From Classroom to Career: Why Experiential Learning Must Start in Middle and High School

The Urgency of Building Career Skills Early

 

Across the country, educators and employers alike are sounding the alarm that students need career exposure and skills much earlier in their educational journey. One recent survey found 72% of recent high school graduates felt only slightly, moderately, or not at all prepared for their next steps after graduation. On the other side of the equation, four in five hiring managers (84%) say most high school graduates are not ready for the workforce. This preparation gap has serious consequences: too many young people invest time and money in college without achieving strong career outcomes, even as employers struggle to find skilled talent to fill high-wage jobs. In fact, a U.S. Chamber report noted 80% of hiring managers feel today’s high school grads are less prepared than previous generations, highlighting an urgent need to better align education with workforce needs.

 

What would help students feel more prepared? Recent grads themselves have answers. In a 2025 national survey, 50% of graduates said more work-based learning opportunities in high school would have made their high school experience more engaging and useful, and 45% wished for more career counseling or guidance during school. Many regret not getting “real-world learning experiences in the classroom” or a chance to explore different careers sooner. Employers agree on the value of early experience: nearly 89% of hiring managers believe real work experience is more valuable for entry-level skills than classroom instruction, and nearly half specifically cite internships as a top way for students to gain skills. The message is clear – we need to begin career-connected learning well before students leave high school.

 

As Julie Lammers, SVP of advocacy and corporate social responsibility at American Student Assistance put it, “The reality is we are starting these conversations way too late… we should be focusing on how we can move some of those opportunities to high school or even middle school when the risk of trying and failing is not as high”. Middle school and early high school is exactly when students are forming their identities and aspirations. By engaging them in hands-on projects, industry exposure, and guided career exploration during these years, we can demystify the world of work and help students discover paths that excite them. Starting early builds the career clarity and confidence that will carry through postsecondary education and into the workforce. It also addresses equity: without early exposure, many students—especially those without professional networks—may not even know about the range of high-demand jobs available to them. In short, if we want a strong future workforce, we must begin cultivating it in the middle and high school classroom today. The next sections explore how experiential learning can make that happen.

 

Forms of Experiential Learning and Their Benefits for Students

 

“Experiential learning” in K-12 can take many forms, but at its core it means learning by doing, in partnership with the real world. Rather than passively absorbing facts, students engage directly with real challenges, reflect on the experience, and apply their insights, leading to deeper learning and better retention of skills. Below are several types of industry-integrated experiential learning suited for middle and high school, and how each benefits students at different stages of their development:

 

• Case-Based Learning: In case-based activities, students examine detailed stories or scenarios based on real organizational challenges, then analyze the information and propose solutions. This method builds analytical thinking and decision-making skills by having students “read and discuss complex, real-life scenarios”, developing their reflective judgment. Working through cases in a low-stakes classroom setting lets middle and high schoolers practice solving business or community problems without fear of failure. They learn to research and strategize, honing problem-solving skills that will be invaluable later on. Early on (middle school), short, relatable cases can spark curiosity about different fields (“How would you market a new app to teens?”). By high school, more complex cases (e.g. a local company’s expansion challenge) push students to apply academic knowledge to real situations. This not only reinforces content mastery but also shows students why their learning matters beyond the classroom.

 

• Project-Based Learning: PBL goes a step further by having students work over an extended period on a real-world project or problem. Done well, project-based learning leads to deeper understanding and greater retention of content knowledge – students can “better apply what they know to new situations”. It also brings in authentic audience and purpose. High-quality PBL often involves students collaborating in teams to produce something for a real stakeholder (a business, nonprofit, or community). Through this process, students develop critical thinking, creativity, and teamwork skills. They also gain exposure to adult professionals and potential careers. For example, a high school team might partner with a local business to design a marketing campaign, interacting with business mentors along the way. Such projects give teens a sense of purpose and agency; seeing their work have real impact can be transformative and motivating. Middle school projects might be smaller in scope (e.g. designing a solution to reduce cafeteria waste), building early collaboration skills. By high school, multi-step projects with industry mentors simulate the complexity of real work. Research confirms PBL helps students become better problem-solvers and decision-makers, and equips them with workplace skills like initiative and communication. In short, project-based learning “engages students in learning that is deep and long-lasting”, creating memorable experiences that prepare them for future challenges.

