Exam scores always seem to go up. Whether it’s the SAT when applying for college or an AP score to earn college credit, competitive scores seem to be creeping up. While faculty are invaluable, students who recently completed classes or exams offer insight that bridges the gap between the curriculum and the exam. I believe students who recently excelled in a course should be allowed and encouraged to serve as teaching assistants in high school.
Often, poor preparation contributes to students’ disappointing exam performance. This could be from not understanding content, being unfamiliar with the layout, or preparing the wrong material. Many times, in courses at all levels, educators emphasize information that will not show up on a standardized test or, in some cases, in their own material. This is a massive issue in many schools, as every professor has their own pet project they like to prioritize. For example, a microbiology professor in a medical school may have an entire lecture on a rare microbe because they research it, but nothing about it will be tested on the national board exams, or even their course final exams. This was a common theme in high school, with history teachers loving to share niche facts, or in college, when physics professors loved to ask trick questions. By including these things in your teaching, is it really benefiting the pupil? Are students even being tested correctly over the material if, say, 10 percent of your exam questions are on information that is superfluous?
Universities can get around this issue by employing teaching assistants (TAs) to help with some of the confusion. Largely, their responsibilities are grading papers, presenting the occasional lecture, and holding office hours. The lesser-known benefit of having and speaking with TAs is the ability to tell you how to prioritize your studying. These are often older students who have been previously successful in the course, and as a result, they can give a student a much better idea of what will be included on an exam than the professor.
When I was a TA as an undergrad, we were required to hold exam prep sessions the week of a big test. During these sessions, students answered practice questions about concepts similar to what would show up on the exam. All the students who showed up to my sessions performed extremely well on the tests, and they performed well because they were prepared for the exam and knew the concepts being tested. As a result, they would finish the course with a much higher grade because they knew what they should be studying. It is much more effective to give a student a practice question that uses similar concepts to what will be on their exam than it is for a professor to give a list of topics that are covered on a test. For example, studying for a math test is more impactful when answering 50 practice questions versus a teacher handing you a list of general concepts to study, such as: “Be able to manipulate inequalities and understand the order of operations.”
Universities seem to know that professors might not provide the best advice, or at the least, they have used TAs as a decent solution to the problem. It is my opinion that having this style of assistance in high school would be beneficial to student outcomes. Having, say, a senior help in a junior-level class may work wonders. Teachers would have a decrease in their responsibilities based on what they trust their TA to do. They could help grade, run review sessions, and make and provide exam prep materials. In essence, all the unseen work in teaching that great teachers do could be done more efficiently with a TA. Every student has had an amazing teacher who provides an excellent study guide that is almost identical to the test, making them confident going into test day. In my experience, those guides are not completed for a grade or a course outcome, and effectively become extra work for the educator, all to help the students who are willing to use them effectively. Having a TA would ease that burden–it would encourage students to consider teaching as a profession in a time when there is a shortage of educators.
There are many ways to teach and learn, but by far the best way to be prepared for a test is by talking to someone who has recently taken it. Universities understand that courses are easier for students when they can talk to someone who has taken it. It is my opinion that high schools would be able to adopt this practice and reduce teacher workload while increasing the student outcomes.
Samuel M. Baule, U.S. Army & Marian University
Sam Baule is a third-year medical student at Marian University and a lieutenant in the U.S. Army. He graduated in May 2023 with a bachelor’s degree in biomedical engineering from the University of Iowa.
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ELKHART, Ind. — The numbers were discouraging, and in some cases getting worse. Nearly 30 percent of Indiana’s high schoolers were chronically absent in 2022. Only about 52 percent of students in the state enrolled in collegein 2023, a 12-percentage-point drop in seven years. Fewer students were pursuing other paths, too: The share of students enlisting in the military, for example, declined by 41 percent from 2018 to 2022.
When Katie Jenner toured the state after becoming education secretary in 2021, she heard from many students who said they simply didn’t value high school or see how it would help them.“That was really hard to hear,” Jenner said. “We had to look in the mirror and say, ‘OK, this is the reality. Let’s do better.’”
Jenner and her team began redesigning what high school looks like in Indiana, in an effort to make it more relevant to young people’s futures and help them gain a better grasp of career paths. For too long, she and others argued, kids had been pushed to plan for four-year college, yet only about half of seniors actually enrolled, and those who did go often dropped out before graduating.
When a draft of the plan was released in early 2024, it drew fierce protest from many parents and educators who worried the state was prioritizing workforce learning over academics. Jenner and her staff reworked the proposal, eventually crafting a plan that alleviated some, though not all, of the concerns.
The “New Indiana Diploma” — which was signed into law in April and goes into effect for all incoming first-year students this academic year — gives students the option to earn different “seals” in addition to a basic diploma, depending on whether they plan to attend college, go straight to work or serve in the military. Jenner describes it as an effort to tailor the diploma to students’ interests, expose students to careers and recognize different forms of student achievement.
Experts said the template is something of a model nationally, at a time when more states are reconsidering how to help students prepare for careers and the federal government is also pushing alternatives to four-year college. Elements of that effort have earned bipartisan support: Presidents from both parties have advocated for expanding work-based learning, and President Donald Trump recently called for the creation of 1 million new apprenticeships.
“The basic architecture of American high school is being questioned and challenged,” said Timothy Knowles, president of the Carnegie Foundation.* Indiana is at the forefront of an effort to incorporate more experiential learning instead of restricting education to school buildings, he said: “Indiana is really breaking ground.”
The initial proposal Jenner’s agency drafted would have created two high school diplomas, “Graduates Prepared to Succeed” and “Graduates Prepared to Succeed Plus.” Both would have scaled back math and science requirements and loosened recommendations for world languages and other electives. Meanwhile, they would have encouraged all students to participate in work-based learning in apprenticeships, internships or job shadowing, with at least 75 hours in such activities required for the “plus” diploma.
Indiana hopes that work-based learning opportunities at companies like Alpha Systems and Hoosier Crane Service Company, in Elkhart, Indiana, can flourish under the new diploma system. Credit: Camilla Forte/The Hechinger Report
In 2024, the state board of education held dozens of meetings to gather feedback on the proposal for the revamped diplomas — and the backlash was intense. Leaders of higher education institutions, including the state’s flagship schools, Indiana and Purdue universities, said students graduating under the new system would not meet minimum requirements for admission. Purdue’s president, Mung Chiang, wrote a letter to Jenner showing that the proposed diploma system required too few credits in every subject except English.
Hoosier parents were furious that their children might have to sacrifice more challenging courses to fulfill the mandatory work experience requirement under the “plus” option. At an Indiana Department of Education hearing in June 2024, parent Michelae Hill was among dozens who criticized the proposal, calling it “intentionally dumbing down our population” and warning that “what will happen is that we are ensuring a permanent underclass, we are ensuring cheap workers.” There were also questions about the logistics of workplace learning, including transportation and possible safety issues on job sites.
State education policy makers went back to the drawing board. The revised version, adopted last December, establishes one basic diploma that all graduates earn, plus the seals students can pursue depending on their post-high-school plans. Even within each seal, students have several ways of meeting the requirements.
For example, to receive the “enrollment” seal — meant primarily for college-bound students — high schoolers can choose from more advanced classes in math, science, social studies and world languages, and may earn additional credits in Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate or other such college-level courses. An “enrollment honors plus” seal requires that students concurrently obtain a credential such as an associate’s degree or technical certificate and complete 75 hours of work-based learning in apprenticeships, internships or other such programs.
“We wanted rigor and flexibility and less cookie cutter,” said Jenner.
Even the updated system has critics, though. For the basic diploma, students must earn a minimum of 42 credits, two more than before. But how students reach that threshold is different: Economics, geometry and Algebra II are no longer required, while courses in financial literacy and communication are. Physical education is one credit instead of two, and world languages and fine arts are no longer recommended electives.
Professor Michael Hicks, who runs the Center for Business and Economic Research at Ball State University in Indiana, said he worries about the reduced mathematics rigor in particular. While most states do not require Algebra II for graduation, the class is often seen as a necessity for admission to selective colleges and for certain careers. Hicks said high-achieving, well-resourced students may benefit from the flexibility of the new diploma, as could students committed to the military. But many other students could be harmed, he said, if they are left with the impression that the basic diploma alone will prepare them well for college when it does not.
“It is essentially funneling children away from academic opportunity very early at a time when we really needed to have more kids pushed into the academic options that would get them into college,” he said, arguing that people with college degrees outearn those with only a high school education and have also fueled the state’s and country’s economic growth of the past several decades. “This curriculum will cause the Indiana economy to stall and potentially go into reverse.”
At public meetings last winter, some parents and educators raised concerns that the new system amounted to an unfunded mandate for school districts and would put a huge burden in particular on counselors, who would be working closely with students to help chart their diploma paths. Critics also objected to the de-emphasis of other classes like music and foreign languages. Megan Worcester, the president of the Indiana Foreign Language Teachers Association, said the reduced emphasis on foreign language would hurt the state’s economy; she cited a study in which nearly 1 in 4 employers surveyed said they had lost or couldn’t pursue a business opportunity because of language barriers.
