State workforce is growing; continuing to meet state economy’s talent needs will likely require smaller school districts to regionalize
BOSTON – With the number of K-12 public school students consistently declining as the size of the state workforce continues to grow, regionalization will likely be required to maintain the talent pipeline the Massachusetts economy needs. A new Pioneer Institute study looks to the Commonwealth’s regional vocational-technical high schools for lessons on regionalization for smaller school districts.
Many towns now operate entire school districts that have fewer students than can be found in a single grade in larger systems. Thirty-two towns have fewer than 100 students in total and nearly 100 have fewer than 500 students.
“Regionalization is a pathway to expanding course offerings and programs and providing the specialists that small districts can’t sustain,” said Anupam Raj, who co-authored Fewer Students, Greater Demand: What Massachusetts Can Learn from Its Regionalized Vocational-Technical High Schools” with Anouhka, Daivik Chawla, Colby Bosley-Smith and Joseph McIntyre.
Overall Massachusetts public school enrollment declined by 6.5 percent from 2000 to 2024. The declines are especially severe in Western Massachusetts and Cape Cod.
Meanwhile, the rate of job openings in Massachusetts has risen almost continuously for the last 14 years and the size of the Commonwealth’s labor force has grown from 3.62 million to 4 million since 2011.
As enrollment at traditional and charter public high schools has fallen, vocational-technical high schools are bucking the trend. The schools even grew modestly amid the pandemic from 2019 to 2024.
The authors looked at regional voc-techs to understand how they organized their operations to remain resilient in the face of enrollment pressures and what lessons they hold for the regionalization of Massachusetts school districts.
On the operational side, the authors point to the importance of student choice in terms of both choosing the vocational-technical route and the technical area in which they choose to major. They also highlight the importance of the schools’ hands-on and relevant learning and strong coherence between the Commonwealth’s vocational-technical standards, the schools’ mission and their culture.
Finally, they note partnerships with local industry that link classrooms to workforce needs. Employers donate equipment and offer co-op opportunities. Regional voc-techs are required to have advisory committees for each program. They align the programs with labor market needs and create direct career pathways for students.
“The strongest programs in a building are the ones that have the strongest advisory committees,” said Bob Sanborn of Cape Cod Tech.
The authors also highlight regionalization lessons culled from interviews with voc-tech leaders. State incentives such as start-up grants can help overcome local resistance.
They urge taking a simple and flexible approach to regionalization that respects local context and reduces administrative complexity.
The authors make a number of recommendations for school districts looking to regionalize. They include looking at enrollment scale and transportation realities together. The geography of some rural communities can make distance and ride times the biggest constraints on regionalization.
They also urge prioritizing regionalization at the secondary level first and tying the transition to expanded student opportunities such as more access to vocational-technical programs, Advanced Placement, dual enrollment, additional arts programs and more specialized staff.
Finally, the authors urge a regional governance design that preserves local autonomy. Local governance paired with town approval can support both strong accountability and coordinated decision-making.
