Dive Summary:

• North Carolina's Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools is among districts around the country taking a page from the European apprenticeship model and developing closer ties between K-12 schools, community colleges and private employers.
• Charlotte-Mecklenburg's 2013-2014 budget calls for traditional high schools to develop career-tech hubs and for the launch of new internship- and career skills-focused magnets--something CMS' Olympic High School got a head start on in 2006 when it split into five career-themed academies.
• Among companies in the area offering highly-competitive apprenticeships to high school students are Duke Energy, Piedmont Natural Gas, Siemens Energy and Bosch Rexroth Corp, and those students who land apprenticeships (which can pay as much as $9-10 an hour, including class time) can receive tuition reimbursement for community college.

From the article:

... “All that testing stuff and all that rote memorization stuff is not going to help you in the real world,” says career development coordinator Michael Realon. Before coming to Olympic to teach business, economics and math, he worked for trade associations, including the Charlotte Apparel Mart. He now acts as Olympic’s liaison to the business community. ...