Episode 29 Part 2: Building STEM Pathways: Connecting Youth, Education, and Industry === [00:00:04] Michael Donovan: Welcome to the Evidence to Impact podcast, the podcast that brings together academics and their research partners to talk about insights and real-world policy solutions in Pennsylvania and beyond. I'm Michael Donovan, the associate director of the Evidence to Impact Collaborative at Penn State. In the second part of this two-part episode, we'll continue our rich discussion on building STEM pathways, connecting youth, education, and industry with my guests Dale Kashishian, founder and CEO of Health Works Academies, and David Garbe, director of the McKinney Center for STEM Education at the Philadelphia Education Fund. There's responsibility for schools and educators to be taking on a quite a bit of this mission. There's also the communities themselves as you pointed out, David, to self-actualize around supporting their own goals. There's other mentorships and environments. On that way. Are there other stakeholders that would be important to bring into this? You both represent very important stakeholders as mediators or intermediaries. What other folks are we leaving out of the conversation Maybe. [00:01:08] David Garbe: That's great. And I think Dale and I have touched on it a number of times throughout this conversation. I think one demographic, one group that's really missing oftentimes from these conversations are our industry partners. You know, I think they need to come to the table and we don't always look at them for financial support. It would be obviously nice, but for developing great programs to, helping us align our programs to what they need to help us design what those pathways and how to represent those pathways to our young people. We need them to come to the table. We need them to be part of the conversation because again, we can only create so much. And if it's not directly aligned with what they need, then our efforts, it's kind of wasted. And then I do think another group that we have, I don't think we've even spoken about yet, that needs to show up at the table is our policymakers. We can't do all of this work in silos. This needs to be driven at multiple different fronts. Other states are doing this, there states are doing this well, we gotta get out of our own way, whether that is, partisan politics or a competitive nature here in Pennsylvania. But we just need to do this in a more concerted effort to help move the needle. Again, other states are doing it. You know, there's North Carolina Biotechnology Center, there's mass Bio Ed in Massachusetts, Tennessee is doing this well, and it's because multiple systems got together to change. And we gotta get out of our own way sometimes. Love to hear your thoughts, Dale. [00:02:46] Dale Keshishian: Yeah I totally agree. Industry needs to inform us of what they need. It's changing so quickly, and that's true for K-12 education to prepare students for what's next as well as post-secondary education. I think and, you know, to the point earlier that our workforce needs to think in terms and our industries need to think in terms of lifelong education. Because the opportunities are changing for upward mobility and education. Education needs to be a partner with industry to ensure that they're fostering upward mobility within those companies. I think that when we started our program projects Don't Soup for an Alternative Pathway to Employment and Post-Secondary Education. And one of the things that is critically important is that many times current certificate programs our certifications are misaligned with what industry needs. So we need industry to inform us so that we can write the curriculum, we can write the employer guides. We can work with our apprenticeship partners and our post-secondary education partners to to foster education for students in those entry level positions, and then continue our partnership with industry for post-secondary education because students go into these fields and see something for themselves that they didn't see when they were in high school. And I can't tell you how many of our panelists started with certificate programs and went on to leadership positions. So that's critically important I think for, you know, to David's point about policy makers we're really looking at a formula for economic development here that is underserved. The funding for it, the support for it with our policy makers. This allows our industries to grow and for our industries to grow, our workforce needs to grow. And so the economic mobility in Pennsylvania is incumbent on how we support industry and how we support industry is through a knowledgeable workforce and a career pathway. Again, stop thinking about it in silos and what can we do collectively? [00:05:07] Michael Donovan: Sure. That all complex problems tend to silo out to simplify, and then often we need to look at these system of problems with system solutions as well. I'm really glad, David, that you noted some states that you think are doing this's right. Not hold you to that, but there are exemplars that our policymakers can leverage and think about adapting to the context of Pennsylvania, which are unique. And Dale, I really love underscoring the economic dynamism that this can generate. And also not just dollars in activity, but also we're trying to have a workforce that is feeling more aligned for more satisfied. And feel like their work is a space they wanna stay which reduces that turbulent nature in the job market as well. So there's a number of different dimensions there. I want to come towards wrapping up with, two frames. One we can look at it from a challenge orientation. And then the second we'll look at it from opportunities, from a kind of a strength based. So first, this is a two part question, but if you could start over the STEM education environment in the settings that you're often