BOSTON IS THE WORLD’S leading biotech hub. Do kids in places like Chelsea, Roxbury, and Brockton know that? Do students in East Boston know that right across the tunnel or Tobin Bridge they can be a researcher at a leading health care institution or a computer systems analyst at a technology company. Especially in our most diverse communities, we’re missing too many chances to open our children’s eyes to the full world of possibilities and to give them the head start they need to realize their dreams.

Rethinking the way we do high school is an essential first step in addressing this challenge. Especially for disadvantaged kids who may not have as many family and friends who attended college or who work in leading sectors, we need to build stronger connections between what students are learning and experiencing in high school and the careers that await them when they graduate. That means more opportunities to earn college credit and industry-recognized credentials, more and deeper career counseling, and more exposure to work-based learning.

Businesses looking to grow their workforce need to connect with students of color as early as possible – not just when they’re graduating college, but as they’re choosing their career pathways.

Look across the Commonwealth, and you’ll see uneven investment. Boston’s Private Industry Council has dozens of staff working to build connections among business, Boston Public Schools, higher education, and community organizations. In Chelsea, while many in our business community are ready and willing to help our students gain career skills, we have a single internship coordinator to connect them. Through Student Opportunity Act funding, we’ve been able to hire additional guidance counselors at Chelsea High School, but at a 212-to-1 counselor-to-student ratio, our counselors struggle to provide the additional support our students require in forming post-secondary plans and navigating the college application process because the needs are so great.

An emerging bright spot has been Early College. Here in Chelsea, where both college completion and the median household income lags far behind the state average, we established one of the largest Early College High Schools in the state, a strategic investment for boosting college completion rates.

Around 200 of our students are taking free classes for college credit at Bunker Hill Community College and Franklin Cummings Tech. Early College offers a distinctive chance for our students to enhance their college and career prospects by undertaking and completing more demanding coursework while still in high school.

Since 2018, the city of Chelsea has funded a scholarship initiative that grants free associate degrees to Chelsea Public Schools graduates. To qualify, a student must be a current senior in Chelsea Public Schools who has successfully completed three Bunker Hill Community College courses with a grade of C or better. Our research shows when students graduate high school, enter Bunker Hill and get their associate degree, they’re more likely to continue on to complete a four-year bachelor’s degree.

That four-year degree continues to serve as a strong stepping stone to career success, but it remains out of reach for many kids. Just 57 percent of Massachusetts residents have a four-year degree, and even that number is heavily stratified by race – while 61 percent of wWhite Massachusetts residents have a four-year degree, just 43 percent of Black and 29% of Latino residents do. It’s clear we can and must do more.

There are proven strategies for expanding the career horizons for young people from all walks of life and in every community in the Commonwealth:

  • Recruiting and retaining educators and career counselors of color who share lived experience and a deep understanding of our students in Chelsea and many other communities.
  • Strengthening partnerships between the business community and schools to increase awareness about opportunities and provide students with hands-on experiences in thriving industries, such as life sciences, health, clean tech, and other sectors. This must include building the infrastructure to support these partnerships.
  • Expanding designated pathway programs, such as Early College, Innovation Career Pathways, career  vocational technical education, and STEM Tech Career Academies, that give students a jump start on their future.

By combining a rigorous curriculum with high expectations, career-connected learning can both improve equity and help our growing sectors meet their workforce goals. And by spreading the benefits of career-connected learning across the Commonwealth, we can grow a far larger and more diverse workforce.

From our board rooms to Beacon Hill, improving education and expanding career-connected learning opportunities must be at the top of our to-do list to ensure the benefits of Massachusetts’ economic engine are shared by all.

Dr. Almi Abeyta is superintendent of Chelsea Public Schools. Ed Lambert is executive director of the Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education and the former mayor of Fall River and state representative.