 

• Internships and Co-Ops: Getting students out of the classroom and into actual workplaces is perhaps the most direct form of experiential learning. High school internship programs (or co-operative education, where students split time between school and work) allow teens to apply their skills in a professional setting, build real-world experience for their résumé, and learn workplace norms. These programs can be life-changing: students often discover whether a career field truly fits their interests and strengths by trying it out. They also begin building a network of professional contacts and mentors. Even a short-term internship (a summer or one semester) can boost a teen’s confidence and clarify their goals. From an employer’s perspective, these young interns become part of the talent pipeline. It’s no wonder an overwhelming majority of employers support high school internships: in one survey, 86% of employers agreed that high-school interns strengthen their industry’s talent pipeline, and 81% said these interns helped diversify their future workforce. Critically, internships give students a chance to develop “soft skills” like communication, time management, and teamwork in an authentic environment – skills that employers highly value (over 90% of hiring managers prioritize problem-solving and communication in entry-level hiring). For middle schoolers, formal internships are rare, but early exposure can take the form of job shadowing or community service projects that mimic workplaces. By high school (especially 11th–12th grade), students are ready to take on part-time internships or co-op placements. These experiences make academic learning more relevant (“Now I see why math is useful in engineering design”), and they often ignite a passion. Studies find that students who participate in work-based learning in high school are more likely to be employed and to persist in college afterward. In short, internships give students a head start on professional growth, easing the transition from school to working life.

 

• Mentoring and Career Coaching: Sometimes the most impactful experiential learning isn’t a “project” at all, but a relationship. Mentoring programs pair students with industry professionals or trained career coaches who can provide guidance, feedback, and inspiration. For middle schoolers, this might look like guest speakers, “career day” programs, or e-mentoring where students periodically chat with a mentor about their interests. High school mentoring can be more intensive – for example, a STEM professional guiding a student’s robotics project, or an entrepreneur meeting monthly with a teen interested in starting a business. The benefits of mentoring are well-documented: students gain insight into career paths, receive encouragement to pursue their goals, and can get help navigating challenges (like finding an internship or applying to a program). Effective coaching also connects students to current labor market information, which is often missing from traditional counseling. In fact, Strada’s research finds that timely information about job opportunities is the rarest component of career guidance for students, which mentors from industry are uniquely positioned to provide. A shining example comes from Mississippi, where the state’s workforce agency operates a statewide career coaching program embedded in nearly every public high school. These coaches help middle and high school students identify high-demand jobs in their communities and connect them with local employers for shadowing and internships. The program’s success lies in providing dedicated guides who aren’t bound by the standard school checklist, but instead focus solely on “access to opportunity” for students. More broadly, mentoring relationships give kids a vision of their future selves. A student who meets monthly with, say, a nurse or an engineer begins to see a roadmap into that career – and gains the social capital often needed to get there. At different stages, the depth varies (lighter-touch mentoring for younger students, more targeted coaching as students approach graduation), but at any age, connecting a student with a caring adult professional is a powerful catalyst for growth.

 

 

Each of these experiential learning formats complements the others. Case studies and project-based tasks can be woven into everyday curriculum to make academic content come alive. Meanwhile, internships and mentoring provide real-world context and individualized guidance. Used in combination, they provide a developmental pathway: a middle schooler might start with small team projects and career guest speakers, then progress in high school to larger interdisciplinary projects with industry partners, an internship in their junior/senior year, and a mentor to advise them throughout. By graduation, that student has a much clearer sense of their interests, a portfolio of real experiences, and the professional skills to thrive in college or a career. The benefits aren’t just anecdotal; they are reflected in outcomes like higher postsecondary enrollment and employment rates for students who participate in career-oriented programs.