working in. And I know some districts do it differently and there's lots of variability, but what would you change first? What would be the first thing on, on your list and then in parallel with that from the student's perspective, what. Is one misconception about STEM in general that you wish could be better understood. And then actually I'll open that up in that even further beyond just the student to the teacher workforce as well educator workforce. [00:06:46] David Garbe: Well, your first question in my opinion is really a tough one to answer. And I'm not trying to punt it. There's just so many pieces to that puzzle that trying to redesign in a linear fashion, starting with just one point. And in my mind it's really challenging. I mean, I could, we could talk to teacher professional development aligning systems between education and workforce and higher ed. We haven't even really touched on. Necessarily a role that higher ed can play. You know, and how the interwoven ness of all of those entities those cross-sector partners is critically complicated. So I'm not trying to balk at that question. I would love to hear if Dale has something top of mind that, that she says, yes, this is the one thing right away that we're looking to change. [00:07:38] Dale Keshishian: I have to agree. That's a tough one. Here's what I think project Stone Soup was modeled after the Children's book Stone Soup, where you have an intractable problem and you try to solve it by yourself, and you're operating from a place of scarcity. When you bring in community, you operate from a place of abundance. I think when we look at those challenges and opportunities, we look at the challenge of educating students with educators, doing all the heavy lift and in an environment that is increasingly difficult when you have shortened attention spans and you know, and headwinds like, cell phones and technology that are diverting students from real world experiences. I remember going out in the woods and building a fort I don't know if kids still do that, but we learned what works and what doesn't work or changing a bicycle tire and things like that. You know? I don't know that you know that we have enough. Hands-on experiences for students to just explore and foster, excitement and instead of a barrage of information that they're then expected to turn into knowledge that then they're expected to turn into post-secondary education and a career. Right? And so I think the opportunity there is to to bring in community, to bring in industry, post-secondary education, career pathways having students experience, experience what those STEM competencies look like in the real world. I think one of the schools that we worked with did a capstone project for four weeks. They were charged with working with an industry professional in a field that they were interested in pursuing. And they had to do a deep dive. And, and working with an industry professional, not only learning about their career pathway, but about the industry, about opportunities, about other opportunities under the umbrella of that industry. The students with that experience persisted in post-secondary education and career attainment. It was an amazing four weeks where they did a deep dive and they got really immersed and then they had to do a presentation and it was a graduation requirement. It was brilliant. And now they had proximity to somebody in the industry. And then through post-secondary education continued those relationships. To stay in touch with them and report back on what they were doing and what challenges they had and you know, that experience turned into a mentoring relationship in many cases that persisted. So I think in terms of opportunity, there's lots of things that we can do if we take down the barriers and the silos and think of education partners and how those partners can foster that that persistence. [00:10:56] David Garbe: And Michael, I'll just jump back in, if you don't mind. Listen to Dale talk, given this a little bit more thought. I think one way to improve education, the quality of education is investing in our educators. And we need to stop having the conversation when we talk about STEM jobs. STEM opportunities, that there's all this other stuff over here in life sciences and engineering, nuclear fission, I mean all, you know, nuclear engineering, all this stuff. Oh, and by the way, there's also STEM teachers. And it's like a fallback, right? We need to develop high quality STEM educators to really move the needle in the classroom, in the formal classroom space. And what does that look like? Again, this is a complicated issue. It's pay you know, we gotta pay our teachers more, let's be honest. We need to reduce some of the burdens of our classroom teachers. I have educator friends have been doing this stuff for 26 years, and they're like, I would not recommend my own child to go into the education field right now, because it's not just teaching anymore. It's the administrative burden. It's the parents, it's, you know. Student behavior, COVID exacerbated that it's, there's a lot of things, but if we put STEM teaching as a, on a pedestal with all the other STEM opportunities and pay the teachers more and allow them to join into that field on equal, on a level playing field, I think that's gonna help improve long-term outcomes for our young people. And then the only other part I'll add is again, we're on the cusp of AI and revolutionizing education and workforce, but I really firmly believe that. Opportunity gaps are only going to grow in this world of AI because AI is going to make us better workers, better thinkers, they're gonna be right next to us doing work alongside of us being thought partners. And if you're in a school, you're in a district that are in the have nots, if you will, and you don't have that, that training, you don't have the opportunity to be exposed to this tech technology. The