Jenner, a former high school teacher, said the new diploma allows students greater flexibility to choose electives depending on their goals, which could include language and music study. While Algebra II is no longer required, students must take four math credits beyond the required Algebra I and personal finance, she said. Jenner also said the state had allocated a portion of $50 million in discretionary funding to train counselors in helping students navigate the new diploma system. In addition, it dedicated up to $10 million in grants to help students pay for transportation, equipment and certifications related to work-based learning, and also provided financial assistance to companies that take on apprentices. Each school that offers work-based learning will receive an extra $500 per participating student.
The new plan eventually quieted the concerns of many education leaders. Several universities, including Indiana and Purdue, released letters of support. “We appreciate the thoughtful adjustments to the work based learning requirements, AP testing and transferability of dual credits,” wrote Pamela Whitten, president of Indiana University. (Neither university agreed to an interview with its leaders.) All major education groups in the state, including the Indiana State Teachers Association, Indiana School Boards Association and the Indiana Association of Public School Superintendents, endorsed the plan.
Ty Zartman, a student apprentice at Hoosier Crane Service Company in Elkhart, Indiana, decided to go straight to work after graduating high school, despite being a straight A student. Parents and educators objected to Indiana’s first proposal for a new high school diploma system, arguing that the emphasis on workplace experience would crowd out academic learning. Credit: Camilla Forte/The Hechinger Report
In April, Gov. Mike Braun announced that beginning this year, students who earn the state’s “enrollment honors plus” seal will be automatically accepted into the state’s public colleges and universities, including Purdue and Indiana, potentially persuading more students to enroll.
Parent Chantee Eldridge said she believes the new diploma will make higher education more affordable and help students sharpen their career plans at an earlier age. Her son, Micah, is a 16-year-old senior at Brownsburg High School, near Indianapolis, and has already taken dual credit courses through a partnership with Vincennes University. College credits can be expensive, she said, so earning them at no cost in high school can be a big money saver.
Micah, who has a 3.7 GPA and plays semi pro soccer, said he’s always enjoyed challenging classes and plans to go to college. “When things get repeated, that’s when I get bored and start to tap out mentally,” he said. In college, he anticipates studying psychology — a surprise to his mother, who expected him to pursue math or physics, two topics he’s always excelled in. She likes the idea of him doing an internship with a psychologist, so he can learn more about the field and gain practical work experience before he goes to college; that’s the sort of opportunity that will become more common under this new diploma system.
“Very rarely do you know exactly what you want to do between 16 and 18,” Eldridge said. “That will help students and their families make an informed decision.”
For students who want to go straight into the workforce, the employment seals are designed to provide exposure to career options and work experience that boost students more quickly into higher-paying roles. Under the “employment honors” seal, students must: take coursework or earn a credential aligned to a specific occupation; complete 150 hours of work-based learning; and demonstrate communication, collaboration and work ethic skills. The “employment honors plus” seal requires that students also earn an associate’s degree or advanced industry certificate and complete 650 hours of work-based learning.
Matt Mindrum, president and CEO of the Indy Chamber, said that most of the 150,000 vacant jobs in Indiana right now don’t require a four-year degree. “And yet 100 percent of our high school students are pushed through a college preparatory path. That makes no sense,” he said. He believes an alternate path is critical for driving economic growth in the state, by helping to fill existing jobs and attract new businesses.
Edgar Soto, a senior at Concord High School in Elkhart, is the kind of student Mindrum has in mind. Soto said he has never wanted to attend a four-year college. To get workforce experience, he enrolled in an apprenticeship through his school and is up before dawn each morning to start work with manufacturing technology company Alpha Systems. “It’s something new every day. I love it,” he said. He earns $17 an hour and gives half his paycheck to his mom for family expenses. When school is in session, he spends his afternoons taking classes back at Concord High.
Indiana’s Elkhart County has been at the forefront of expanding apprenticeships to high schoolers, but it’s had trouble recruiting companies — a challenge for the state as it tries to expand work-based learning. Credit: Camilla Forte/The Hechinger Report
Working has motivated him to study harder at school, he said; he’s never cared for math, but when he realized it was important for his job, he began asking his teacher for extra help. “I got a taste of the real world and I want to be that type of person who does things right,” he said.
Alpha Systems pays for him to take classes in industrial systems through the state community college system, Ivy Tech, and has promised to pay for any further postsecondary education if he stays with the company. In just a few years, company executives said, he could easily make more than $40 an hour, approximately $80,000 a year.
Mindrum is working with employers around the state to try to increase work-based learning opportunities so they match student demand, a particular challenge in rural areas. Communities that have already made a commitment to work-based learning have had trouble recruiting enough employers: For example, in Elkhart County, only 1 in 3 high schoolers who apply for an apprenticeship gets one. Schools will also have to reorganize class schedules and overcome transportation challenges to ensure students can complete the necessary work-based learning under the various seals. The state has a goal of 50,000 apprenticeships by 2030. “It’s an aggressive but achievable target,” Mindrum said.
Supporters hope the revamped diploma will also encourage more students to enlist in military service. Nationally, the military is struggling to recruit, and according to Army data, just 23 percent of 17- to 24-year-olds who apply to the U.S. military meet its medical fitness and academic requirements. In Indiana, the number of students enlisting in the National Guard dropped by 38 percent between 2018 and 2022, the sharpest decline of any state.
Retired Maj. Gen. Dale Lyles, who led the Indiana National Guard and helped create the “enlistment” seal criteria, said students often don’t know much about enlisting and the benefits of military service. In Indiana, for example, serving in the National Guard unlocks free tuition to state colleges.
The new diploma options are meant to fix that: Students in the “enlistment honors” and “enlistment honors plus” seals are taught about each branch of service, what it means to swear an oath to your country and the many different job opportunities available. They also must take a public service course or complete a year of Junior ROTC and receive a certain score on the military’s aptitude test, the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery, among other requirements. Students can receive coaching for the test and have the opportunity to visit Camp Atterbury-Muskatatuck, a nearly 35,000-acre military post, for hands-on learning opportunities.
“Today’s military is much different than it was even five years ago, just because of the high degree of technology,” said Lyles, citing the Indiana National Guard’s platoon that flies automated aerial drones and its cyber warfare battalion. “We are in a battle for talent.” He added that the pathway emphasizes that there are other ways to serve, including as a firefighter, as a police officer or in the Department of Homeland Security.
Nicholas Purdy, a 17-year-old from Marion, has three grandparents who served in the military and said he’s always been interested in enlisting. In his first year of high school, he signed up for JROTC, and he said he loves traveling to other states for competitions and leadership camps where students participate in activities such as rappelling, water operations and land navigation. “It doesn’t matter what your background is, how much money you have, your looks,” he said of the experience. “The only thing that matters is your character.”
His mother, Stephanie Purdy, said she’s seen his confidence deepen as a result of his experiences with JROTC. Nicolas has won ribbons and pins for marksmanship and leadership that he wears on his uniform, and he likes the idea that under the new seals, those accomplishments would be reflected on his high school transcript. Nicholas wants to become a combat medic in the army. “The training set me up for really good opportunities, and it’s all paid for,” he said.
Jenner’s work continues — with a pressing deadline, as schools roll out these changes for first-year students this year. Her office is working on an online advising tool, a pilot program to help communities identify solutions to transportation challenges, guidance for educators on the new diploma options and courses, and incentives for school districts to measure skills like communication, collaboration and work ethic, not just academic outcomes.
It’s a big task. “This is new terrain for our country when you think about the level of scale we’re trying to accomplish,” said Jenner. “We don’t have a model to just copy and paste, so we’re going to learn some lessons along the way.”
*Due to an editing error, an earlier version of this story included an inaccurate description of the Carnegie Foundation.
Contact editor Caroline Preston at 212-870-8965, via Signal at CarolineP.83 or on email at [email protected].
The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.
BELOIT, Wis. — As Chris Hooker eyed a newly built piece of ductwork inside Beloit Memorial High School, a wry smile crept over his face. “If you worked for me,” he told a student, considering the obviously crooked vent, “I might ask if your level was broken.”
Hooker, the HVAC manager of Lloyd’s Plumbing and Heating Corp. in nearby Janesville, was standing inside a hangar-sized classroom in the school’s advanced manufacturing academy, where students construct full-size rooms, hang drywall and learn the basics of masonry. His company sends him to the school twice a week for about two months a year to help teach general heating, venting and air conditioning concepts to students.
“I cover the mountaintop stuff,” he said, noting that at a minimum students will understand HVAC when they become homeowners.
But the bigger potential payoff is that these students could wind up working alongside Hooker after they graduate. If his firm has an opening, any student recommended by teacher Mike Wagner would be a “done deal,” Hooker said. “Plus, if they come through this class, I know them.”
Manufacturing and construction dominate the business needs inside Beloit, a small city of 36,000 just minutes from the Illinois border. Sitting at the nexus of two major highways, and within 100 miles of Chicago, Milwaukee and Madison, Beloit is home to a range of businesses that include a Frito-Lay production plant, an Amazon distribution center and a Navy subcontractor. In the next two years, a $500 million casino and hotel complex is scheduled to open.
