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Pioneer Institute and First Things Magazine recently hosted an hour-long webinar examining the successes of vocational-technical schools, how education in the trades is faring nationwide, and the prospects for today’s high school graduates as they seek careers and additional training beyond the secondary level.

“A Tale of Two City Schools: Worcester Tech and Putnam Academy Become Models for Recovery” is a new white paper by Pioneer Institute that analyzes how Worcester Tech and Putnam Academy — schools with high numbers of low-income and special needs students — leapt from the bottom of Massachusetts voc-tech rankings to become leaders among local schools.

This report reviews the co-operative education program at Boston’s Madison Park Technical Vocational High School, which places students in paid positions with local employers. The study finds that the program lags far behind other Massachusetts vocational-technical schools in terms of both placements and number of employer contacts.  But with the school as a whole beginning to improve after years of turmoil, the co-op is also showing promising signs.

HANDS-ON EDUCATION plays a critical role at Massachusetts regional vocational-technical high schools, where students alternate weekly between academics and shop classes. Given that reality, you’d think the schools would be particularly hard hit by the switch to hybrid models under which students are in a physical school building only half the time. But thanks to innovative approaches to coping with pandemic-related restrictions, voc-techs are successfully bucking statewide public-school enrollment trends.

Four years after it began to implement a turnaround plan, Boston’s Madison Park Technical Vocational High School is showing clear signs of progress, but its performance continues to lag behind that of other vocational-technical schools in Massachusetts, according to a new study published by Pioneer Institute.

For more than 25 years, Massachusetts vocational-technical high schools have done everything state officials have asked of them. Instead of moving the goal posts by compelling them to switch to a lottery system, we should expand the schools. 

This op-ed appeared in Commonwealth Magazine and New Bedford Standard Times. A recent visit to Greater New Bedford Regional Vocational Technical High School demonstrated why career and technical high schools are rightly considered a Massachusetts success story. But it also serves as...

Read this full op-ed in CommonWealth magazine. By Tom Birmingham and Ken Campbell Years of missteps are leaving students behind “SUCCESS IS TO BE measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life,” said Booker T. Washington, the famous turn-of-the-20th-century...

This study explores whether medical vocational-technical education could be a tool to help Boston-area Catholic schools address declining enrollment and also provide economically disadvantaged students with skills that are in high demand among employers.

Read this entire op-ed online at CommonWealth Magazine, the New Bedford Standard Times, The Berkshire Eagle, and The Salem News. Written by Tom Birmingham MASSACHUSETTS VOCATIONAL-TECHNICAL high schools are like the person who toils for years, only to be termed an “overnight sensation” when...