 

Experiential learning builds the “muscles” of adaptability, problem-solving, and self-directed learning that today’s fast-changing economy requires. And perhaps most importantly, it engages students in their own education. When learning is relevant to life and students have agency in the process, motivation soars. As one education study noted, “Today’s students crave hands-on learning experiences” and 81% of students say they want more opportunities for real-world learning in their curriculum. Meeting that demand through structured experiential programs in middle and high school will keep more students excited about school – and set them on a path to success.

 

Innovative Models Leading the Way in Early Career Readiness

 

The good news is that many states and districts are already pioneering ways to bring career-connected learning into K-12 – and seeing great results. The 2025 Strada State Opportunity Index report highlighted several innovative state initiatives focused on early career readiness, and across the country a number of programs have earned national recognition. These models demonstrate what’s possible when education leaders think outside the box to prioritize workforce development from an early age:

 

• Mississippi – Embedding Career Coaches in Schools: Mississippi’s workforce development agency, AccelerateMS, has placed career coaches in nearly every public high school statewide to guide students on education and career pathways. Starting as early as middle school, these coaches help students assess their aptitudes, learn about high-wage and in-demand jobs in their region, and even arrange workplace visits or internships. A key innovation is that the program operates outside the traditional K-12 counseling structure – coaches are managed by the workforce agency and focus solely on career development, while working on-site at schools. This cross-agency approach ensures coaching is aligned with real industry needs. Mississippi’s model has drawn national attention as a promising way to provide personalized career guidance at scale. By meeting students where they are (in school) and exposing them to opportunities in their own communities, the state hopes to boost both postsecondary success and local workforce strength.

 

• Indiana – Work-Based Learning Diploma Requirement: Indiana recently overhauled its high school diploma requirements to incentivize work-based learning experiences for every student. Under the new “Graduation Pathways” requirement, students must satisfy career-ready competencies through options like internships, project-based capstone courses, or industry certification programs. This effectively makes experiential learning a non-negotiable part of high school. By embedding work-based learning into diploma criteria, Indiana is sending a clear signal that career preparation is as important as academic credit. Early evidence is encouraging – schools across the state have expanded partnerships with employers to create internship slots for students, and regional intermediaries are helping small companies participate by simplifying the process of hosting student interns. Indiana’s example shows how state policy can drive systemic adoption of experiential learning. Every Hoosier high schooler is now expected to graduate not just with test scores, but with real experience applying their skills, giving them a head start whether they enter college or the workforce.

 

• Virginia – Aligning Education and Economic Development: In Virginia, state leaders recognized that preparing students for careers is a mission that cuts across education, workforce development, and economic policy. The state created a first-of-its-kind Office of Education Economics and has aligned decision-making authority across agencies responsible for K-12 education, higher education, workforce, and economic development. This integrated governance model enables a true P-20 approach (pre-K through workforce). For example, Virginia’s Office of Education Economics analyzes labor market data to inform K-12 curriculum and career pathway development, ensuring that what students learn in high school is connected to the jobs Virginia is trying to grow. By breaking down silos, Virginia is tackling the challenge of employer alignment head on. The initiative was highlighted by Strada as an exemplary approach to creating “equitable pathways to opportunity”. For local school districts, this state support means more coherent programming, they can plug into statewide industry partnerships or use state-developed data tools to improve career counseling. Virginia’s model underscores that policy coordination can unleash innovation: when everyone from the state superintendent to the economic development director is rowing in the same direction, students benefit from programs that truly prepare them for the jobs of the future.