But staffing these companies into the future is a major concern. Across the country, the average age of manufacturing workers is increasing, and one in four of these workers is age 55 or older, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ 2021 figures, the most recent available. In many other jobs the workforce is aging, too. Wisconsin is one of several states looking to boost career and technical education, or CTE, as a possible solution to the aging and shrinking workforce.
Having industry standard machines is a key part of Beloit Memorial High School’s manufacturing program; here a student uses a JET metalworking machine to create precise cuts for his project. Credit: Wayne D’Orio for The Hechinger Report
While the unemployment rate of Rock County, which includes Beloit, is 3.6 percent, only slightly higher than the state’s 3.2 percent, there’s a worker mismatch in the city, according to Drew Pennington, its economic development director.
Every day, 14,000 city residents travel outside of Beloit to work, while the same number commute into the city to fill mostly higher-paying jobs, said Pennington.
So when Beloit decided to revamp its public high school in 2018, CTE and work-based learning were at the forefront of the transformation.
The 1,225-student school now has three academies that cover 13 different career paths. After ninth grade, students choose to concentrate in an area, which means taking several courses in a specific field. Students also have the option to do work-based learning, which can mean internships, a youth apprenticeship or working at high-end simulated job sites inside the school.
“This creates not just a pipeline to jobs but also to career choices,” said Jeff Stenroos, the district’s director of CTE and alternative education.
“There are a lot of really good-paying jobs in this area. Students don’t need to leave, or go earn a four-year degree,” Stenroos said. An auto mechanic can “earn six figures by the age of 26 and that’s more than an educator with a master’s degree,” he said.
Beloit’s effort is a shift in high school emphasis similar to the extensive CTE programs being run in other places, notably Indiana, Kentucky and Alabama. In 2024, 40 states enacted 152 CTE-related policies, the biggest push in five years, according to Advance CTE, a nonprofit group that represents state CTE officials. Nationwide, about 20 percent of high school students take a concentration of CTE courses, it says, adding that the high school graduation rate for students who concentrate in CTE is 90 percent, 15 percentage points higher than the national average.
Three years ago, Wisconsin called for 7 percent of its high school students to be in workplace learning programs by 2026. Beloit’s progress puts it far ahead of that target. In Beloit Memorial, nearly 1 in 3 students meet this designation today, Stenroos said.
The high school features a cavernous construction area where students build full-scale rooms, learn masonry and complete plumbing and electrical wiring projects. The metal shop offers 16 welding stations and a die-cutter machine that allows students to create customized pieces to fit projects. Down the street, the school runs an eight-bay car repair center, a space it took over when a Sears autobody shop left town.
These spaces are “better than a lot of technical colleges,” Stenroos said.
In addition to their high school courses, Beloit Memorial students pile up industry-recognized certifications, Stenroos said. More than 40 percent of its students graduate with at least one certification, and 1 in 4 of them has multiple certifications.
While some simple certifications, such as OSHA Workplace Safety, can be accomplished in just 10 hours, others, such as those for the American Welding Society, require up to 500 hours of student work, he added. The state has called for 9 percent of graduating high school students to have earned at least one certification by next year. To incentivize schools to offer these opportunities, the state’s Department of Workforce Development pays schools for each student who earns a certification; in 2024, Beloit received $85,000 through this program, Stenroos said.
One of the school’s best automotive students, Geiry Lopez, graduated this year with five Automotive Service Excellence certifications. Standing less than 5 feet tall, Lopez said she is not bothered that she might not look like a typical mechanic. “I know I can do this,” she said, adding that she hopes to work on heavy machinery such as tractor trailers after she graduates.
She’s worked on her own car, with some fellow students, replacing the brakes, a front axle, rotors and wheel bearings at the school’s garage, she said, although she still hasn’t been able to drive it.
“My dad is taking forever to teach me how to drive,” she said.
The garage operates like an actual business, but the only customers are teachers and other Beloit staffers and students. Students estimate work costs, order parts and communicate with customers before any repairs take place. While oil changes and brake replacements are common, some students are totally rebuilding an engine in one car.
Over in the welding room, rising senior Cole Mellom was putting the finishing touches on a smoker he built in less than a month’s time. He said he loved the creativity of finding a plan, cutting the metal and building something that he could sell, all while in school. Plus, he knows that welding is a key skill needed for his dream job, race-car fabrication.
Officials revamped the Beloit Memorial High School in 2018 to funnel students into academies that are connected to jobs in the area and the state. Credit: Wayne D’Orio for The Hechinger Report
In the past, students created a custom-made protective plate that the city’s police use on a bomb squad vehicle.
The welding program has 125 students this year and had to turn away 65 more because of space limitations, Stenroos said; last year, 17 of the school’s welding academy graduates enlisted in the armed forces to specialize in welding.
These programs are designed to help meet the future needs of the state’s workforce. More than one-third of Wisconsin jobs will require education beyond high school but less than a bachelor’s degree by 2031, according to the Association for Career and Technical Education. For the last four years, the state has had more job openings than people on unemployment.
“There’s more jobs than there are people to fill them right now,” said Deb Prowse, a former career academy coach at Beloit Memorial who now works at Craftsman with Character, an area nonprofit that helps train students for careers in skilled trades.
Hooker, the Lloyd’s Plumbing HVAC manager, agreed. “Every project we work on has a delay, from a multimillion-dollar mansion to a three-bedroom spec,” he said. “There aren’t enough workers.”
The main reason Beloit Memorial has been able to zoom past state and national goals for both CTE and work-based learning is the school’s single-minded focus since 2018 on helping to ensure that its graduates will understand what businesses need and giving them a head start toward gaining those skills.
High school officials actually pared back the program from 44 pathways to 13, Stenroos said, part of an effort to tie each pathway to specific jobs. About 75 percent of pathways target area jobs, with the remaining quarter highlighting prominent professions within the state, he added.
Even though three straight budget referendum defeats have left the district with a $6.2 million funding gap, Stenroos said he’s been able to keep the CTE equipment modernized through donations and strategic allocation of the school’s federal Perkins grant and the state reimbursement for student certifications. In one instance, the school recently bought a $20,000 scanner for its automotive program; the machine can not only help diagnose a car problem, but also connect students to garages throughout the country that have successfully fixed the specified problem.
“It’s an expensive piece of equipment,” Stenroos said, “but it’s industry-certified and will give students real-life experience.”
Each of the three academies has an advisory board of teachers and industry professionals who work out how to embed practical lessons in classroom curriculum. “We ask business people, ‘What do you need, and how can we help our kids get there?’” said Stenroos.
“It’s really cool how receptive the school is to feedback,” said Heather Dobson, the business development manager at Corporate Contractors, Inc., a 200-person general contracting firm.
She explained that the district has incorporated small changes over the years, such as having students work in Microsoft programs instead of Google Classroom apps and teaching them how to write a professional email.
“Rarely is there an idea presented that they don’t embrace,” said Celestino Ruffini, the CEO of Visit Beloit, a nonprofit that promotes tourism of the city. The school is expanding its hospitality program because of the expected influx of jobs connected to the new casino and hotel, he said.
All the changes aren’t at the high school, however. In order to employ Beloit Memorial students, Frito-Lay had to alter its corporate policy of not allowing anyone under 18 to work in its plants, according to Angela Slagle, a supply chain manager there. The company now hires Beloit Memorial students for its career exploration youth apprenticeship program, she added.
The connection to area businesses goes beyond the school’s leaders. Each year, about 10 teachers complete an externship in which they spend one week of their summer at a local business. Teachers are paid $1,000 for the 20 hours, and they not only learn about what jobs a company may have but also find ways to incorporate real-world problems into their classroom lessons.
A few summers back, math teacher Michelle Kelly spent a week at Corporate Contractors. She was searching for different ways to use construction-based math problems with her students. In addition to using math to estimate a bid for a project or calculate the surface area of a job, she realized that complex math is needed to build a truss, the framework used to support a roof or bridge.
Because the triangular truss is supported by different lengths of wood inside its structure, Kelly said, building one requires the calculation of angles, total area, how much wood is needed and more. Since all her algebra students were in the school’s construction academy, she partnered with those teachers to go beyond blueprints and have the 10th graders build trusses, a collection of which sit in the back of her classroom.
A student’s detailed outline for creating a truss in Michelle Kelly’s 10th grade algebra class at Beloit Memorial High School, which is embracing career and technical education. Credit: Wayne D’Orio for The Hechinger Report
She sees this work as one way to help counter the chronic absenteeism that has existed since Covid. Teaching with this kind of hands-on work makes students see the relevance of algebra, she said. “Would it be easier to just have them take a test? Yes.”
Beloit Memorial Principal Emily Pelz said the school’s work is paying off. In the last four years, the school’s four-year graduation rate has ticked up slightly, from 83.4 percent in 2021-22 to 85.2 percent in 2024-25, while its attendance went from 78.5 percent to 84.8 percent in the same period, Pelz said.
