Massachusetts 2035 · 04 / 10

Education

Your child will make a living by age 18 doing work they’re truly excited about

The moonshot

Build a School-to-Career System

We will rebuild education around three things: an AI personalized tutor and teacher for every student; hands-on workshops and life skills; and early, repeated learning inside companies and public-service institutions. Connect school to paid apprenticeships and real jobs so every student can earn a living at 18.

The opportunity

A picture of 2035

An 18-year-old leaves school with strong reading and math, a portfolio of things she has built, money-management skills, and paid experience at a local employer. She can start earning, continue studying, or do both. She has real choices. Early exposure helps her discover the work she is truly excited to pursue.

What we can build on

Massachusetts has educators, vocational and technical schools, community colleges, universities, employers, and public institutions that can teach together. Early College and apprenticeship pathways provide building blocks for a much stronger connection between school and work.

The gap to close

Too many students reach graduation without knowing what work looks like, how to manage their lives, or how to enter a career. A ranking, a diploma, and a college acceptance are incomplete measures if a young person cannot support themselves.

The work starts here.

Top three key initiatives

An AI personalized tutor and teacher for every student

Give every student access to an AI system that teaches, explains, practices, and adapts to what that student understands. Use it to strengthen reading, writing, mathematics, scientific reasoning, and AI fluency. Start with measured pilots in high-need districts, then expand tools that improve learning.

Keep qualified educators responsible for instruction, assessment, student wellbeing, and decisions. Give them training, time, and better support to coach individuals and lead collaborative work. Protect student data and verify important answers; the goal is individual attention with strong human relationships.

Hands-on workshops and life skills, every week

Make building and doing central to the school day: robotics, repair, design, laboratory work, cooking, writing, speaking, teamwork, and practical problem solving. Teach budgeting, saving, taxes, credit, insurance, rent, contracts, and how to interview and hold a job.

Give students repeated chances to finish a project, handle feedback, resolve conflict, and take responsibility. Invest in workshops, equipment, arts, physical activity, and skilled instructors. A student should graduate with a portfolio that demonstrates capability, not just a transcript that records attendance.

Get students inside the four walls where work happens

Make companies, hospitals, labs, public-service institutions, utilities, nonprofits, and local businesses part of the learning environment. Begin with age-appropriate visits and workplace projects well before high school ends. Let students meet the people doing the work and see themselves in those jobs.

Move into supervised job shadowing, pre-apprenticeships, and paid apprenticeships as students become eligible. Build substantial work-based learning into the later high-school years, with employers and public institutions providing mentors and real assignments. Follow applicable age, hour, and hazardous-work rules. 6

The supporting work

A Jobs-at-18 compact with employers and public service

Invite hospitals, manufacturers, labs, municipalities, trades, and small businesses to reserve visits, mentors, paid placements, and entry-level interviews. Publish actual commitments; named companies in this vision are prospective partners, not signatories.

A diploma that demonstrates capability

Develop a Mastery Diploma proposal covering core academics, practical projects, financial and civic knowledge, and work-based learning. Build it with educators, students, employers, and colleges so it preserves access to further study.

Pay and equip the educators who make it work

Move starting teacher pay toward $70,000, subject to district agreements and funding. Support workplace coordinators, technical instructors, summer training, and smaller mentoring groups where needed.

Remove the cost of participation

Pay students for productive employment. Cover transport, equipment, meals, and disability accommodations so opportunity does not depend on family income. Prefer employer and public funding; any adult training finance must have transparent terms and strong consumer protections.

Keep every door open, for life

Make apprenticeships and technical learning stack toward further credentials and college where agreements allow. Offer adults the same AI-supported learning and retraining. Pilot public-school models with independent evaluation and a clear path to revise what fails.

The path to 2035

Proposed milestones. Expand against evidence, delivery, and public value.

2027
Start with learning and real exposure
Propose pilots in 10 districts serving 5,000 students, with high-need communities first. Equip workshops, test AI tutoring, and build employer/public-service partnerships. Establish age-appropriate visits and an initial target of 2,000 paid placements over two years.
2029
Expand what students prove
Expand toward 40 districts only where independent results justify it. Pursue 10,000 paid work-based learning places annually. Track literacy, math, practical skill, wellbeing, employer feedback, and whether students can reach placements reliably.
2031
Make experience a normal part of school
Make every district capable of offering AI tutoring, hands-on learning, and a supported route into real workplaces. Seek a statewide mastery standard and broader educator support. Colleges and employers recognize the same demonstrated skills.
2035
Make earning at 18 a real option
Aim for every graduate to have strong core skills, a practical portfolio, meaningful workplace experience, and a supported route to living-wage employment at 18. Students who choose college retain that option; students who choose work can support themselves and keep learning.

Questions & answers

Does this reduce education to job training?

Education should build a capable person: literate, numerate, curious, creative, physically active, and able to participate in civic life. Earning a living at 18 adds a concrete test of usefulness. It should expand independence and choices, including college, rather than narrow a child's future.

Will AI replace teachers or turn school into screen time?

AI should provide individual teaching and practice while educators remain accountable for the whole child. Preserve discussion, reading, projects, arts, sport, and relationships. Evaluate learning and wellbeing independently; do not adopt a fixed screen-time model because a vendor claims faster results.

Will apprenticeships become cheap labor or track poor kids away from college?

Make access broad, participation supported, employment paid, and placements supervised. Keep academics and further-study routes open. Audit opportunity and outcomes by income, disability, and district. At 18, compare actual earnings with a published local basic-needs benchmark rather than calling any job a living.

Show the results.

The public scorecard

These are the measures we would publish to judge progress.

Core learning
Practical mastery
Paid placements
Job offers and employment at 18
Earnings versus a local living-cost benchmark
Continued education
Student wellbeing and access

Sources & context

Reference notes dated September 16, 2026. Plans and proposals are distinguished from existing activity.

[6] U.S. Department of Labor: Youth employment, Fact Sheet 43
Youth employment has age and occupational restrictions, including hazardous-work limits. Massachusetts requirements also need to be applied to each proposed placement.