Featured Work: Extending the Runway: Improving the Quality of Middle School Career Exploration

The economy is evolving more rapidly than ever before, with new occupations taking shape at an unprecedented pace. Students need better and earlier career navigation to increase their likelihood of successfully transitioning into the high-value postsecondary options increasingly required for good jobs, and schools must be positioned to offer this support to ensure equitable access for all students.

Following their joint 2024 report, Extending the Runway, Britebound and ESG partnered to create an Impact and Learning Network of top states featured in the research to meet a two-pronged goal:

1. Continue to improve access to, and quality of, middle grades career exploration in leading states; and
2. Articulate a clear vision for this work, including model policy language and a comprehensive resource repository, to support the work of all states nationwide.

From 2025-2026, the first cohort of the network brought together local and state K-12, higher education, intermediary, and workforce leaders from five states—Arkansas, Arizona, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and Washington—in partnership to create both state plans for continued improvement and a suite of public resources.

Together, these states built in-depth action plans to improve middle school career exploration by setting a vision for quality policies and practices, identifying key funding and accountability levers for career exploration, and mapping action steps for implementing the work, all while incorporating student voice and feedback to inform the proposed changes in their state. Several Secretaries of Education signed a Joint Commitment Statement, demonstrating what it means to prioritize providing students with meaningful career exploration opportunities starting in the middle grades.

The first cohort’s work also resulted in the creation of a set of model policies that states can adapt to craft their own legislation focused on middle school career exploration definitions and governance, district and student requirements, accountability and reporting, and building infrastructure and capacity.

Click the boxes below to explore the model policies.

A second cohort of states—Idaho, Illinois, Michigan, and South Dakota—is underway as of spring 2026 and will build on the state policy-level work of the first cohort by creating practitioner tools for deeper implementation.

Based on ESG’s original in-depth national scan of state-by-state practices and policies, as well as dozens of student and expert interviews, we know that 73 percent of states have identified middle school career exploration as an important component of a student’s education, but few states measure and support the quality of these practices by collecting data (20 percent), including in accountability plans (16 percent), or having a strong ecosystem of organizations supporting the work (8 percent). The Network aims to build the capacity of states across the country to improve their middle school offerings by coming together to design model policies, tools, and templates that any state—regardless of geography, context, or size—can customize and implement to improve their work.

• Read the original report and see how your state stacks up by finding each state’s profile on Britebound’s website.
• Read about the launch of the Impact and Learning Network and our team’s personal reflections on the work of the network. 
• Listen to what our student advisors had to say about their middle school career exploration experiences. 
• Read why our CEO, Matt Gandal, thinks Middle School is the New Starting Line for Career Exploration.
• Check out an article in Forbes from Britebound CEO Julie Lammers highlighting the momentum of this work.
• Reach out to us at impact@esg.org to share your experiences or learn how the ESG team can help your state, district, or school improve your career exploration opportunities for students.