Mississippi Superintendent of Education Hank Bounds has unveiled a new $20 million proposal designed to offer seven possible career paths to high school students and online courses that would help prepare them for college and the workforce.

"Technology offers many options today that didn't exist 15 or 20 years ago and can engage students in ways that traditional lecturing can not," Bounds said in a recent newsletter to the state's schools.

The plan is called Redesigning Education for the 21st Century Workforce in Mississippi. Bounds told eSchool News the plan is a "vision for the future of Mississippi's middle and high schools."

The state chief wants high school students to select classes related to their desired career field, much like in college, and the state will offer online courses to students who want to graduate early or to those who are behind.

The goals, Bound said, are to prepare students for the workforce more effectively and to lower the state's dropout rate. About 35 to 40 percent of high school students in Mississippi fail to graduate, he said.

"They're all going into the workforce," Bounds said. "It's our job to make sure they capture the [required] skills."

Bounds said the default curriculum in the state has rightly been a college preparatory curriculum for middle and high school students.

"But we should have a fallback net," he said. "As a high school principal [for 12 years], I would see many students who did not go through appropriate transitional activities in ninth grade. They would fail two or three courses, get behind, and feel like they were in too deep a hole to get out."

Bounds said he hopes the proposed program will help students like these recognize they have a wider array of options beyond dropping out of school. The program will permit students to take self-paced online courses and also receive support through on-site instructors.

"If a student can complete a course in 60 days instead of 180, then that student should be able to progress at his or her own pace," Bounds said. "For some, it may take longer."

The state superintendent said the 21st-century learning skills and technology development that make up the curriculum would seem more relevant to students, who often are frustrated with subject matter they perceive as out-of-step with the current work world.

"We know they're dropping out because it doesn't seem to represent what happens in the future," he said.

Bounds said he would ask the state Legislature in January to fund the program. By fall 2008, if the program proceeds as planned, students could select from one of seven career paths: health care; agriculture and natural resources; construction and manufacturing; transportation; business management and marketing; science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM); and human services.