the school’s seniors embraced that opportunity—more than double the percentage in 2021 and closer than ever to the district’s goal of 100% participation by Smyrna seniors.
Mark Peterson, the director of internships at Chesterton High School in Indiana, oversees the school’s Career Exploration program, which involves developing relationships with local businesses and preparing and placing seniors in internship placements that align with their career interests.
Marvel and Peterson shared six strategies that have allowed the high school students in their districts to experience, first-hand, real-world learning that can shape their future career and college choices.
1. Proactively build relationships with local businesses.
Strong partnerships with local businesses have been key to the success of Chesterton High School’s Career Exploration program, Peterson said. But building those partnerships required significant work upfront.
While the benefits to students of real-world learning experiences may be obvious, businesses might not see the advantage of overseeing an (unpaid) internship for a 17-year-old—not initially, anyway.
To get the word out, Peterson partnered with the local business chamber, which became a strong advocate for the program. As more and more local businesses became open to the idea of hosting student interns, Peterson invited them to share their success stories with other community organizations to expand the program’s reach.
2. Get creative about fitting experiential learning into students’ schedules.
Finding time in students’ course schedules can sometimes be the sticking point to accessing internships, Peterson said.
Students’ academic schedules do tend to become more open in their senior year, however, as they complete general requirements and can choose from a number of electives, Peterson said. In these instances, administrators at Chesterton High decided to allow students to substitute an elective with a vetted internship.
In most cases, allowing that adjustment has proved worthwhile.
“It’s really neat when the kids come back, and we hear them speak the language and describe the experiences they’ve had that help them understand what they might want to go into after graduation,” Peterson said.
3. Consider what career pathways students want to pursue.
Delaware has been active in developing career pathways that align with the state’s labor market needs, said Marvel. But the pathways don’t always include options that capture students’ interest, she added.
For instance, legal studies used to be part of the state’s career pathways. Student interest in the program waned, statewide labor market data didn’t show much of a need for it, and the program was eventually dropped, Marvel said. But recently, Smyrna students began expressing a renewed interest in legal studies.
“Our students started asking, ‘If I want to be a lawyer, or if I want to be a police officer, which pathway do I choose?’” Marvel said. “It was our responsibility to adjust to what our community and our students wanted.”
Ultimately, the district decided to re-establish a local legal studies pathway that was approved by the state. The program will be broad enough not to pigeonhole students into, say, a career in law or correctional services, Marvel said. But it’s more specific than the pre-existing business pathway that students likely would have been steered toward if they hadn’t launched a legal studies option.
4. Ensure that staff can advise students on career pathway options.
With some schools offering upwards of 20 career pathways, students need advice and support to choose the right one. At Smyrna, school counselors are expected to be able to provide that support, Marvel said.
“It is critical that our counselors know the difference between the Academy of Finance and the Academy of Accounting,” she said.
To that end, the school provides professional development to educate school counselors on the different pathways and encourages strong communication between counselors and teachers who teach the courses.
“We need to make sure counselors can point students in the right direction,” Marvel said.
5. Establish expectations for business partners and students.
Overseeing student interns can be a new experience for some business professionals. To help, Peterson said the Chesterton district developed a contract that its business partners must sign. The contract acts as an explanation and agreement regarding what business partners can expect from students, such as timeliness, and, in turn, what students can expect to gain from the experience, such as mentorship and opportunities to learn about the business.
For most high school students, too, an internship experience is new territory. Marvel said that, within the career pathway coursework at Smyrna, students practice skills that apply to every aspect of the professional experience: creating a resume, interview tips, business etiquette and expectations, and more.
6. Inform students and parents that career pathways broaden, not limit, future options.
Historically, CTE and career pathways have been considered narrow avenues toward skilled trades rather than an opportunity to learn about possible future professions. And in some cases, that continues to be true.
But a growing number of districts are working to establish career pathway programs that provide all students with a stronger knowledge base of possible career options—both those that require higher education and those that don’t.
Part of Marvel’s job involves getting parents and students to understand that CTE doesn’t have to lock them into a particular post-graduation pathway.
“We have just as many career and technical areas that would promote you to go to college as going straight into industry or into the military,” she said. “What I think we’re doing is giving students a broad idea of all the possibilities, so that students are aware.”