 

• Delaware – Statewide Career Pathways Program: Delaware is frequently cited as a national leader in high school career pathways. Through a collaboration of the K-12 system, employers, and the community college, Delaware has built career pathway programs in the majority of its high schools, offering sequences of courses, projects, and internships in fields from engineering to healthcare. Remarkably, nearly half of all Delaware high school students (over 23,000 kids) are enrolled in a career pathway program as of 2023. These pathways blend academic and technical content and often allow students to earn college credits or industry certifications by graduation. The state’s efforts have been recognized in national case studies as “one of the best systems in the country at preparing young people for life after graduation.” Key factors in Delaware’s success include strong public-private partnerships and starting career exposure early in middle school. Students might explore several pathways in 9th and 10th grade before concentrating in one. The result is that Delaware’s graduates are leaving high school with clearer goals and, in many cases, tangible workforce credentials. Other states have looked to the Delaware Pathways model as a blueprint for scaling up their own career and technical education programs. The takeaway from Delaware: scale and equity matter. By making pathways the norm (reaching 50% of students and growing), the state ensures these opportunities aren’t just for a select few but are becoming a standard part of every student’s education.

 

 

These examples only scratch the surface – there are also booming youth apprenticeship programs in Colorado and Wisconsin, innovative CTE-focused magnet schools in California and Texas, and regional consortia linking school districts with local industries across the country. But what they all share is a commitment to bridging the gap between school and work before students graduate high school. Whether through dedicated career coaches, required work experiences, integrated governance, or scaled-up pathways, these models show it’s possible to make early career development a reality for students at scale. Importantly, they also show that doing so requires collaboration: between K-12 and higher education, between educators and employers, and between policymakers and practitioners on the ground. States like Mississippi, Indiana, Virginia, and Delaware are demonstrating that when such collaborations gel, students reap the rewards in the form of clarity, confidence, and real readiness for life after graduation.

 

 

For other districts and states looking to follow suit, there is no need to reinvent the wheel, the pioneering programs above offer proven strategies. However, implementing these approaches can be complex. Schools must coordinate multiple stakeholders (teachers, counselors, employers, parents), juggle logistics for projects or internship placements, and ensure quality and equity in the experiences provided. This is where new solutions and partnerships can help to manage and scale experiential learning programs. In the next section, we look at how one such partner, CapSource, is enabling schools to bring these models to life efficiently.

 

 

How CapSource Can Help Coordinate Experiential Learning Programs

 

Successfully running case-based projects, industry engagements, and internship programs in K-12 requires more than just good intentions – it takes tools and infrastructure to make these experiences scalable and sustainable. This is exactly where CapSource comes in. CapSource is an education technology company that has developed a platform to help schools and universities easily design, manage, and scale industry-integrated experiential learning across all these modalities. In essence, CapSource acts as a bridge between the academic world and industry, providing both the technology and the partnership network that educators need to coordinate real-world projects for students. By leveraging CapSource’s platform, states, districts, and individual educators can more easily implement the kinds of programs discussed above – without overburdening teachers or administrators.

 

Some of the key features and tools CapSource offers include:

 

• AI-Powered Project Builder: One of CapSource’s newest innovations is an AI-driven project scoping tool that dramatically simplifies the process of launching industry projects for students. The AI-Powered Project Builder guides industry partners (or educators) through a short series of questions about the academic program’s needs – things like the course timeline, the skills students are looking to practice, and the general challenge area of interest. From there, the tool uses AI to generate a detailed, student-ready project scope complete with defined tasks, milestones, expected deliverables, and even suggested resources. In other words, it can take an industry partner’s rough idea (“maybe a marketing project?”) and turn it into a concrete project plan in seconds. This is a game-changer for scaling partnerships. Educators no longer have to spend hours iterating with companies to nail down project details – the AI ensures consistent quality and completeness of every project scope, and saves faculty huge amounts of time editing drafts.

 

• For industry partners, it lowers the barrier to participation: they can “jumpstart the scoping process without needing a polished idea”, and know that the expectations for students will be clearly defined. And for students, it means they receive well-structured project plans on Day 1 of an engagement, with clear outcomes and skill goals, so they can dive in with confidence. By ensuring all projects are high-quality and aligned with academic objectives, CapSource’s AI Project Builder allows schools to onboard many more industry partners and projects at scale without sacrificing rigor. (As CapSource’s CEO notes, experiential learning is the future of education, and “now, with AI, the future just got even more accessible.”)

