In another attempt to address the rising cost of education – and also offer access to education for those of all income levels – a high school in Brooklyn is changing how students are prepared for life after high school.
The school, Pathways in Technology (P-Tech), is changing how students get secondary education. The 6-year school gives graduates both a high school diploma and a two-year associate’s degree. Also, with the backing of IBM, students are guaranteed an internship while in school and a job when they graduate.
According to Time magazine, the school is giving its students a step up when entering the working world. While schools such as P-Tech are not available everywhere yet, its very existence shows the importance of attaining a secondary education.
As the Time report noted, there will be 14 million new jobs created across the nation in the next decade, but only for people who have at least a two-year degree.
“An old-fashioned high school diploma is increasingly worthless in the new economy,” the Time report stated.
The Time reported noted that there has been no real leap forward on how to provide a secondary education since the time after World War II when the government made high school education mandatory. The reason? The world was becoming more industrialized, and the nation needed a better trained workforce to handle complex new jobs.
Now, many leaders in both government and private industry believe the country has reached another important point in history, in which the workforce needs to be better trained to take on jobs in fields that require skills with technology.
That can range from people working in Information Technology departments to those operating complex medical equipment in a hospital.
Some call for more cooperation between private enterprise and educators. In the case of P-Tech, a deal was struck by which IBM gives an internship to every P-Tech student and, upon graduation, will get them a job.
IBM executive Stanley Litow, who set up the program, said when it comes to high school, “Six should be the new four,” according to Time.
P-Tech founding principal Rashid Ferrod Davis told Time that the school hopes to launch a wave of such institutions. “It’s bigger than just the one P-Tech,” he said, adding he sees the school as “this little sign of hope where we can actually do something different.”
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