ones that do are only gonna move that much farther ahead and that much faster. So we need to be intentional about democratizing AI education somehow. And we're only in the beginning stages of it, but intentionality needs to be there because we're going only going to exacerbate the problem if we avoid it. [00:13:30] Dale Keshishian: I totally agree, and I think that with with AI you know, we talk about it taking jobs away, but I think with ai the people who will progress are the ones who who know how to use ai. And so democratizing that is critically important. I think in terms of investing in STEM teachers I'd like to talk about that for a moment. The Pennsylvania statewide STEM ecosystem is doing a remarkable job both in supporting STEM teachers and STEM students. And I think that when we talk about bringing in community, that's a perfect example of how this organization supports STEM education in the classroom. Training teachers and creating opportunities for students. And I have to applaud what they're doing across the state. [00:14:28] David Garbe: Yeah, thanks for bringing that up, Dale. Pennsylvania statewide STEM ecosystem is, you know, they are trying to connect 14 regional STEM ecosystems together for shared resources, shared learning, shared problem solving. And it's the interconnectedness I think, of those STEM ecosystems, which is gonna help drive innovation and drive that continuity across the commonwealth here in Pennsylvania. As Dale mentioned, they're a great organization. The Philadelphia STEM ecosystem is part of the statewide STEM ecosystem. And again, there's 13 others around the commonwealth that are doing this work together. [00:15:02] Dale Keshishian: And they have a direct connect to the Pennsylvania Department of Ed and the Pennsylvania Department of Labor. So they're well positioned between education and industry and connecting the school districts through these 14 ecosystems that reach 500 school districts across Pennsylvania. We are at a huge advantage to be able to leverage their network and their system and their their components to advance stem education and workforce development in Pennsylvania. [00:15:39] Michael Donovan: I love it. There's an opportunity for some collaboration and really coordination of the overall effort with bringing others, all the different regions to the table. I really hear the points on the significant risk in front of us of deepening achievement gaps as a result of AI being further integrated into our economy and our life. I absolutely agree, and I think we're at a moment right now where we have an opportunity in front of us to try to reduce that deleterious effect. But, coming towards a conclusion here, are there any other kind of opportunities that you feel are being overlooked? Or any things that could be changed. Now where there is both a kind of a temporal dimension to this. Like what is our ideal designed paragon here, but then what is something that could be done? [00:16:30] Dale Keshishian: I would like to say that we rethink our traditional high school pathway preparing students for college and our career and technical education schools, preparing students for the trades because there are just too many students being left out. We estimate about 23,000 high school graduates a year, and that does not include students who don't persist in college, who now have student debt and no degree. And we have an opportunity two. Prepare students in high school to know that there's another pathway through apprenticeship programs that provide stackable skills, certifications learn while you learn opportunities with employment. And in our model, we have we have a commitment for employers to support post-secondary education. So it's an al alternative pathway to upward mobility, but for some students, it's just too big a bite to go to college or they're not ready, or they don't have role models or they don't know what they would do in college or they don't feel that they're college material. We see that all the time. But given the right environment and introducing them to these opportunities before. They graduate from high school is critically important so that they know that there's a pathway. Because with Opportunity youth, once they graduate, they no longer have teachers, counselors administrators and a support system for engaging them in what's next. And so we see them start at entry level jobs. And it takes forever to be able to get to a point of a living wage without a plan and without support. So if we can embed this this pathway in high schools before they graduate they know that there's an opportunity for career attainment and upward mobility, but I think it's critically important to create this third pathway for students. [00:18:45] David Garbe: I think it's around urgency, kind of what are those next steps if I recall. I guess I'll just reiterate what I think are at least one or two critical points is we've set it all along, breaking down silos, collaboration over competition. That's the only way we're gonna move the needle. And then. Bringing in family community engagement, contextualizing learning experiences to make it relevant for those students. And, bringing in the community voices that have those lived experiences that might be underserved and raising those up to the top. Because they're gonna help drive this movement. They're gonna help create opportunities and they're gonna be part of diversifying innovation moving forward. So, I'll pause and I will think about other things that we might have missed. But as we wrap up, I just wanted to kind of reinforce a, a few things that were on my mind. [00:19:40] Michael Donovan: No, that's wonderful and I actually wanted to give you both the opportunity for any final takeaways so we can, I can pass that to Dale if you'd like to have any kind of final takeaways, summing up our conversation, and then if David has any additional thoughts, we