A new pathway to vocational training is an alternative to school wait-lists

Boston Globe

09-05-2025

Get The Gavel
A weekly SCOTUS explainer newsletter by columnist Kimberly Atkins Stohr.
Enter Email
Sign Up
But there's another more modest solution — one the Massachusetts Senate has just given its approval to — a pilot program to encourage career and vocational technical 'annexes' adjoining comprehensive high schools and offering vocational programs aimed at juniors and seniors.
Advertisement
'We're offering this to kids who are at a different point in their lives than the eighth-graders who apply to vocational schools,' said Senator John Cronin, a chief proponent of the concept. 'This is the most important work we're doing right now — to create an opportunity for young people to be able to enter the workforce.'
Advertisement
The Senate set aside $15 million of a $100 million line item for vocational education in a $1.3 billion spending bill passed Thursday. The money was generated through the state's 4 percent income surtax on incomes over $1 million generated by the 2022 voter-approved Fair Share amendment.
There is no comparable line item in the version passed earlier by the House, but the idea is not without its fans in the other branch, Cronin said.
The model is the
The students stay enrolled in their home districts, thus eliminating any financial disincentive to the sending district. They take academic classes for one full week, followed by vocational training the following week, alternating for the entire year.
The 'annex' is just a mile from the main Monty Tech campus. Its schedule allows students to continue to participate in sports or other after-school programs.
It offers programs in carpentry, electrical, and plumbing work and on-the-job training in a co-op program for seniors.
But MVP Academy was borne of a hodge-podge of state grants, including a $1.2 million grant from the
It shouldn't have to be that hard to advance such a sound idea.
Advertisement
Cronin estimates modest annexes of some 3,000 to 5,000 square feet would cost from $3 million to $5 million and accommodate 50 to 100 students each. The Senate-passed pilot would prioritize communities where vocational schools have wait-lists of students — as so many do — and where the education department has identified projects that address an 'opportunity gap.'
'It represents a sea change to allow students into the voc-tech world, which opens the way to real career paths,' Cronin said. 'And this is a funding model that is something we can actually sustain. You get a lot more bang for the buck and it delivers programs to the right target population.'
Lawmakers have too often squabbled over admission requirements — and, yes, the House has managed to resurrect that debate in its budget this year — when they should be working harder to expand opportunities that would make that debate irrelevant.
Career vocational annexes provide a low-cost alternative to those never-ending wait-lists. And they provide opportunity to those ready to work for it. This pilot program deserves a chance to show the way.
Editorials represent the views of the Boston Globe Editorial Board. Follow us