High school Students Receive Academics and Workforce Training

The Construction Workshop at Gulfport High School

Some Mississippi students are being given the opportunity to design their own education based on what they would like to do when they grow up. MPB’s Phoebe Judge reports.

Three years ago the Mississippi Department of Education implemented a new redesign program for the state’s education system in an attempt to address a growing dropout problem and substandard test scores. That redesign program has a number of different components, but the biggest is the requirement that students choose one of seven career pathways as high school freshmen, such as business or construction and manufacturing. Building trade teacher JD Carr is standing in the construction workshop at Gulfport High School, which is one of 39 school districts taking part in the redesign program.

“This is workforce development; this is what gets young people into the construction industry and that is what our program is all about.”

Mike Mulvihill is the associate superintendent for vocational education and workforce development with the Department of Education,

“A lot of research shows that students drop out because they are not engaged, they don’t see the relevance So we are trying to make this a deeper set of curriculum, to make it more involved and add more relevance to what the students are actually learning.”

Only 17% of Mississippi’s population has a college degree and Mulvihill says this new system allows students who may not decide to go to college after high school graduation the opportunity to learn real world skills that they can take straight to the workforce. Last week Governor Barbour said that putting all students on a path for universities is setting some up for failure, and that more emphasis should be placed on skills training. But that logic worries Nancy Loome, director of education advocacy group Parents’ Campaign,

“The suggestion that we need to stop encouraging all kids to prepare for college is a dangerous one. Our circumstances change and we need to educate students at a level that will allow them to adapt.”

All students who graduate from schools enrolled in the redesign program receive the same diploma and are held to the same level of academic standards says the Department of Education.