Evan Perez could be the face of a new movement. He’s a first-year student attending Babson College on a full scholarship, majoring in business with a concentration in entrepreneurship. He won awards for building an AI-related business at his career-focused public high school and cares deeply about what and how students learn.
“We had an amazing model; we called it ‘real world learning,’ Perez said of his program at The Met High School’s campus in Providence, Rhode Island, part of a small network of learning communities in the state that combine academics with career exploration. Students can shadow business employees, intern in trades or take dual enrollment college classes. They attend internships twice a week and design many of their own projects.
“The Met taught me to advocate for myself, and really prepared me for a college where you are pitching yourself and your ideas and collaborating with others,” Perez said. But he also finds himself trying to overcome shortcomings in his academic preparation, in part because of the Met’s emphasis on projects, research and out-of-classroom experiences.
My recent conversation with Perez underscored one of the major questions facing U.S. high schools: Can they balance academics and career training while adequately readying their students for a world that’s being quickly reshaped by artificial intelligence and other forces?
That is exactly why The Hechinger Report is asking for your help.
We want to hear your thoughts about the role career readiness should play as part of a traditional high school day. Your answers will help us touch down in towns, cities and rural areas throughout the U.S. and find out what is working and what is not.
We’re interested in exploring such topics as:
- How schools are adapting to workforce changes because of AI and other factors
- Examples of rigorous instruction that prepare graduates for post-high-school life
- Successful models of career training in K-12 schools
- Career and college counseling
- Apprenticeships, work-based learning and partnerships with employers
First, some context on why we believe this conversation is so crucial right now. A recent report by the National Association of State Boards of Education describes a painful reality: Many young people believe high school simply isn’t working for them. Nearly three in four high school graduates said they were less than fully prepared for life after graduation. A third of teachers also thought their students weren’t ready for the workforce.
There’s also a new state policy framework proposal calling for more and better career-connected learning in high school, and a new commission pushing for enhanced service work, apprenticeships and multiple options for skills, including AI literacy.
We want to hear from students, educators, parents and employers. What we learn will help us build on years of reporting on how to rethink U.S. high schools, with lessons that can be shared and explored. We’ve been at this work for a while, mostly recently visiting Niagara Falls, New York, where students are encouraged to consider careers upon arrival in ninth grade. They eventually pick from one of five pathways, including business, finance and entrepreneurship, as well as design, engineering and construction.
Related: The future of AI in the classroom
We’ve reported from Indiana, where a new high school diploma gives students the options to earn different “seals” — depending on whether they plan to attend college, go straight to work or serve in the military. We’ve explored ways high schoolers from historically underserved backgrounds are pushed toward colleges and careers in some early college high schools with paid internships, intensive mentoring and a chance to earn community college associate degrees.
We’ve heard from a principal in Fall River, Massachusetts, where students who once felt indifferent about school are thriving with a curriculum that helps them explore their interests. We’ve reported from Connecticut, where technical high school programs are so popular that the state recently switched from competitive admissions to a lottery. We’ve also reported on the challenges of assessing whether this kind of career education pays off for students.
Related: Do career ‘pathways’ work? Delaware offers early clues
We’ll continue publishing related opinion pieces, adding them to our collection on this topic. Those we’ve published recently included a call for high schools to treat college and career readiness as a core, systemic responsibility; an exploration of how short-term credentials might offer some students a stronger pathway into the workforce than college; and a case for teaching critical thinking in high school via project-based learning and authentic, performance-based assessment.
This reexamination of high school instruction is coming at a time when more people are questioning whether four-year college — once the obvious post-secondary choice for high-achieving students — is worth the time and money. Just 38 percent of Americans said they have “quite a lot” or “a great deal” of confidence in higher education, according to a Gallup poll in July, while 25 percent said they have “very little” or “none.” Among those who said they lacked confidence in higher education, 25 percent said college is not preparing students well for the workforce.
And for students who get to college, fears that their future careers will be gobbled up by AI are causing some to retrain for more hands-on jobs.
That is why we are trying to identify and share information that will help families weigh what’s next after high school and make informed choices.
As he comes to grips with all of the new forces and pressures of being a college student, Perez thinks about it all the time, and he told me he ultimately sees himself working in education.
“I honestly think we need to really take a step back and think more about how education works,” Perez said. “Schools have to think, are tests useful? Are classes useful when AI is automating so much? How can we use AI in ways that help us with our careers?”
We are eager to learn more. Let’s hear your ideas.
This story about career readiness was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for our newsletters.
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