Maine’s 10-year economic development strategy, updated in 2024, calls for accelerating economic growth and innovation in the state. A crucial element of the strategy is to increase the number of higher-paying, higher-value-added jobs and the skilled labor force needed to fill them.

One way we can help achieve that objective is to do a better job of aligning the educational system with the longer-term development plan. Two key challenges stand out: helping awaken students’ aspirations for personal and career success and better linkage between schooling and careers. Wider use of experiential learning methods can help achieve both objectives.

A good example is the STEM education pilot program in Franklin and Somerset counties. Launched under a 2019 agreement between the state and CMP stipulating conditions for the proposed NECEC hydropower corridor plan, CMP committed $10 million in funds over 10 years to enhance science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education in those counties.

Although the ups and downs of the NECEC project brought some modifications to the funding stream, the pilot began in 2021 and has continued since. Already it has provided over $115,000 in grants to teachers for equipment and professional development and $52,000 in scholarships to residents of the two counties to acquire STEM-related educational credentials. It has worked 30 elementary, middle and high schools, reaching more than 6,500 students, and with more than 80 businesses and postsecondary schools.

STEM education is about more than textbook learning — it is also about learning by doing and getting hands-on experience. Not only is experiential learning an effective method of teaching content, it also helps awaken students’ curiosity and initiative.

Another initiative started in 2022 as part of the state’s 10-year development plan. Its purpose is to ensure that all Mainers from ages 18 to 22 acquire some paid real-world career-related experience. The principal objective is promoting career readiness so that students leave school prepared to enter the adult world.

A part of the career exploration funding went to create coordinator positions in schools to expand “extended learning opportunities” (ELOs) for students. These are activities supervised by school staff that combine pay with academic credit.

A 2025 University of Southern Maine evaluation of the Maine Career Exploration program found overwhelmingly positive results. Students valued doing meaningful, job-relevant work. Employers benefited from drawing more young people into their industries. Teachers reported that these real-world experiences helped improve student engagement.

To align such initiatives more closely with the state’s development plan, we must now address two issues: the deep disparities across Maine’s regions and households and the need for closer alignment between classroom learning and the hard and soft skills that employers are looking for.

The wide gaps between richer and poorer communities and families mean that while for some students schooling serves as a ladder to a good career, for others, school is an alienating environment. Often students in the latter group are urged to get a vocational education. Such advice is seriously misguided. Not only does it perpetuate the old stigma surrounding vocational and technical education, it also fails to recognize that today’s career and technical education programs are the places where the most cutting-edge hard and soft skills are taught and the connections to communities are the strongest.

Maine’s career and technical education programs are providing exactly the kinds of experiential learning that we should encourage all our schools to offer. Experiential learning is not just for STEM. Students in all subjects learn more and better when they see the connections between classroom and community.

We have long known this. A century ago, the great American educator John Dewey was making exactly the same point. Today more than ever, if we want to improve career readiness among our students, we have to help them relate what they are learning in school to the world outside the classroom walls.