Rik Thomas, a rising senior who already has his own business repairing and modifying cars, said this work has definitely made him more interested in school. While he thought the academy would merely explain what a construction career might include, “It’s nice to find out how to do the work.” His father works in construction and, Thomas added, “He loves that I take this program.”
Thomas and his classmates built a wooden shed earlier this year and were able to sell it for $2,500, with the money going to pay for more materials. Likewise, the first smoker created in the welding class was bought by Stenroos; the students are looking forward to posting the second one for sale after they determine how much they should charge.
While the school’s construction and other trade-related fields have drawn the most attention, its three academies also offer career paths in healthcare, education, business, the arts, hospitality and more.
For example, rising senior Tayvon Cates said he hopes to study pre-med at a historically Black college or university on his way to becoming a cardiology radiologist. Cates, who is in the school’s health and education academy, said, “If you want to do something, the school can help you do it.”
The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.
Today’s middle schoolers continue to struggle post-pandemic to read and write at the level needed to successfully navigate more complex academic content in the upper grades and beyond, according to a new report from NWEA, a K-12 assessment and research organization.
Based on NWEA’s research, current 8th graders would need close to a full academic year of additional instruction to catch up to their pre-pandemic peers in reading. This trend was reiterated in recent assessment results from the National Assessment on Educational Progress (NAEP), with only 30 percent of eighth-grade students performing at or above the NAEP proficient level.
While early literacy initiatives have garnered attention in recent years, the fact remains that many students struggle to read and are not prepared for the rigors of middle school. Students quickly find themselves challenged to keep up as they no longer receive explicit, structured reading instruction, even as they are expected to comprehend increasingly complex materials across subjects, like science, history, or English Language Arts.
“Our current middle and high schoolers were just starting their literacy journey when the pandemic hit, and we cannot lessen the urgency to support them. But, middle school literacy is complex even for students who are reading on grade level. This demands intentional, well-funded, and focused policy leadership that includes support across the K-12 spectrum,” said Daughtery. “Simply put, learning to read is not done when a student exits elementary school; support cannot stop there either.”
Policymakers and district leaders must adopt a systems-level approach that supports both early learners and the unique literacy needs of middle and high school students.
The new report provides four components that can be leveraged to make this happen:
Use high-quality, grade-appropriate assessments that provide specific data on the literacy needs of middle schoolers.
Look at flexible scheduling and policies that promote literacy development throughout the entire school day and help districts more effectively use instructional time.
Understand and support the unique literacy needs of middle schoolers across subjects and disciplines from a systems perspective and invest in teacher professional learning in all disciplines, including at the upper grades, within state and district literacy plans.
Curate relationships with external partners, like community organizations and nonprofits, who share similar goals in improving literacy outcomes, and can both support and reinforce literacy development, stretching beyond the school’s hours and resources.
eSchool Media staff cover education technology in all its aspects–from legislation and litigation, to best practices, to lessons learned and new products. First published in March of 1998 as a monthly print and digital newspaper, eSchool Media provides the news and information necessary to help K-20 decision-makers successfully use technology and innovation to transform schools and colleges and achieve their educational goals.
NEW ORLEANS — Kapri Clark used the $50 to help pay for her braces. Lyrik Grant saved half of it, and used the rest for dance classes. Kevin Jackson said he squandered the cash on wings, ride shares for dates and some DJ equipment he later tossed.
For the past five years, Clark, Grant, Jackson and hundreds of high schoolers in New Orleans have shopped — or saved — as part of a project to explore what happens if you give cash directly to young people, no strings attached.
“That was the most helpful thing ever,” said Clark, now a student at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, who said she could still use that extra cash.
“The $50 study,” as it’s known, began at Rooted School, a local charter school, as an experiment to increase attendance. The study has since grown to eight other high schools in the city, as well as Rooted’s sister campus in Indianapolis, with students randomly selected to receive $50 every week for 40 weeks, or $2,000 total. By comparing their spending and savings habits to a larger control group, researchers wanted to figure out whether the money improved a teen’s financial capability and perception of themselves. They also wanted to know: Could the cash boost their grade-point averages and reading scores?
Now, as the experiment expands to Washington, D.C., and perhaps Texas, a final report of the $50 study suggests a little bit of spending cash can make a difference in young people’s lives.
The report, released Tuesday, shows students who received the cash payments were slightly more likely to attend school than those who didn’t. Academic performance did not differ between the groups. But financially, the extra cash helped students acquire stronger long-term planning skills and familiarity with savings accounts and other financial products. They ended the study, on average, with $300 saved away — a 15 percent savings rate, triple the national average for American adults.
“When young people are given the opportunity to manage money in low-stakes environments, they build the habits that shape long-term financial health,” said Stacia West, an associate professor at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and co-founder of the Center for Guaranteed Income Research, which partnered with the Rooted School Foundation to run the study. “The short-term habits we’re seeing are laying the foundation for lifelong financial capability.”
Across the United States and the globe, hundreds of communities have tinkered with some form of universal basic income, or UBI, a social welfare program that provides people with regular cash payments to meet their needs. Direct cash transfer programs like the $50 study or the child tax credit for families are similar, but they often provide smaller amounts and target specific populations to boost a person’s income. Many studies have linked UBI to financial stability and better employment and health outcomes.
In the U.S. and Canada, researchers have found links between cash transfer pilots that focus on low-income families and better test scores and graduation rates for their kids. So far, though, few experiments have targeted young people or examined how the programs influence their lives specifically.
Talia Livneh, senior director of programs at the Rooted School in New Orleans, poses for a portrait on the school grounds. Credit: Daniella Zalcman for The Hechinger Report
“There’s a deep, deep distrust that we adults have of young people,” said Jonathan Johnson, CEO of the Rooted School Foundation, which operates the network’s four charter schools. “That distrust is to their detriment.”
In New Orleans, roughly 4 in 5 of Rooted students come from economically disadvantaged families, and during the pandemic, many struggled to prioritize school. Some students skipped class to provide child care for their working parents, or because they needed to work themselves, according to Johnson. With some seed funding from a local education nonprofit, Rooted started a “micropilot” to test whether cash could help students make ends meet and get themselves to school.
The original cohort included 20 students, half of whom received the $50 payment. In that micropilot, those receiving the cash saw their material wellbeing improve, meaning their family could more easily afford rent or utilities, and they gained skills around setting financial goals. Rooted added students from its Indianapolis campus and another high school in New Orleans, G.W. Carver. And for their final report released this week, researchers sifted through the spending and survey data from 170 students who received the cash payments and 210 students who did not.
The two-year report found students in the treatment group attended 1.23 more days of school, and spent close to half their funds on essentials like food and groceries. The report also noted that 70 percent of all students at the participating schools qualify for subsidized meals, suggesting “this spending may reflect efforts to meet immediate nutritional needs.” One 12th grader in a survey mentioned using the money to feed their siblings.
Kapri Clark recalled waiting every Wednesday morning for the $50 deposit to appear in her banking app. And every Wednesday afternoon, during her senior year at Carver High School, she put that money toward her $200 bill for braces she covered out of pocket.
She braided hair to cover the rest, and still books clients when she has time in between her studies to become a nurse at the Lafayette campus. Even in college, Clark can see the need for some supplemental income for herself and her peers.
“I make enough to take care of myself, but I watch every dollar,” said Clark. “There’s a lot of people struggling in life to eat, to live. Think if they got kids.”
Read Irvin, chief of staff for Collegiate Academies in New Orleans, a network of five charter high schools that includes Carver High, said the $2,000 had provided the extra incentive a few students needed to stick it out until graduation. “That’s incredibly impactful for their life trajectories,” she said.
In January 2024, the city of New Orleans invested $1 million to bankroll another extension of the study, as part of an economic mobility initiative that tapped federal Covid relief funding. During the pandemic, a skyrocketing murder rate and spike in overall crime had convinced the city to help more residents, especially young people, find stability.
“Research shows that people who are economically stable are less likely to commit crime,” said Courtney Wong, the city’s deputy director of economic development.
The city funding not only expanded the $50 study to nine high schools, it also set a longer timeline for the research: About 800 seniors who participate will have their data tracked for 18 months after their graduation.
A former high school teacher and administrator, Wong said $50 could have made a difference in the lives of many of her former students.
“This targets young people in that perfect moment,” she said. “They’re in the right spot where even a little amount of help could have big, positive impacts before issues of crime or unemployment or things like that even come up.”
Researchers also found students who received the $50 reported greater agency. They felt more control over their finances and more confidence about making long-term financial decisions. Students, according to the report, aligned their spending to future goals such as college prep classes and getting a driver’s license.
Lyrik Grant, a rising junior at Carver High School, is the second-youngest of six kids with two working parents. She could ask them for help, but the $50 allowed Grant to afford the tights and tops she needed for dance class on her own. The money helped cover a college entrance exam, which she aced, and Grant wants to learn how to drive soon.
“My first thought was: What am I going to do with all this money?” Grant said, adding that the cash helped some of her classmates find financial stability. “Children don’t always want to spend their parent’s money, and some parents don’t always have money to give them.”
