Giving Compass' Take:

• A new school's superintendent in Janesville, Wisconsin is trying to design a high school curriculum that is career-focused on blue-collar jobs. 

• How sustainable is this approach? How do parents feel about a superintendent that doesn't necessarily promote attending college? 

• Read about how colleges are adding manufacturing programs to address the skills gap. 

But after enduring several years of double-digit unemployment, along with higher rates of homelessness and suicide, the hometown of Representative Paul Ryan has seen joblessness fall to roughly 3.3%. In Janesville, WI many businesses, some of which migrated to town after GM and its suppliers left, say they can’t find enough skilled workers to fill jobs in manufacturing and the trades.

That’s prompted new Janesville schools superintendent Steve Pophal to enact a plan to give kids the critical thinking and specialized skills he hopes will help them meet local business needs while avoiding the trap of low-skill, low-wage work that accounts for a growing share of the city’s economy. At the same time, he is trying to turn parents and students into “more sophisticated consumers of education beyond high school”.

As part of his plan, Pophal is helping to send teachers back to school for master’s degrees at the local Blackhawk Technical College so they can teach more specialized classes that also count for college credit.  Pophal is also courting businesses and adding more opportunities for workplace learning. And he has brought in an education company to help teachers engage students, rather than lecturing at them.

These classes demand the sort of interdisciplinary and real-world thinking that Parker High is trying to encourage as it rolls out a program to help all juniors and seniors home in on job-linked areas of study such as health and human services; business, administration, marketing and arts; and technology, engineering, agriculture, manufacturing and science. That aligns with a state mandate, implemented in the 2017-18 school year, that all students infuse their academics with career planning.

Read the full article about designing a 21st-century high school by Caroline Preston at The Guardian