 

• Modular Case Libraries: For educators looking to bring case-based learning into their classes immediately, CapSource provides a rich library of real-world cases and the tools to customize them. CapSource’s Case Library contains detailed case studies on business challenges faced by real organizations, complete with data on the company’s history, structure, financials, and more. What makes this resource unique is that the platform is fully customizable, educators can select any case from multiple libraries (CapSource’s own collection or partner university collections), and then tailor the case to fit their classroom needs. Through a user-friendly interface, a teacher can, for example, pick a case study about a tech startup’s market expansion challenge, then edit the context or add specific questions to align with her lesson objectives. CapSource’s technology allows adding or removing information, attaching supplementary resources, and setting the deliverables students should produce. Once the case is configured, the platform helps assign students to teams, distribute the case materials digitally, and even collect student solutions and peer feedback, all in one place. This means a teacher can run a robust case analysis exercise without photocopying packets or managing email submissions; everything is tracked on the platform. By lowering the effort to find and deploy quality case studies, CapSource enables even middle and high school teachers (who may not have Harvard Business Review budgets!) to integrate current, relevant cases into their curriculum. Cases can be chosen to match students’ stage and interests (e.g. a simple ethical dilemma case for a middle school debate, or a complex data-driven case for an upper-level high school business course). CapSource provides not just the content but the workflow to make case-based learning a seamless part of instruction.

 

• Project Management and Collaboration Tools: Beyond the AI builder and case libraries, CapSource offers a comprehensive platform to manage experiential learning engagements from start to finish. All the moving parts of a project-based or internship program can be handled through their web-based system. Educators can design the format of the program (CapSource supports one-to-one projects, one project with many student teams, or many simultaneous projects with many teams – useful for large cohort programs). The platform keeps all project information, resources, schedules, and participant communications in one centralized hub. For example, a district work-based learning coordinator could oversee dozens of internship projects at once on CapSource – with each company partner, student team, and teacher-mentor having access to the relevant project workspace online. The platform includes features to streamline industry partner onboarding as well. Educators can create a “Request for Proposal” describing the kind of projects or mentoring they seek, which can be shared with employer networks or matched via CapSource’s database of partners. There are also template project scopes and agreements that make it easy for a company to plug in a project idea and understand expectations. Once projects are running, CapSource helps manage the human element too: educators can easily onboard students and assign them to teams, and invite as many industry mentors as needed to join the platform for interaction with students. Throughout a project, the platform tracks deliverables, feedback, and evaluations. Students might submit their research report or presentation through CapSource, get feedback from their industry mentor right in the system, and complete reflection surveys about what they learned. Teachers and administrators can monitor progress and outcomes via dashboards, making it much easier to evaluate the impact of the program. In short, CapSource’s platform serves as the “connective tissue” to run experiential learning programs in a scalable, organized, and data-informed way. It drastically reduces the administrative burden on educators, who no longer have to cobble together Google forms, spreadsheets, and emails to coordinate a live project or internship – it’s all integrated.

 

 

By using a solution like CapSource, schools can focus on the pedagogy and partnerships without getting bogged down by logistics. A middle school teacher who wants to include a mini consulting project with a local business can find or generate a project in minutes, rather than spending weeks cold-calling companies. A state career academy program can manage dozens of employer engagements efficiently and ensure consistent quality. And a district leader can collect evidence on how these real-world experiences are improving student outcomes via the platform’s analytics. CapSource essentially provides the infrastructure to operationalize experiential learning. As the company’s mission states, it aims to make industry-integrated learning “easy” for educators while delivering powerful experiences for students. (CapSource’s own resources and explainer on experiential learning can be found on their site, such as the overview “What is Experiential Learning?” which outlines their model and tools, and their Projects page showcasing how student-company collaborations are structured.)