Still, for some students, the money wasn’t exactly life-changing. Irvin of Collegiate Academies said many used the cash to “just be teenagers.”
That was true for Kevin Jackson, a rising junior at Rooted School New Orleans.
“It’s cool to get free money,” he said. “I was spending it on the TikTok shop: posters, keyboards, lights — stuff I liked, not stuff I actually needed.”
Despite the studies that show a positive impact from UBI, many Americans appear skeptical of the idea of a federal program that gives unconditional financial support to people. Aditi Vasan, a pediatrician and researcher at PolicyLab at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, said skeptics often worry about recipients using public dollars for drug use or other illicit behavior, even though the data does not support that.
Still, that fear will likely keep any large-scale cash transfer program from being adopted in the United States any time soon, she said.
“That concern exists certainly for cash transfers in general but might be particularly magnified for teens,” Vasan said. “We’ve not seen that play out in the evidence from the quality studies that have been done.”
Next year, in Washington, D.C., the nonprofit Education Forward will fund a pilot of the $50 study with 40 high schoolers. The Rooted school network resumed talks, meanwhile, to take the study to neighboring Texas, after state lawmakers earlier this year failed to pass legislation that threatened to ban local governments from adopting guaranteed income programs.
Talia Livneh, senior director of programs for the Rooted School Foundation, said the politics may need to catch up to the research.
“I don’t think what we’re doing is so radical. I believe this just works,” she said. “Kids don’t lack character. They lack cash,” Livneh added. “They deserve deep, deep trust that students and people know what’s best for them.”
It’s been four years since Vernell Cheneau III received the $50 for 40 weeks while a student at Rooted in New Orleans, and his economic life isn’t easy. He struggled for months to find part-time work in his hometown. But on a recent summer morning, the same day he finally received a job offer, Cheneau recalled what he learned from the study.
Vernell Cheneau III (left) with two other students who participated in the cash transfer program at Rooted School, in New Orleans. Credit: Courtesy of Rooted School
“You learn that money goes fast, especially if it’s free,” said Cheneau, 22.
As a student, he tried to use the money to build some credit history. Since then, he’s learned the full cost of being an adult in America: health care, fuel and maintenance for his car, getting your hair done before a new job. Cheneau has also spent that time trying to convince friends and family to support UBI.
Most oppose giving “free” money to people, he said. “How much does it cost to feed children? Get to work? We can’t just allow people to drown.”
“Everything costs something,” Cheneau added. “If you’re stuck in a rut, it’s expensive to restart. In this country, it’s expensive to be poor.”
Contact staff writer Neal Morton at 212-678-8247, on Signal at nealmorton.99, or via email at [email protected].
The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.
Students need more support around education paths and career options, including hands-on experiences, according to a new nationwide survey from the nonprofit American Student Assistance.
The survey of more than of 3,000 students in grades 7-12 offers insights into teens’ plans after high school. The research, Next Steps: An Analysis of Teens’ Post-High School Plans, uncovers evolving trends in teenagers’ attitudes, perceptions, and decision-making about their post-high school plans.
“This analysis of teens’ post high school plans reveals shifts in students’ thinking and planning. We need to change the way we help young people navigate the complex and evolving landscape of education and career options,” said Julie Lammers, Executive Vice President of ASA. “Starting in middle school, our young people need early access to opportunities that empowers them to explore careers that match their interests and strengths; hands-on, skills-based experiences in high school; and information and resources to navigate their path to postsecondary education and career. All of this will enable them to graduate informed, confident, and empowered about what they want to do with their futures.”
The survey offers notable findings regarding parental influence on teens’ planning, perceptions of nondegree pathways like trade or technical school, apprenticeships, and certificate programs, and a continued drop-off in kids’ plans to go to college immediately after high school graduation.
Key findings include:
Teens’ interest in college is down while nondegree paths are on the rise. Nearly half of all students said they aren’t interested in going to college, with just 45 percent saying two- or four-year college was their most likely next step. Meanwhile 38 percent of teens said they were considering trade or technical schools, apprenticeships, and technical bootcamp programs, although only 14 percent say that such a path is their most likely next step.
Parents are one of teens’ biggest influencers—and they’re skeptical of nondegree options. A vast majority (82 percent) of teens said their parents agree with their plans to go to four-year college, while only 66 percent said parents supported plans to pursue a nondegree route. In fact, teens reported parents were actually more supportive (70 percent) of foregoing education altogether right after high school vs. pursuing a nondegree program.
A concerning number of young people don’t have plans for further education or training. Nearly one quarter (23 percent) said they have no immediate plans to continue formal education or training upon graduation. Teens not planning to continue education after high school indicated they were thinking of beginning full-time work, entering a family business, starting their own business, or joining the military.
Teens, and especially middle schoolers, are feeling better prepared to plan their futures. In recent years policymakers, educators, employers, and other stakeholders have pushed to make career-connected learning a more prominent feature of our education to workforce system. Survey results say it’s paying off. Agreement with the statement “my school provides me with the right resources to plan for my next steps after high school” grew from just 59 percent in 2018, to 63 percent in 2021, to 82 percent in 2024. Notably, the largest increase occurred at the middle school level, where confidence in in-school planning resources jumped from 60 percent in 2018 to 90 percent in 2024.
Girls are much more likely to plan to attend college than boys. Boys and girls are equally interested in college when they’re in middle school, but by high school, more than half (53 percent) of girls say they’re likely to attend college compared to just 39 percent of boys. The gender gap is smaller when it comes to nondegree pathways: 15 percent of high school boys say they will likely attend vocational/trade school, participate in an apprenticeship, or take a certificate program, compared to 10 percent of high school girls.
City kids aren’t as “into” college. Urban teens were least likely (39 percent) to say they plan to go to college. Suburban teens are much more likely to plan to attend a college program (64 percent) while 46 percent of rural students planned on college.
Students of color are college bound. More than half (54 percent) of Black teens and 51 percent of Hispanic youth are planning to go to college, compared to 42 percent of White teens.
eSchool Media staff cover education technology in all its aspects–from legislation and litigation, to best practices, to lessons learned and new products. First published in March of 1998 as a monthly print and digital newspaper, eSchool Media provides the news and information necessary to help K-20 decision-makers successfully use technology and innovation to transform schools and colleges and achieve their educational goals.
DES MOINES, Iowa — Macon Smith stood in front of a nearly empty classroom 1,000 miles from home. He asked his opponent and the two judges in the room if they were ready to start, then he set a six-minute timer and took a deep breath.
“When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty,” he began.
In front of Macon, a 17-year-old high school junior, was a daunting task: to outline and defend the argument that violent revolution is a just response to political oppression.
In a few hours, Macon would stand in another classroom with new judges and a different opponent. He would break apart his entire argument and undo everything he had just said.
“An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind,” Macon started.
It doesn’t really matter what opinion Macon holds on violence or political oppression. In this moment in front of the judges, he believes what he’s saying. His job is to get the judges to believe with him.
Macon was one of more than 7,000 middle and high school students to compete in the National Speech and Debate Tournament this summer in Iowa, run by an organization that is celebrating a century in existence.
In that time, the National Speech and Debate Association has persevered through economic and social upheaval. It is entering its next era, one in which the very notion of engaging in informed and respectful debate seems impossible. The organizers of this event see the activity as even more important in a fracturing society.
“I don’t think there’s an activity in the world that develops empathy and listening skills like speech and debate,” said Scott Wunn, the organization’s president. “We’re continuing to create better citizens.”
Macon Smith, a rising senior from Bob Jones Academy in South Carolina, competes in the third round of the Lincoln-Douglas Debate at the National Speech and Debate Tournament in Iowa this summer. Credit: Meenakshi Van Zee for The Hechinger Report
Though the tournament is held in different cities around the country, for the 100th anniversary, the organizers chose to host it in Des Moines, where the association’s headquarters is based.
Preparing for this competition was a year in the making for Macon, who will be a senior at Bob Jones Academy, a Christian school in Greenville, South Carolina, this fall. Students here compete in more than two dozen categories, such as Original Oratory, in which they write and recite their own 10-minute speeches, or Big Questions, where they attempt to argue broad, philosophical ideas.
Macon’s specialty, the Lincoln-Douglas Debate, is modeled after a series of public, three-hour debates between Abraham Lincoln and Sen. Stephen Douglas in 1858. In this event, two students have just 40 minutes to set up their arguments, cross-examine each other and sway the judges.
“Even if I don’t personally believe it, I can still look at the facts and determine, OK, this is a good fact, or it’s true, and argue for that side,” Macon said.
Debaters often have to tackle topics that are difficult, controversial and timely: Students in 1927 debated whether there was a need for a federal Department of Education. In 1987, they argued about mandatory AIDS testing. In 2004, they debated whether the United States was losing the war on terror. This year, in the Public Forum division, students debated whether the benefits of presidential executive orders outweigh the harms.
While the speech and debate students practiced for their national event, adults running the country screamed over each other during a congressional hearing on state sanctuary policies. A senator was thrown to the floor and handcuffed during a press conference on sending the National Guard to immigration enforcement protests in Los Angeles. Most Americans feel political discourse is moving in the wrong direction — both conservatives and progressives say talking politics with someone they disagree with has become increasingly stressful and frustrating.
