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When Maria walked across the stage at her high school graduation, I sat in the audience proud of her perseverance. I had taught her for two years in high school special education, and I knew how hard she had worked to pass her classes and pass her state assessments despite her specific learning disorder in reading comprehension.

But later, Maria confided in me that instead of feeling proud and excited that night, her heart was racing and her stomach was in knots. The familiar walls of our school, where she had spent so many years learning and growing, would no longer hold her.

Ahead lay a world she did not understand and a future she did not know how to navigate. Friends were talking about college, vocational programs or jobs. Maria had no idea what her next step should be.

Maria’s story reflects a larger problem. The pattern I have seen among my students is reflected in the data: from the graduating class of 2022, 10% of students in Mississippi were not enrolled in college or employed within 12 months of graduation. Without being college and career-ready, students like Maria are pushed into the real world with no direction or purpose.

College and career readiness is about more than helping individual students. It strengthens our state’s economy, reduces unemployment and creates a workforce that can compete nationally, which is why this is the focus of the work I’m doing as a Teach Plus Policy fellow.

When students like Maria leave school without a plan, it is not just their future at risk, it is Mississippi’s future. Waiting until junior and senior year to start college and career readiness curriculum is not yielding the results we need. If Maria had been exposed to a variety of careers and options, she might have felt more prepared for life after high school.  

Mississippi needs to do better for our students, and effectively prepare them for their next step. Maria’s trajectory, and the trajectory of countless other students, could have looked very different if we do the following:

Start career readiness early.  If Maria had been introduced to career exploration in elementary school or middle school, she could have discovered her interests long before graduation. Career fairs, job shadowing opportunities and hands-on vocational programs would have given her direction instead of uncertainty. Early exposure helps students connect what they are learning in class to real opportunities beyond school. 

Teach real-world skills alongside academics. Maria mastered reading, writing and math, but she left high school without knowing how to complete a job application, request college accommodations or navigate transportation to work. These are not extras. They are essentials.

Embedding life skills into daily lessons, such as interviewing, budgeting and workplace communication, would have given her confidence and independence. I now work one on one with my students on applying for a job, applying for college and choosing their future career. This little bit of personalized attention makes a world of difference. 

Build individual success plans that grow with students.  Schools work to support academic growth, but they often neglect long-term planning. If Maria’s Individual Success Plan had begun in elementary school and been revisited yearly with her family and teachers, she would have graduated with a clear roadmap tailored to her strengths, goals and needs. Consistent, individualized planning ensures that students do not leave school feeling lost but instead feel prepared and confident in their next step, whether that is college, vocational training or entering the workforce.

Our group of Teach Plus Policy fellows is advocating for the statewide standardization of the creation and implementation of Individual Success Plans to close equity gaps and ensure that every student in Mississippi has meaningful access to college and career readiness planning.

Mississippi has taken important steps to expand college and career readiness opportunities for students. Those efforts must be supported by systems that reach every learner. A standardized approach would help schools align academic planning, career exploration and progress monitoring in a coherent way. Most importantly, it would help ensure that a student’s future is not determined by geography, but by access to intentional and equitable planning.

Every student deserves to leave high school after graduation prepared for life, not left behind by a system that equates a diploma with readiness. As an educator who has walked alongside students at every grade level, I know we can do better and we must.

Schools, policymakers and communities must act now to ensure students like Maria are not left standing at the edge of uncertainty. We owe it to them to turn diplomas into opportunities and fear into hope. 

Elizabeth Maxcey is a special education teacher at Biloxi High School in Biloxi, Mississippi. She is a 2025-2026 Teach Plus Mississippi Policy fellow.