can attack those onto the end. [00:19:57] Dale Keshishian: I think this has been a really rich discussion. And and I think we, you know, we've addressed a lot of challenges and opportunities here, and I think synthesizing the opportunities and exploring how we can operationalize them and put them in the classroom and embed them whether it's the durable skills or the the mentors and the role models and and the connecting the connection to industry. Having students understand transferable skills and how they navigate their paths. And having somebody in their proximity that can both guide them in industry and engage them by looking like them or coming from their background or, sharing, some commonality that that makes this, a attainable for them. And I think, I think the hands-on experience in STEM is critically important. That's where you really get students interest and engagement and that spark and that like, oh my, I didn't know this, you know, I could, do this thing and then persist with that and foster that engagement and just keep it going. [00:21:09] David Garbe: Thanks Dale. Something we haven't, I don't think talked about enough is funding support. This stuff doesn't come free, so whether that's through industry, partner support, corporate support, foundational support, state level support, national level support local support through city offices. These things need to take priority and there needs to be some sort of financial support backing them because without that, it's hard to get this work done. Being in the nonprofit space, Dale, and I know we, we bootstrap a lot of things and just to get the work done. And if we had the financial means and we were intentional about using those in a very systematic way with multiple voices at the table I think systems level change would happen quicker. [00:22:10] Dale Keshishian: I, hardly agree. I think that we've seen the philanthropic landscape just so challenged. I've written more grants than I ever have. I've gotten more rejections than ever. It's just it's remarkably difficult. And part of our pivot in 2025 was that schools couldn't pay for our series with the department of the dismantling of the depart Department of Ed. They didn't, you know the funding was just not there. For our schools that, are in challenged neighborhoods who couldn't pay for the, for or support our work we went to our corporate. Sponsors who are all in healthcare and dealing with you know, changes in the Affordable Care Act and Medicare and Medicaid, and how that was going to impact their bottom line. They were all in healthcare. And so, they were pausing, support and and so that left us with philanthropy, which is a very competitive landscape, and so in 2025, it was a pivotal year for us, and we really thought we were done. And that would be tragic because we have so much to offer. But to David's point, without funding, there's, you know, we like to say there's no mission, no, no money, no mission. The mission has persisted despite depleting funds just by sheer will and. Paperclips and rubber bands. But we can't operate that way, and we don't want to operate that way. And we have so much to offer, particularly when we look at our collective network to support STEM education in Pennsylvania and fostering workforce and industry. But we can't do it without adequate funding and sustainable funding so that we can implement programs, test them, scale them, see what works, what doesn't work. What might work in Philadelphia, might not work in the counties or might not work in a rural geography. How do we modify those to make sure that there's persistence in different geographies, but it takes money and PSSE is doing remarkable work, and the fact that we have this structure is such a benefit to educators, to industry, for, for students. Really such a wealth of resources. So, that's important. [00:24:39] Michael Donovan: Can certainly understand and it is a challenging environment. I think this work is so foundational to our development in as a society, I feel like we need to orient this as investments in the future. Really investments not just in the workforce but in quality of lives. You know there's lots of opportunity there, but it's increasingly competitive for dollars. No doubt about that. And unfortunately I have no solution for that. But I hope that maybe our listeners can figure out a way to solve that problem. Right. [00:25:10] David Garbe: yeah. We're talking about bringing people out of generational poverty. I mean, right. It's imperative that we do this work and we just can't do it alone. [00:25:20] Dale Keshishian: I would also say that this work is a direct connect to social determinants of health. Social determinants of education and social determinants of health are inextricably linked. And so when you have education, workforce development, upward mobility, you also have a better living environment, healthy food, healthy environment and generational attainment for your children. And, you know, better education, better living ex you know healthier environment. So there's a ripple effect to the work that we do, but it's critically important that we get to the start line. [00:26:02] Michael Donovan: Well, I'd love to thank you both for such a rich conversation. As you noted Dale, very rich conversation. We will be sure to include resources and links to some of the topics discussed, as well as, of course links to both of our guests organizations in our show notes. For those of you who would like a little further depth following our discussion, again, I want thank my guests today, Dale Kashian, founder and CEO of HealthWorks academies, and David Garby, director of the McKinney Center for STEM Education at the Philadelphia Education Fund. Thank you both. [00:26:39] David Garbe: Thank you for having us as part of this conversation. This has been delightful. [00:26:42] Dale Keshishian: Thank you. It's been wonderful.