 

 

A Vision for the Future: AI-Driven, Just-in-Time Curriculum

 

Looking ahead, it’s exciting to imagine how these trends – early career development and advanced technology – will converge to transform education. We stand on the cusp of a new era where AI can help build just-in-time, low-maintenance, collaborative curriculum across various learning formats. In practical terms, this means a teacher of the near future could almost “order up” a tailored real-world project or case study as easily as we stream a movie. Need a hands-on learning experience to reinforce this month’s algebra unit? An AI-driven platform might instantly generate a project scenario connecting algebra to, say, a budgeting problem for a local business, complete with data sets and mentor contacts – aligned with your students’ skill level and interests. The role of the teacher then shifts to facilitator and coach, guiding students through the rich learning experience that’s been pre-assembled with minimal prep time.

 

This vision directly addresses one of the biggest challenges educators face with experiential learning: the time and effort to create and maintain these opportunities. As noted in a K-12 survey, “many teachers want to introduce more experiential learning in their curricula, but finding the time to build real-world projects into a curriculum can be daunting.” Between lesson planning, grading, and other duties, teachers often lack bandwidth to coordinate internships or design intricate projects from scratch. AI has the potential to act as a tireless teaching assistant – gathering resources, designing project frameworks, even adapting case studies to be culturally relevant to a teacher’s region – all at the click of a button. This makes experiential learning not an “extra” that only heroic teachers attempt, but a standard, scalable practice in all classrooms. Curriculum can become more fluid and responsive: if a new technology or industry trend emerges, AI tools could quickly integrate that into fresh case studies or simulations, keeping student learning up-to-date with the real world.

 

Collaboration will also be supercharged. We can envision AI matchmaking between schools and industry partners. For example, a small business in need of fresh ideas could be algorithmically matched to a high school entrepreneurship class looking for a project – an introduction facilitated by a platform like CapSource. The result is a more dynamic ecosystem where learning experiences flow in from the world beyond school walls with minimal friction. Instead of teachers individually trying to find guest speakers or projects, the system (powered by AI and a broad partner network) supplies a steady stream of curated, high-quality experiential learning opportunities. It’s a vision of “collaborative curriculum” – not static lesson plans, but a living curriculum co-created by educators, students, and industry/community, enabled by intelligent technology.

 

CapSource is at the forefront of making this future a reality. The company has already proven the impact of its model in higher education, facilitating thousands of projects that connected college students with companies like DoorDash, the American Cancer Society, True Religion, Caterpillar and many more. These collaborations have shown that students gain immensely from tackling real challenges – and employers benefit from fresh ideas and early access to talent. Now, CapSource is poised to bring these AI-enhanced experiential learning tools into the K–12 arena, empowering middle and high schools to provide the kind of rich, hands-on learning experiences that used to be rare or difficult to manage. By expanding into K–12, CapSource (and others in this space) plan to support teachers in implementing everything from short case-study modules to full-semester industry projects with ease. The introduction of the AI Project Builder in 2025 is a hint of what’s coming: more automation of the grunt work, more intelligent matching of resources, and more turnkey program management. This means that in the near future, even a small rural school or an under-resourced urban district can offer an internship program or a portfolio of live projects without needing a large staff to run it. The heavy lift of coordinating emails, drafting scopes, and evaluating progress will be largely handled by the platform, leaving educators free to do what they do best – mentor and teach students through the experience.

 

Imagine a not-so-distant scenario: A high school sophomore has a budding interest in environmental science. Rather than waiting until college to explore this, her school’s career counselor uses an AI-powered system to generate a custom mini-internship for her with a local environmental nonprofit – complete with a defined project (perhaps analyzing water samples), a mentor contact, and academic credit integration. She starts next week. Another group of students in history class are debating economic policy; their teacher pulls from an online case library an up-to-date case study on a city’s universal basic income pilot, tweaked by AI to be at a reading level that suits the class, turning a news headline into a rich class project overnight. This is the promise of AI in experiential learning: making high-impact, real-world education quick to deploy and continuously adaptive.

 

The ultimate vision is that we stop treating “college and career readiness” as something that kicks in during the final year of high school. Instead, every year of school can progressively build those competencies through applied learning. By the time students graduate high school, they won’t be asking “What’s it like to work in the real world?” – they’ll already know, because they’ve been doing real-world work, in age-appropriate ways, for years. They will have used professional tools, interacted with mentors, navigated team projects, failed and learned from failure, and discovered what ignites their passion. In this future, the gap between classroom and career is narrowed to almost zero.

