This Innovative Program Proves You Don’t Need Vouchers to Create Real School Choice

By Tom Bartlett | Texas Monthly

The high school students begin the day by drawing one another’s blood, tying tourniquets and tapping veins before inserting needles. Afterward, they gather around a synthetic cadaver for an exploratory disemboweling. Airiana Guerrero, a senior, fishes out a faux kidney and gives it a little squeeze. “Feels like a chicken breast,” she says.

Guerrero is a student at Premont Collegiate High School, in the small South Texas town of Premont, about an hour southwest of Corpus Christi. But twice a week she takes medical classes at the high school in Freer, a similarly small town an hour’s drive to the northwest along straight, lonely back roads. It means getting up early and putting on teal-colored scrubs, but Guerrero considers the extra effort “totally worth it.” She’s already earned certifications in phlebotomy and in administering EKGs. Her dream is to become a pediatrician.

The Premont and Freer school districts are members of the Rural Schools Innovation Zone, a nonprofit that makes it possible for students like Guerrero to take certain classes at other schools in the area. Premont kids can enroll in medical classes at Freer High School, while Freer students who want to become teachers can sign up for education classes at Premont. If students from nearby Benavides want to get into trades such as welding or construction, they’re bused to Falfurrias High School. If Falfurrias kids think robots are cool, they can learn how to build them at Premont.