Skyline High School’s Green Energy Pathway

The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 is poised to create millions of new jobs in green energy and climate infrastructure that could offer middle-class wages and jobs with growth potential to young workers across the country. To implement the act’s plan fully, the country will need to quickly build a skilled workforce ready to fill these jobs. This demand offers an extraordinary chance to provide equitable opportunities for young people of color and those from lower-income families to secure these jobs. High school career academies (also called pathways) may offer an evidence-based place to start. These programs combine a college preparatory curriculum with a career theme and are often structured as small learning communities inside larger high schools. An MDRC evaluation found students who attended career academies experienced improved earnings over the long term. Academies and pathways focused on sectors related to green infrastructure can help high school students build valuable work skills while preparing them for postsecondary education in fast-growing job sectors. MDRC is learning from schools and programs across the country that are building innovative models to prepare high school students for jobs in climate infrastructure.

For almost 15 years, the Green Energy Pathway—a career academy—at Skyline High School in Oakland, California has been educating students with a project-based curriculum that explores science-based solutions to global warming. That longevity means the Green Energy Pathway may offer lessons on how to make environmentally focused education successful and sustainable.

The academy is aligned with California’s energy, environment, and utilities industry-sector program. It currently serves about 420 students across grades 9 through 12. A majority of Skyline High School students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, and the school serves mostly students from racial and ethnic minorities. Skyline High School pathways include a cohort model, where students in each grade take many of their classes together with dedicated academy teachers and have a dedicated counselor. They also include an integrated curriculum with core academic courses aligned with sequenced career and technical education. The Green Energy Pathway has an explicit sequence of science and career/technical course sequences that focuses on sustainability and provides multiple opportunities in each grade level for integrating the green-energy theme into different subjects. Teachers across the core subjects work together to support project-based learning that links core academic subjects with career and green-energy themes. Students also participate in a variety of work-based learning activities including visits to companies and organizations, grade level community-based projects such as the 11th grade “Classroom of the Future” project, and internship opportunities, culminating in a capstone project in 12th grade where students apply what they have learned about renewable energy to address and find solutions to environmental issues in their community. Community leaders from a variety of green-energy-focused organizations and institutions attend and review students’ final presentations.