 

For educators, policymakers, and workforce leaders, the charge now is to embrace and shape this future. We have the evidence that experiential learning drives engagement and skill development; we have exemplars from states leading the way; and we have emerging technology to help overcome past constraints. It’s time to act. Middle and high schools can be not just college-prep or test-prep, but life-prep. We can equip students with the practical skills, mindset, and direction they need before they face the high stakes of postsecondary decisions. Doing so will pay dividends in higher completion rates, a stronger talent pipeline for industry, and more young adults finding fulfilling careers.

 

The call to action is clear: explore how you can integrate experiential, career-connected learning in your sphere of influence. Whether you’re a district superintendent, a high school teacher, or a state workforce director, consider partnering with organizations that specialize in these programs or adopting platforms (like CapSource) that make it manageable to do so. CapSource, for instance, offers free consultations and demos, you can schedule a meeting to see their tools in action and discuss strategies tailored to your school or state. Take advantage of resources and thought leadership (CapSource’s website hosts a helpful overview of “What is EL” and case studies of successful projects) to build your case for change. Start small if you need to, perhaps a pilot project in one class, but start somewhere. As Jordan Levy, CapSource’s co-founder, has emphasized, experiential learning is not just a trend, “it’s the future of education”. By harnessing that future now, and leveraging the power of AI and partnerships, we can ensure today’s middle and high schoolers develop into the thriving workforce of tomorrow.

 

Explore, partner, and innovate: the tools are at our fingertips to make learning more engaging and career-relevant than ever. Let’s give our students the chance to truly learn by doing and graduate ready to take on the world. The time to build those bridges from classroom to career is now.

 

 

Sources:

1. Strada Education Network, 2025 State Opportunity Index – Key findings on education-to-employment outcomes strada.orgstrada.org.
2. Education Week – “High School Grads Lack Clarity on Next Steps” (May 20, 2025), reporting survey of 2019–2024 graduates on readiness and what they wish they’d had in high school edweek.orgedweek.org.
3. U.S. Chamber of Commerce – New Hire Readiness Report 2025, findings on employer views of high school graduate preparedness uschamber.com.
4. Benefit News – American Student Assistance Survey (2024) on high school internships and the need for early career intervention benefitnews.com.
5. Strada “State Opportunity Index” Event Highlights (Nov 3, 2025) – Examples of state innovations (Mississippi, Indiana, Virginia) in K-12 career readiness strada.orgstrada.org.
6. Rodel Foundation – “Career Pathways a Major Success in Delaware” (Sept 2023), statistics on Delaware’s statewide career pathways enrollment rodelde.org.
7. Watermark Insights – “What is Experiential Learning & How it Benefits Students,” on the value of hands-on learning for skill development and retention watermarkinsights.com.
8. PBLWorks – “Why Project-Based Learning?” – outlines benefits of PBL for engagement, deeper learning, and skill-building pblworks.org.
9. University of Michigan CRLT – Case-Based Teaching guide, on how case studies build analytical and reflective thinking crlt.umich.edu.
10. K-12 Dive – “Increase student engagement with experiential learning” (2023), stats on student and teacher demand for real-world learning (81% of students, 75% of teachers) and challenges for educators k12dive.com.
11. CapSource Blog – “Introducing CapSource’s AI-Powered Project Builder” (July 7, 2025), by Jordan Levy, describing the AI tool and its benefits for educators, industry partners, and students capsource.io.
12. CapSource Platform Overview – CapSource “Cases” and “Projects” pages detailing features like case libraries and project management tools for educators capsource.io.
13. CapSource “What is EL?” – CapSource Academic Innovation Team (Feb 2022) on bridging academia and industry through tech, and the need for alternative models to improve student outcomes capsource.io.
14. Additional supporting sources: National Association of Colleges and Employers (career readiness competencies), American Institutes for Research (CTE outcomes) edweek.org.