Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 34

" In every state where we've looked at this, the average
number of dual enrollment credits students take before they
graduate is small-usually around 6 to 9 credits or 2 to 3 courses, "
says Davis Jenkins, a senior research scholar at the Community
College Research Center at Teachers College. There aren't
reliable statistics for the average number of credits earned by
P-TECH students-in part because the length of the program
varies across the country-but in P-TECH's birthplace, New
York City, students are earning an average of 32 credits from
State University of New York branches as they move from high
school to college.
In fact, Litow said P-TECH should have become more
prevalent in Chicago years ago. It's not for lack of trying-this
won't be the city's first attempt at implementing the program.
A district official says five early college high schools were established
to " emulate " P-TECH in 2012, but Sarah E. Goode STEM
Academy-a school that Time magazine praised in 2014 as " The
School That Will Get You a Job " -was the only one that managed
to stay true to the model.
Hinojosa told me Dallas
P-TECH students are
landing great jobs out of
high school at companies like
American Airlines making
$58,000 a year, " and every
one of them [is] Latino
or African American. "
Different factors, such as changes in leadership, can
sometimes make it difficult to bring even successful programs
to scale, Litow said. But more than that, P-TECH could
use federal support. Right now, a patchwork of local school
systems have adopted the model, each figuring out on their
own how to find funding and adapt the program to the needs
of their communities. One idea Litow would like to see: Expand
eligibility for Pell Grants so they cover dual enrolled
students, not just traditional college students. That move
alone would " immediately " lead to more schools opening because
it would take the tuition cost burden away from states
and localities, Litow said. Another, similar, move would be to
open up federal work study grants, which currently pay 70 to
75 percent of the wages that employers pay to students. That
would bring in more industry partners to P-TECH programs.
Another would be for the U.S. Labor Department to fund apprenticeships
for more high school students.
All three of those changes would not eliminate costs for
states and school districts, Litow said, but they would introduce
34 September/October 2022
a more efficient cost-sharing model that would help the program
to expand. And over the long term, he predicted, it would
save money by reducing the need for remedial courses, increasing
college completion, and saving tax dollars by keeping graduates
out of the social safety net.
D
uring their first two years, P-TECH students at Conrad
High attend classes at their school that are taught by
professors from the nearby Dallas College Richland Campus.
Illias Gomez said one of his most memorable classes was a
project development class taught by the adjunct game design
professor Paul Lachowicz, who taught students the ins and outs
of using Unreal Engine, an open 3D creation tool that people
can use to make video games and movies. Gomez spent hours
playing around in the engine under Lachowicz's eye, building
worlds-and problem-solving skills-in the classroom.
Conrad's upper-level students spend more and more time
independently taking college courses. Gomez told me the experience
taught him important lessons about time management.
" No one's telling you, 'You have to go to this class. You have to go
to that class,' " he said. " It's like, you know what time your class
starts. You have to be there for your grade, your attendance, because
even though you're not paying for it, you're having that
opportunity to have that class for free that could cost thousands
of dollars as an adult. " The IBM job, meanwhile, was a sweet deal
for reasons that transcend how much it paid. Unlike his restaurant
host job or the days when he did yard work in his neighborhood
to make money, Gomez didn't have to leave home.
" It was like working a real office job, but from the comfort
of our own home, " he said. " Like it was almost a workshop.
It's like a giant workshop where we just learned different things
about how it is to be a consultant, as well as problem solving for
a company. "
Gomez plans to take his studies in gaming beyond the
next two years at the University of North Texas. He has his eyes
on Southern Methodist University. There, he hopes to join the
Guildhall, which bills itself as a " premier graduate-level video
game development education program in the United States. "
Gomez has a keen sense of the role that P-TECH played in
positioning him where he is today.
" P-TECH is one of those things where you look at it now
and it may not be so big to you, but later on it means pretty
much the world, because that's when you realize that you
not only saved yourself and your family a lot of money, you
saved yourself a lot of time, " he told me. " And so it's one of the
things where there's going to be some sacrifices, but those sacrifices
are what help you become the grown young adult that
you will be. "
Jamaal Abdul-Alim is a Milwaukee native, Bucks fan, and chess player
who serves as education editor at The Conversation. He is also a longtime
education journalist whose articles have appeared in the Washington
Monthly, The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, and Diverse: Issues in Higher
Education, where he worked as a senior staff writer covering federal education
policy.

Washington Monthly - September/October 2022

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