Speech and debate club, though, is different.
“First of all, it gives a kid a place to speak out and have a voice,” said Gail Nicholas, who for 40 years has coached speech and debate at Bob Jones Academy alongside her husband, Chuck Nicholas, who is Macon’s coach. “But then also learn to talk to other people civilly, and I think that’s not what’s being modeled out there in the real world right now.”
Macon Smith, a rising senior from Bob Jones Academy in South Carolina, shows off the notes that he took during debates at the National Speech and Debate Tournament in Iowa. Credit: Meenakshi Van Zee for The Hechinger Report
On the second day of the competition in a school cafeteria in West Des Moines, Macon was anxiously refreshing the webpage that would show the results of his rounds to learn whether he would advance to semifinals.
For most of the school year, Macon spent two days a week practicing after school, researching and writing out his arguments. Like many competitors, he has found that it’s easy to make snap judgments when you don’t know much about an issue. Decisively defending that view, to yourself and to others, is much harder.
“I tend to go in with an opinion and lose my opinion as the topic goes on,” said Daphne DiFrancesco, a rising senior from Cary Academy in Cary, North Carolina.
Traveling for regional events throughout the school year means Macon has become friends with students who don’t always share his conservative views. He knows this because in debate, discussing politics and religion is almost unavoidable.
“It doesn’t make me uncomfortable at all,” Macon said. “You don’t want to burn down a bridge before you make it with other people. If you stop your connection with a person right at their political beliefs, you’re already cutting off half of the country. That’s not a good way to conduct yourself.”
Macon, and other students in the clubs, said participating has made them think more deeply about their own beliefs. Last year, Macon debated a bill that would defund Immigration and Customs Enforcement, an agency he supports. After listening to other students, he developed a more nuanced view of the organization.
“When you look at the principle of enforcing illegal immigration, that can still be upheld, but the agency that does so itself is flawed,” he said.
Henry Dieringer, a senior from L.C. Anderson High School in Austin, Texas, went into one competition thinking he would argue in favor of a bill that would provide work permits for immigrants, which he agrees with. Further research led him to oppose the idea of creating a federal database on immigrants.
“It made me think more about the way that public policy is so much more nuanced than what we believe,” Henry said.
On the afternoon of the second day of the national tournament, Macon learned he didn’t advance to the next round. What’s sad, he said, is he probably won’t have to think this hard about the justness of violent revolution ever again.
“There’s always next year,” Macon said.
Callista Martin, 16, a rising senior from Bainbridge High School in Washington state, also didn’t make the semifinals. Callista and Macon met online this year through speech and debate so they could scrimmage with someone they hadn’t practiced with before. It gave them the chance to debate someone with differing political views and argument styles.
Macon Smith, a rising senior from Bob Jones Academy in South Carolina, takes notes during a round of the Lincoln-Douglas Debate at the National Speech and Debate Tournament in Iowa. Credit: Meenakshi Van Zee for The Hechinger Report
“In the rounds, I’m an entirely different person. I’m pretty aggressive, my voice turns kind of mean,” Callista said. “But outside of the rounds, I always make sure to say hi to them before and after and say things I liked about their case, ask them about their school.”
Talking to her peers outside of rounds is perhaps the most important part of being in the club, Callista said. This summer, she will travel to meet with some of her closest friends, people she met at debate camps and tournaments in Washington.
Since Callista fell in love with speech and debate as a freshman, she has devoted herself to keeping it alive at her school. No teacher has volunteered to be a coach for the debate club, so the 16-year-old is coaching both her classmates and herself.
A lack of coaches is a common problem. Just under 3,800 public and private high schools and middle schools were members of the National Speech and Debate Association at the end of this past school year, just a fraction of the tens of thousands of secondary schools in the country. The organization would like to double its membership in the next five years.
That would mean recruiting more teachers to lead clubs, but neither educators nor schools are lining up to take on the responsibility, said David Yastremski, an English teacher at Ridge High School in New Jersey who has coached teams for about 30 years.
It’s a major time commitment for teachers to dedicate their evenings and weekends to the events with little supplemental pay or recognition. Also, it may seem like a risk to some teachers at a time when states such as Virginia and Louisiana have banned teachers from talking about what some call “divisive concepts,” to oversee a school activity where engaging with controversial topics is the point.
“I primarily teach and coach in a space where kids can still have those conversations,” Yastremski said. “I fear that in other parts of the country, that’s not the case.”
Dennis Philbert, a coach from Central High School in Newark, New Jersey, who had two students become finalists in the tournament’s Dramatic Interpretation category, said he fears for his profession because of the scrutiny educators are under. It takes the fun out of teaching, he said, but this club can reignite that passion.
“All of my assistant coaches are former members of my team,” Philbert said. “They love this activity [so much] that they came back to help younger students … to show that this is an activity that is needed.”
On the other side of Des Moines, Gagnado Diedhiou was competing in the Congressional Debate, a division of the tournament that mimics Congress and requires students to argue for or against bills modeled after current events. During one round, Gagnado spoke in favor of a bill to shift the country to use more nuclear energy, for a bill that would grant Puerto Rico statehood, and against legislation requiring hospitals to publicly post prices.
Gagnado Diedhiou, a senior from Eastside High School in South Carolina, competing in the first round of the Congressional Debate at the National Speech and Debate Tournament in Iowa in June. Credit: Meenakshi Van Zee for The Hechinger Report
Just like in Congress, boys outnumbered girls in this classroom. Gagnado was the only Black teenager and the only student wearing a hijab. The senior, who just graduated from Eastside High School in Greenville, South Carolina, is accustomed to being in rooms where nobody looks like her — it’s part of the reason she joined Equality in Forensics, a national student-led debate organization that provides free resources to schools and students across the country.
“It kind of makes you have to walk on eggshells a little bit. Especially because when you’re the only person in that room who looks like you, it makes you a lot more obvious to the judges,” said Gagnado, who won regional Student of the Year for speech and debate in her South Carolina district this year. “You stand out, and not always in a good way.”
Camille Fernandez, a rising junior at West Broward High School in Florida, said the competitions she has participated in have been dominated by male students. One opponent called her a vulgar and sexist slur after their round was over. Camille is a member of a student-led group — called Outreach Debate — trying to bridge inequities in the clubs.
“A lot of people think that debate should stay the same way that it’s always been, where it’s kind of just — and this is my personal bias — a lot of white men winning,” Camille said. “A lot of people think that should be changed, me included.”
Despite the challenges, Gagnado said her time in debate club has made her realize she could have an influence in the world.
“With my three-minute speech, I can convince a whole chamber, I can convince a judge to vote for this bill. I can advocate and make a difference with some legislation,” said Gagnado, who is bound for Yale.
About 10,000 people attended the National Speech and Debate Tournament in Iowa this June during the organization’s centennial anniversary. Credit: Meenakshi Van Zee for The Hechinger Report
A day before the national tournament’s concluding ceremony, a 22-year-old attendee rushed the stage at the Iowa Event Center in Des Moines during the final round of the Humorous Interpretation speech competition, scaring everyone in the audience. After he bent down to open his backpack, 3,000 people in the auditorium fled for the exits. The man was later charged with possession of a controlled substance and disorderly conduct. For a brief moment, it seemed like the angry discourse and extreme politics from outside of the competition had become a part of it.
In response, the speech and debate organization shifted the time of some events, limited entrances into the building and brought in metal detectors, police officers and counselors. Some students, Gagnado among them, chose not to return to the event.
Still, thousands of attendees stayed until the end to celebrate the national champions. During the awards ceremony, where therapy dogs roamed the grounds, Angad Singh, a student from Bellarmine College Preparatory in California competing in Original Oratory, took the national prize for his speech on his Sikh identity and the phrase “thoughts and prayers” commonly repeated by American leaders after a tragedy, titled “Living on a Prayer.”
“I’ve prayed for change,” Singh told the audience. “Then I joined speech and debate to use my voice and fight for it.”
The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.
ELKHART, Ind. — Ever since Ty Zartman was little, people told him he had to go to college to be successful. “It was engraved on my brain,” he said.
But despite earning straight A’s, qualifying for the National Honor Society, being voted prom king and playing on the high school football and baseball teams, the teen never relished the idea of spending another four years in school. So in fall 2023 he signed up through his Elkhart, Indiana, high school for an apprenticeship at Hoosier Crane Service Company, eager to explore other paths. There, he was excited to meet coworkers who didn’t have a four-year degree but earned good money and were happy in their careers.
Through the youth apprenticeship, Ty started his day at the crane manufacturing and repair business at 6:30 a.m., working in customer service and taking safety and training courses while earning $13 an hour. Then, he spent the afternoon at his school, Jimtown High, in Advanced Placement English and U.S. government classes.
In June, the 18-year-old started full-time at Hoosier Crane as a field technician.
“College is important and I’m not dissing on that,” Ty said. “But it’s not necessarily something that you need.”
