Leaders for a Better Louisiana released a report showing that while high school student participation in internships and apprenticeships has grown, the state still trails peer southern states. Leaders for a Better Louisiana CEO Adam Knapp says in 2023, about 5-percent of Louisiana’s 42-thousand graduates earned internship credit, better than previous years but still low compared to Georgia and Tennessee’s 15–20-percent.
“So we wanted to help look at this to coordinate and partner with the Department of Education to motivate more employers to start to get into this space and start thinking about more high school students.”
Knapp says in 2023, about 5-percent of Louisiana’s 42-thousand graduates earned internship credit, better than previous years but still low compared to Georgia and Tennessee’s 15–20-percent.
“As many as 20,000 kids. We’d love to make sure their getting credentials, their getting some dual enrollment creds and everything they do that we’d love to see they have some time working at an employers in Louisiana.”
Knapp says Better Louisiana is proposing legislation to streamline work-based tax credits and expand student access to real-world learning that benefits both students and employers.
“For us a big next step is getting that law passed in the near term, and then starting this August when districts are really starting to come knocking on doors of employers that more employers are starting to think about what its like for their businesses.”
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