Carrollton, Ky.
At this small, rural school in Northern Kentucky, five women are trying to lift the arc of young people鈥檚 lives with the wonkiest of weapons: labor-market data.
The staff of the iLEAD Academy knows which jobs are in demand statewide and in the five-county region their students call home and which ones will still be hot a decade from now. They鈥檝e bookmarked the websites that list the salaries of those jobs for each tier of certification or degree earned. And they鈥檙e talking about this stuff with students. All the time.
As a result, most of the teenagers here understand the nuts and bolts of the regional job market. They know which communities are clamoring for registered nurses and which ones want licensed practical nurses. They can tell you how much they鈥檒l make as an entry-level robotics technician and whether the pay differential between an associate degree and a bachelor鈥檚 degree in that field justifies a four-year-college investment.
That kind of knowledge marks iLEAD and its students as a rarity. Policymakers are putting increasing pressure on schools to prepare students for the world of work, but few teachers or administrators know how to find鈥攁nd use鈥攍abor-market information that could help them shape their programs and the way they guide students.
Nationally, counselors handle the lion鈥檚 share of career planning, but few are trained to incorporate workforce trends into their advising. And their caseloads are so heavy that they typically lack the time to dive deeply into career planning with students. That leaves young people in a vulnerable place as the national economy shifts.
鈥淗igh schools run the risk of building a bridge to nowhere鈥� for students if they advise them about careers without important nuances grounded in data, said Anthony P. Carnevale, who studies labor-market trends as the director of the Georgetown Center on Education and the Workforce.
A Changing Picture
For many years, schools have urged all students to earn bachelor鈥檚 degrees because, overall, they carry higher lifetime earnings. But economic changes鈥攁nd the cost of college鈥攈ave made that picture more complex.
Young workers in some occupations can anticipate higher earnings with an industry credential or associate degree than they can with a bachelor鈥檚, Carnevale鈥檚 research has shown. Coupled with projections about which jobs will be in demand in the coming years, that kind of information is crucial for students as they imagine their futures, he said.
The iLEAD program opened three years ago to help teenagers answer those questions. The leaders of five school districts here, near the Indiana state line, wanted to provide better career preparation than any of them could offer individually and to do it with a keen eye for what their local employers needed.
The superintendents began with workforce data. They saw that half the jobs in their region required less than a bachelor鈥檚 degree. They noted the need for skilled employees in advanced manufacturing and engineering, health care, and technology.
They knew that the big chemical, steel, and glass manufacturers along the nearby Ohio River were hungry for engineers, chemists, and technicians. From surveys, they knew that students worried that they鈥檇 go through high school without a single adult offering career advice.
With all that in mind, the districts grabbed a sunny space in a strip mall and opened an 鈥渆arly college鈥� academy that allows students to graduate in four years with a high school diploma in one hand and an associate degree in the other. Some in iLEAD鈥檚 first graduating class, in 2019, will also have earned industry-specific credentials.
Students aren鈥檛 admitted to iLEAD based on test scores or grades. What matters is their motivation and willingness to work well independently, since iLEAD is a blended-learning environment, with a lot of self-paced, online coursework.
By focusing only on high-wage, high-demand fields, iLEAD aims to do two things at once: feed the regional jobs pipeline and power students out of poverty.
In these communities, median household income hovers around $45,000, well below the national average of $59,000. Only 1 in 10 adults has a bachelor鈥檚 degree. Some iLEAD students grapple with periods of homelessness or hunger. Others work to support unemployed or drug-addicted parents. Teachers report that when some students share their college dreams with their parents, they are scolded for acting 鈥渁bove their raisin鈥�.鈥�
鈥淪tudents need [career] pathways that will be cycle-breaking for them,鈥� said iLEAD director Larisa McKinney, referring to the cycle of poverty and low educational attainment that can bleed from one generation into the next.
Individualized Planning
Plans to break those cycles begin with the ILP. That鈥檚 the 鈥渋ndividualized learning plan鈥� all Kentucky students must compose in 8th grade and revise as they move through school. It blends an interest inventory with career planning and course scheduling.
In many schools, updating the ILP is a quick, check-the-box exercise. At iLEAD, it鈥檚 a turbocharged examination of each student鈥檚 latest career ideas, with their attendant salaries, degree requirements, and job prospects.
On a recent afternoon in iLEAD鈥檚 big, sunny, main room, McKinney and Aubrey New, an 11th grader, reviewed Aubrey鈥檚 ILP. She came to iLEAD thinking about engineering, but quickly soured on it, and is now exploring the medical field.