Elkhart County is at the forefront of a movement slowly spreading across Indiana and the nation to make apprenticeships a common offering in high school.
In 2019, as part of a plan to boost the region’s economic prospects, county leaders launched an effort to place high schoolers in apprenticeships that combine work-based training with classroom instruction. About 80 students from the county’s seven school districts participated this academic year, in fields such as health care, law, manufacturing, education and engineering. In April, as part of a broader push to revamp high school education and add more work-based learning, the state set a goal of 50,000 high school apprentices by 2034.
Tim Pletcher, the principal of Jimtown High, said students are often drawn first to the chance to spend less time in class. But his students quickly realize apprenticeships give them work-based learning credits and industry connections that help them after graduation. They also earn a paycheck. “It’s really causing us to have a paradigm shift in how we look at getting kids ready for the next step,” he said.
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This “earn and learn” model is taking hold in part because of deepening disillusionment with four-year college, and the fact that well-paying jobs that don’t require bachelor’s degrees are going unfilled nationally. The past three presidential administrations invested in expanding apprenticeships, including those for high schoolers, and in April, President Donald Trump signed an executive order calling for 1 million new apprentices. In a recent poll, more than 80 percent of people said they supported expanding partnerships between schools and businesses to provide work-based learning experiences for students.
Yet in the United States, the number of so-called youth apprenticeships for high schoolers is still “infinitesimally small,” said Vinz Koller, a vice president at nonprofit group Jobs for the Future. One estimate suggests they number about 20,000 nationally, while there are some 17 million high school students.By contrast, in Switzerland — which has been praised widely for its apprenticeship model, including by U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon — 70 percent of high schoolers participate. Indiana is among several states, including Colorado, South Carolina and Washington, that have embraced the model and sent delegations to Switzerland to learn more.
Elkhart, Indiana, known as the “RV capital of the world,” saw widespread unemployment during the Great Recession. That led community leaders to focus on apprenticeships as a way to diversify their economy. Credit: Camilla Forte/The Hechinger Report
Experts including Ursula Renold, professor of education systems at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich, note that importing the model to the United States at a large scale won’t be simple. Most businesses aren’t accustomed to employing apprentices, parents can be resistant to their students trading four-year college aspirations for work, and public transportation to take students to apprenticeships is limited, especially in rural areas. Many high schoolers don’t have a driver’s license, access to a car or money for gas. School districts already face a shortage of bus drivers that makes transporting students to apprenticeships difficult or impossible.
Still, Renold, who is known as the “grande dame of apprenticeships,” said Indiana’s commitment to apprenticeships at the highest levels of state government, as well as the funding the state has invested in work-based learning, at least $67 million, seem to be setting the state up for success, though it could take a decade to see results.
“If I had to make a bet,” said Renold, “I would say it’s Indiana who will lead the way.”
Elkhart County’s experiment with apprenticeships has its roots in the Great Recession. Recreational vehicle manufacturing dominates the local economy, and demand for the vehicles plummeted, contributing to a regional unemployment rate at that time of nearly 20 percent. Soon after, community leaders began discussing how to better insulate themselves from future economic instability, eventually focusing on high school education as a way to diversify industries and keep up with automation, said Brian Wiebe, who in 2012 founded local nonprofit Horizon Education Alliance, or HEA, to help lead that work.
Elkhart County, Indiana, was the first community in Indiana to encourage businesses to employ high school students as apprentices, where they can earn work-based learning credits and make industry connections that help them, even if they decide to go on to college. Credit: Camilla Forte/The Hechinger Report
That year, Wiebe and two dozen local and state political, business, nonprofit and education leaders visited Switzerland and Germany to learn more about the apprenticeship model. “We realized in the U.S., there was only a Plan A, a path to college,” he recalled. “We were not supporting the rest of our young people because there was no Plan B.”
HEA partnered with Elkhart County school districts and businesses, as well as with CareerWise, a youth apprenticeship nonprofit that works nationally. They began rolling out apprenticeships in 2019, eventually settling on a goal of increasing participation by 20 percent each year.
In 2021, Katie Jenner, the new secretary of education for Indiana, learned about Elkhart’s apprenticeships as she was trying to revamp high school education in the state so it better prepared students for the workforce. Elkhart, as well as six other apprenticeship pilot sites funded by Indianapolis-based philanthropy the Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation, provided a proof of concept for the apprenticeship model, said Jenner.
In December, the state adopted a new diploma system that includes an emphasis on experiential and work-based learning, through apprenticeships, internships and summer jobs.
On a weekday this winter, 17 sophomores at Elkhart’s Concord High School were sitting at computers, creating resumes they planned to use to apply for apprenticeships. The students were among some 50 sophomores at the high school who’d expressed interest in apprenticing and met the school’s attendance and minimum 2.5 GPA requirements, out of a class of roughly 400. They would receive coaching and participate in mock interviews before meeting with employers.
Becca Roberts, a former English teacher who now oversees the high school’s college and career programs, said apprenticeships help convince students of the importance of habits like punctuality, clear communication and regular attendance. “It’s not from a book,” she said. “They’re dealing with real life.”
Becca Roberts, who oversees college and career programs at Concord High School in Indiana, helps students research different companies offering apprenticeships, including job descriptions, work schedules and commuting distances. Credit: Camilla Forte/The Hechinger Report
One student, Ava Cripe, said she hoped for an apprenticeship of some sort in the health care field. She’d only been a pet sitter and was nervous at the thought of having a professional job. “You’re actually going out and working for someone else, like not for your parents or your grandma, so it’s a little scary,” she said.
CareerWise Elkhart has recently beefed up its support for students and businesses participating in apprenticeships. It employs a business partnership manager and customer success managers who help smooth over issues that arise in the workplace — an apprentice who isn’t taking initiative, for example, or an apprenticeship that isn’t sufficiently challenging. “Before, if an issue came up, a business would just fire a student or a student would leave,” said Sarah Koontz, director of CareerWise Elkhart County. “We’re now more proactive.”
In Elkhart and across the state, the embrace of work-based learning has worried some parents who fear it will limit, not expand, their children’s opportunities. In previous generations, career and technical programs (then known as vocational education) were often used to route low-income and Black and Hispanic students away from college and into relatively low-paying career paths.
Anitra Zartman, Ty’s mother, said she and her husband were initially worried when their son said he wanted to go straight to work. They both graduated from college, and her husband holds a master’s degree. “We were like, ‘Don’t waste your talent. You’re smart, go to college.’” But she says they came around after seeing how the work experience influenced him. “His maturity has definitely changed. I think it’s because he has a responsibility that he takes very seriously,” she said. “He doesn’t want to let people down.”
Her eldest daughter, Senica Zartman, also apprenticed during her final two years of high school, as a teacher’s assistant. She is now in college studying education. “The apprenticeship solidified her choice,” Anitra Zartman said, and it helped her decide to work with elementary students. Anitra Zartman said she would encourage her two youngest children to participate in apprenticeships too.
Ty Zartman works from 6 a.m. to noon at his apprenticeship at Hoosier Crane Service Company before he goes to school for afternoon classes. Credit: Camilla Forte/The Hechinger Report
Sarah Metzler, CEO of the nonprofit HEA, said apprenticeships differ from the vocational education of the past that tended only to prepare students for relatively low paid, entry-level jobs. With apprenticeships, she said, students must continually learn new skills and earn new licenses and industry certifications as part of the program.
Litzy Henriquez Monchez, 17, apprentices in human resources at a company of 50 people, earning $13.50 an hour. “I deal with payroll, I onboard new employees, I do a lot of translating. Anything that has to do with any of the employees, I deal with,” she said. She’s also earning an industry-recognized certification for her knowledge of a human resources management system, and says the company has offered to pay for her college tuition if she continues in the position.
Koontz said most companies pay for their apprentices to attend Ivy Tech, a statewide community college system, if they continue to work there. One is even paying for their apprentice’s four-year degree, she said.
Attracting employers has proven to be the biggest challenge to expanding youth apprenticeships — in Elkhart and beyond. In total, 20 companies worked with the Elkhart school districts last year, and 28 have signed on for this coming school year — only enough to employ about a third of interested students.
The obstacles, employers say, include the expense of apprentices’ salaries, training and other costs.
Metzler and others, though, point to studies showingbenefits for employers, including cost savings over time and improved employee loyalty. And in Indiana, the Fairbanks foundation and other organizations are working on ways to reduce employer costs, including by developing a standard curriculum for apprenticeships in industries like health care and banking so individual companies don’t bear the costs alone.
Business leaders who do sign on say they are happy with the experience. Todd Cook, the CEO of Hoosier Crane Service Company, employs 10 high schoolers, including Ty Zartman, as engineering and industrial maintenance technician apprentices, approximately 10 percent of his staff. He said the pipeline created by the apprenticeship program has helped reduce recruiting costs.
“We’re starting to build our own farm system of talent,” he said. Students initially earn $13 an hour, and finish their apprenticeship earning $18. If they continue with the company, he said, they can earn up to $50 an hour after about five years. And if they go on to become trainers or mentors, Cook said, “Honestly, there is no ceiling.”
Transportation has been a limiting factor too. There’s no public transit system, and students who can’t rely on their parents for rides are often out of luck. “We’d love to offer a bus to every kid, to every location, but we don’t have people to run those extra bus routes,” said Principal Pletcher.
The state has tried to help by investing $10 million to help students pay for costs such as transportation, equipment and certifications. Each school that provides work-based learning opportunities also receives an additional $500 per student.
Indiana has a goal to employ 50,000 high school students as apprentices by 2034. State leaders in business, education, government and nonprofits are working closely with Swiss experts to adopt a youth apprenticeship program similar to the one in that country. Credit: Camilla Forte/The Hechinger Report
Trump’s executive order called for the secretaries of education, labor and commerce to develop a plan by late August for adding 1 million new apprenticeships. The order does not set a date for reaching that milestone, and it applies to apprentices of all ages, not just high schoolers. Vinz Koller of Jobs for the Future said the goal is modest, and achievable; the number of youth apprenticeships has doubled just in the past few years, he said, and California alone has a goal of reaching 500,000 apprenticeships, across all ages, by 2029.
Still, the order did not include additional funding for apprenticeships, and the Trump administration’s proposed budget includes major cuts to workforce development training. In an email, a White House spokesperson said the administration had promoted apprenticeships through outreach programs but did not provide additional information including on whether that outreach had a focus on youth apprenticeships.
Back in Elkhart, Ty Zartman, the Hoosier Crane apprentice, has begun his technician job with the company after graduating in early June. He is earning $19 an hour. He is also taking a class at the local community college on electrical work and recently received a certificate of completion from the Department of Labor for completing 2,000 hours of his apprenticeship.
Anitra Zartman said she wishes he’d attended more school events like pep rallies, and sometimes worried he wasn’t “being a kid.” But Ty said his supervisor is “super flexible” and he was able to go to the winter formal and prom. “I think I still live a kid life,” he said. “I do a lot of fun things.”
Of his job, he said, “I love it so much.”
Contact editor Caroline Preston at 212-870-8965, via Signal at CarolineP.83 or on email at [email protected].
The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.
NEW YORK — The fish, glassy-eyedand inert, had been dead for decades. Yet its belly held possible clues to an environmental crisis unfolding in real time.
Forceps in hand, Mia Fricano, a high school junior, was about to investigate. She turned over the fish, a bluegill, and slid in a blade, before extracting its gastrointestinal tract. Then, she carried the fish innards to a beaker filled with a solution that would dissolve the biological material, revealing if there were any tiny particles of plastic — known as microplastics — inside.
Mia and two other high schoolers working alongside her in a lab this spring were part of a program at the American Museum of Natural History designed to give young people hands-on experience in professional science. Called the Science Research Mentoring Program, or SRMP (pronounced “shrimp”), the program enrolls roughly 60 high school juniors and seniors each year who collaborate with scientists on a research project.
Mia and her peers were matched with Ryan Thoni, an ichthyologist and curatorial associate in the museum’s division of vertebrate zoology. Thoni’s project to gather information on when and how microplastics began to enter the environment relied on the museum’s vast collection of fish specimens dating from more than a century ago — some 3.2 million in total.
Concern about the tiny pieces of plastic debris has grown in the last few years, along with early-stage research on the health risks they pose. The particles are found in human blood, breast milk and even the brain — and in animals, including, as it turned out, nearly all the fish in Thoni’s lab.
“It was kind of shocking to see just how many we did find,” Mia said later. “We weren’t expecting to find more than two to three per fish but in some fish, we would find over 15.” Specimens from the 1970s or earlierwere less likely to contain high levels of microplastic, more than three or so pieces, and fish near urban centers seemed to have more of the plastics, on average, than fish from less populated areas.
“It really does make you realize just how much the environment has been affected,” said Mia. “There hasn’t been a lot of research on it yet,” she added. “Our project might be able to help future people who are also doing research on microplastics.”
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SRMP, started in 2009, is operating at a time when the federal government is eliminating fellowships and other support for early career scientists, and defunding scientific research broadly. That both amplifies the need for, and complicates the work of, programs like this one, said Amanda Townley, executive director of the nonprofit National Center for Science Education. Over the last 15 years in particular, such programs have played a big role in giving students a chance to do the kind of applied science that is rarely available in K-12 classrooms because of money and time constraints, she said.
“Museums, university extensions, sometimes libraries, have really done this tremendous job of creating spaces for high school and younger students to engage with scientists doing science,” said Townley. “Those museums, libraries and universities are all under attack.” She added: “We’re going to see a generational impact.”
While the American Museum of Natural History has received some federal government funding, the SRMP program’s money comes from private foundations and individual donors, with additional support from the New York City Council. Students in SRMP participate in a summer institute in August, when they learn basics like how to investigate research questions. Then they spend two afternoons a week during the school year on their projects.
Each student receives a stipend, $2,500 over the course of the year. “It’s really important for high school students to know their time is valuable,” said Maria Strangas, the museum’s assistant director of science research experiences. “They are doing something here that is really useful for the researchers; it’s an education program, but they aren’t the only ones who are benefiting.”
Students from New York City schools that partner with the museum can apply, as well as those who have participated in programs with the museum in the past. SRMP has also spawned a network of about 30 similar programs across the city, with institutions including Brooklyn College, Bronx River Alliance and many others participating.
In the lab on the sixthfloor of the museum, Mia, who attends the New York City Museum School, cleaned out a beaker, while Yuki Chen, a senior at Central Park East High School, sat at a metal table, dissecting a pike. Thoni inserted a slide containing material harvested from one of the fish under a microscope, and pointed out a few microplastics, which looked like threads.
Ryan Thoni of the American Museum of Natural History, right, with high schoolers Mia Fricano (center) and Freyalise Matasar. Credit: Caroline Preston/The Hechinger Report
Freyalise Matasar, a junior at the Ethical Culture Fieldston School in the Bronx, plucked a white sucker fish from a jar. She said SRMP had altered her career trajectory. Before the program, she was considering studying journalism in college, but her experience this year persuaded her to focus on engineering and data science instead.
“I have totally fallen in love with science,” she said. “It’s been an amazing experience to see what professional science looks like — and more than just see it, to be a part of it.”
Freyalise said she wanted to build those skills in order to help fight climate change, perhaps by working on weather models to predict climate risks and ideally spur people to action. “It’s the biggest problem faced by our generation. It’s inescapable and unignorable, no matter how much people try,” she said. “It’s everyone’s responsibility to do what they can to fight it.”
Microplastics contribute to climate change in several ways, including by potentially disrupting oceans’ ability to sequester carbon and by directly emitting greenhouse gases.
Interest in climate science among young people is growing, even as the federal government tries to zero out funding for it. Other climate-related topics SRMP students explored this year included the climate on exoplanets, the ecology of sea anemones and aquatic wildlife conservation in New York City.
Sometimes the fish dissections were gross: Mia, who plans to study biology and machine learning in college, sliced into one large fish to find poorly preserved, rotten innards — and a major stink. Sometimes they provided a lesson beyond pollution: Yuki identified a small pickerel inside a larger one. (Pickerels prey even on members of their own species, the students learned.)
The scientists in the program, most of whom are postdoctoral fellows, are trained on how to be effective mentors. “Scientists are often not trained in mentorship; it’s something that people pick up organically seeing good or bad examples in their own lives,” said Strangas. “A lot of it comes down to: ‘Think about the impact you want to have, think about the impact you don’t want to have, think about the power dynamic at play, and what this student in front of you wants to get out of it.’”
Thoni earned rave reviews from the students, who said he ensured they understood each step of the research process without being patronizing.
Thoni’s next steps include working to publish the microplastics research, which could earn the students their first co-authorship in a scientific journal. “Aside from forgetting to put on gloves,” he said in a playful jab at one student, “they can operate this machine on their own. They do science.”
Contact editor Caroline Preston at 212-870-8965, via Signal at CarolineP.83 or on email at [email protected].
This story about science careers was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter on climate and education.
The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.
Tired of talking about AI? That’s too bad. The technology remains the most impactful force in education. The challenge becomes avoiding all the Claptrap. Thankfully, that’s where Denise Pope, Co-Founder of Challenge Success at the Stanford Graduate School of Education, comes in.
I had the chance to explore the current AI state-of-play from her perspective. One striking disparity I haven’t heard talked about: While AI usage among students has skyrocketed—from 25% to 60% at the middle school level and 45% to 75% at the high school level over just two school years—only 32% of teachers report using AI for academic purposes.
This gap has created what Denise describes as an educational “La La Land,” where students are experimenting with AI tools while many schools lack clear policies or guidance. The absence of structured approaches is breeding anxiety among both educators and students, who are left wondering when and how AI should appropriately be used in academic settings.
Click through to hear how Denise believes this issue can be addressed:
Kevin is a forward-thinking media executive with more than 25 years of experience building brands and audiences online, in print, and face to face. He is an acclaimed writer, editor, and commentator covering the intersection of society and technology, especially education technology. You can reach Kevin at [email protected]
