Fantastic cover story on P-Tech high schools by Rana Foroohar in the latest edition of Time magazine. P-Tech high schools are six-year programs in which graduates earn both a high school diploma and an associate’s degree. Thanks to industrial partnerships, they also graduate with a guaranteed job paying $40,000 or more (something only one in five 27 year olds, let alone 20 year olds, have today). Here’s the opening:
Sarah E. Goode is the name of one of the first African-American women ever to be granted a U.S. patent, in 1885, for a foldout bed that converted into a desk–a prescient object that would fit right into a modern-day Ikea catalog. It’s also the name of a new high school on Chicago’s South Side that is redefining what it means to be educated in the 21st century.
Kids at the school, which launched a year and a half ago, aren’t called students but “innovators.” They receive a hardcore focus on STEM skills (that’s science, technology, engineering and math). And they take six years to graduate instead of the traditional four; the extra two years means they walk away with an associate’s degree on top of their high school diploma.
There’s one more thing they take with them: a job. Every student at Sarah E. Goode STEM Academy graduates with a promise of a $40,000-plus opportunity at IBM, the school’s corporate partner and a key developer of the curriculum.
Subscribe or log-in to read the whole thing. (Incidentally, I discuss the importance of middle-skill jobs in Chapter 11 of Preparing Your Teens for College.)
HT: Janet Haugen