Side by side on their laptops, she and McKinney follow links built into the ILP to explore labor-market data on how much nurses, physical therapists, radiologists, and pediatricians earn, and what degrees each job requires.
McKinney, who serves as iLEAD鈥檚 director and its biology teacher, replicates this process with all 97 students in the school twice a year.
Otilio Flores wants a job managing high-tech equipment on the manufacturing line at nearby Dow Chemical or North American Stainless. The 16-year-old knows from labor-market numbers that with an industry certification鈥攚hich he proudly whips out of his wallet鈥攁nd an associate degree, in a few years he鈥檒l earn more than his parents, Mexican immigrants who work at a local warehouse.
Storm Mitchell, 17, is studying robotics and has her sights on a job with a company that dispatches technicians all over the world to solve manufacturing-line problems. 鈥淚 love to see how I can get things to work when I code them right,鈥� she said with a grin. The daughter of a mechanic and a cleaning lady, Storm knows robotics expertise is in demand, and she鈥檚 happy that she can anticipate earning $50,000 or more when she enters the field.
How Numbers Shape a School
Job-market data don鈥檛 only inform students鈥� career planning at iLEAD. They shape the entire school. They help McKinney and her staff decide what courses to teach, which job-shadows to arrange for students, which businesspeople to invite as class speakers.
Procuring much of the data is Alicia Sells, the director of innovation for the Ohio Valley Education Cooperative, the education-service agency that helped launch iLEAD. She spends much of her time on websites crammed with information about the earnings and education required in Kentucky for each job type and where鈥攁nd whether鈥攊t鈥檚 in demand.
On a recent afternoon, she hunted down information to help her decide whether iLEAD should offer a course of study in aerospace engineering. Some students had lobbied for it. But online, Sells doesn鈥檛 find encouragement.
The numbers show promising earnings: $90,000 to $110,000 annually. But demand lags. Data projections show likely openings for only 38 aerospace engineers in Northern Kentucky in the next three months. By contrast, 321 mechanical engineers will be needed.
鈥淭hat 38 makes me nervous when I think about adding an aerospace pathway,鈥� Sells said. 鈥淏ut it makes me feel good that we have a pathway in mechanical engineering.鈥�
The school鈥檚 obsession with labor-market data is well known 50 miles away, in the state capital of Frankfort.
鈥淲e hear from maybe a few schools in the state, but they鈥檙e the most aggressive about it, and I mean that in a good way,鈥� said Kate Akers, the executive director of the state-run Kentucky Center for Education and Workforce Statistics. Akers said Sells calls and emails her frequently to make sense of the data.
A vital piece of iLEAD鈥檚 work is making sure that students鈥� chosen career pathways translate into college degrees. That job falls to Erica Klimchak, the school鈥檚 鈥渟tudent advocate.鈥�
She serves as the liaison to Jefferson Community and Technical College, where iLEAD students study full time once they鈥檙e juniors. She makes sure students are getting the courses they need to earn associate degrees. She works out agreements with state universities so students鈥� credits transfer to four-year programs. Klimchak also builds the school鈥檚 network of business partnerships and sets up work-based-learning opportunities for students.
Nationally, some advocates have voiced concern that as policymakers push for one- and two-year training programs to build the workforce, students鈥攅specially low-income and minority students鈥攃ould lose out on the value of a bachelor鈥檚 degree.
Sen. Michael Bennet, a former superintendent of the Denver schools, sounded this cautionary note at a meeting of CEOs from the Business Roundtable to promote the promise of apprenticeships in the District of Columbia last year.
鈥淭here鈥檚 a lot of cheap talk about how not everyone has to go to college, and usually they鈥檙e talking about someone else鈥檚 kid,鈥� Bennet said.
McKinney and Sells, at iLEAD, feel they鈥檙e on solid ground in not pushing every student to earn a bachelor鈥檚 degree. Why encourage a student to earn a bachelor鈥檚 degree to work as a computer-network specialist, they argue, when Kentucky data show that they can earn nearly as much with only an associate degree?
On the other hand, some jobs offer a huge pay differential with a four-year degree, and students need to know that as well.
鈥淭he difference between what we鈥檙e doing here and the old days of tracking is that adults are using good data to help students understand what works for them,鈥� Sells said. 鈥淭hose choices aren鈥檛 being made for them based on their skin color or family background.
鈥淚nformation is power for these students.鈥�
