Writing prompt Grade 10 Careers & CTE
Halverton County's Next CTE Pathway: A Funding Argument
A grade 10 careers argument prompt in which students advise a fictional school board on funding a water technology pathway or expanding health sciences.
Objectives
- Students will write an argument that states a precise claim about a local funding decision and supports it with evidence.
- Students will develop a counterclaim fairly and answer it with a rebuttal grounded in the background packet.
- Students will compare two career pathways using cost, demand, and student access rather than personal preference.
Vocabulary
Key words: claim, counterclaim, rebuttal, dual credit, certification, opportunity cost
Teacher overview
School boards fund one new career pathway at a time, and the choice sets what a local graduating class can train for. This prompt puts students in front of a fictional county board that must decide between a new water technology pathway and an expansion of a health sciences pathway that already turns students away. The misconception the background packet is written to correct is the assumption that a career field with many national openings automatically deserves the local money, when a board also weighs what a program costs per student, who is already waiting for a seat, and what employers nearby will actually hire. Students write an argument with a claim, evidence, a counterclaim, and a rebuttal.
Prompt
Background
The fictional Halverton County school board has money for one new career and technical pathway. The choice is between two proposals. Teams of students have been asked to advise the board in writing.
The county has $310,000 in one-time money and $95,000 each year for staffing. Either proposal uses all of it. About 1,100 county students are enrolled in career pathways now.
Proposal A, a water technology pathway. The pathway would run three courses across grades 10 through 12. Courses would carry dual credit with the fictional Weslake Community College. The fictional utility next door, Weslake Regional Water, would host six paid summer internships each year. That utility expects to fill fourteen positions in the next five years. The district would have to hire a teacher, since no one on staff holds the credential. Projected enrollment is 45 students each year.
Proposal B, an expansion of health sciences. This pathway already exists and enrolls 120 students. Thirty-eight more students are on a waiting list this year. The money would pay for one more teacher and one more lab room. The county hospital reports steady hiring for entry-level clinical roles.
National figures for the water field. About 10,000 openings for water and wastewater operators are projected each year, on average, from 2025 to 2035, and all of them come from retirements and career changes. That figure describes operators specifically, not every job in the water sector. Operators earned a median of $60,020 per year as of May 2025, with the lowest tenth near $39,110 and the highest tenth above $91,060. Roughly one-third of the water workforce becomes retirement-eligible within the next decade. Entry usually asks for a high school diploma, on-the-job training, and a state license earned by examination, and each state sets its own license classes, which rise with plant size and experience. Other roles in the same sector are reached through certificates, four-year engineering degrees, or graduate study, and a high school pathway is one entry point among several.
Your task
Write an argument of 700 to 900 words addressed to the Halverton County school board. State clearly which proposal the board should fund. Support your claim with at least three pieces of evidence from the background. Include one counterclaim, stated fairly, and answer it with a rebuttal. Close with the single reason you find strongest.
Planning Organizer
Fill in every row before you draft. Each row matches one part of the rubric.
| Part | What to write | My notes |
|---|---|---|
| Claim | One sentence naming the proposal the board should fund. | |
| Reason 1 | A reason tied to who gets a seat, with the enrollment or waiting list figure that supports it. | |
| Evidence for reason 1 | The exact figure or statement from the background, with its source named. | |
| Reason 2 | A reason tied to jobs or wages, with the figure that supports it. | |
| Evidence for reason 2 | The exact figure or statement from the background, with its source named. | |
| Marginal comparison | One sentence on what the board gains from the next seat funded in each pathway. | |
| Counterclaim | The strongest point a person on the other side would make, written fairly. | |
| Rebuttal | Your answer to that point, using evidence rather than opinion. | |
| Closing reason | The one reason you want the board to remember. |
From Water for Schools (waterforschools.org). This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely.
Exemplar & Rubric
Exemplar response
This exemplar is a condensed model; your argument should run 700 to 900 words.
The Halverton County school board should fund Proposal A, the water technology pathway, because it opens a field the county cannot currently train for and because the jobs behind it are close by, well paid, and about to turn over.
The first reason is access. Health sciences already enrolls 120 students, and thirty-eight more are waiting for a seat. Those thirty-eight students are not without options, since the program exists and seats open every year as students graduate. Water technology, by contrast, offers zero seats today. Projected enrollment for the new pathway is 45 students a year, so the same money creates a first chance for 45 students rather than a shorter line for 38.
The second reason is the match between the pathway and nearby hiring. Weslake Regional Water expects to fill fourteen positions in the next five years, and it would host six paid summer internships a year. An internship is worth more than a course description, because a student finishes it knowing whether the work suits them. Nationally, about 10,000 openings for water and wastewater operators are projected each year from 2025 to 2035, and all of them come from retirements and career changes rather than growth. That figure covers operators specifically, so it should not be read as the whole water sector, yet it does show a field replacing itself continuously.
Pay supports the same conclusion. Operators earned a median of $60,020 as of May 2025, with the top tenth above $91,060. Entry usually requires a high school diploma, on-the-job training, and a state license earned by examination, with license classes that each state sets and that rise with plant size. A student who leaves Halverton High with dual credit and an internship on record starts that ladder early, and the dual credit still transfers if the same student later chooses an engineering degree instead.
Someone will reasonably argue that the board should serve the students already asking. Thirty-eight names on a waiting list is a real number, and the health sciences pathway has a track record while the water pathway has none. Expanding a working program is also cheaper to manage, since the district would not have to recruit a credentialed teacher for a subject no one on staff teaches.
That argument is fair, and it is not enough. A waiting list measures demand for the programs a school already offers, and it cannot measure demand for a program no student has ever seen. The hiring evidence points the other way as well, because the county hospital reports steady hiring while the water utility reports a specific count of positions, and the national figures show a retirement wave behind it, with roughly one-third of the water workforce becoming retirement-eligible within the next decade. The teacher recruitment problem is real, and the board should budget time for it rather than treat it as a reason to do nothing.
The strongest reason is the one about the next seat funded. Another dollar spent on health sciences shortens a waiting list for training the county already provides, while the same dollar spent on water technology creates training the county cannot currently offer at all. Both proposals deserve funding, and the board is able to start only one of them this year.
Rubric
| Criterion | Emerging | Developing | Proficient | Advanced |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claim | No clear position, or the position shifts during the essay | A position is stated but is vague about which proposal or why | A precise claim names one proposal and holds throughout the essay | The claim names one proposal and frames the decision as a comparison the board must make |
| Evidence and reasoning | Fewer than two pieces of evidence, or figures are used without explanation | Two pieces of evidence appear, yet at least one is not connected to the reason it supports | At least three pieces of evidence from the background support stated reasons, each explained | Evidence is accurate, sourced, explained, and includes a marginal comparison of the next seat funded in each pathway |
| Counterclaim and rebuttal | No counterclaim, or one written so weakly that it cannot be answered | A counterclaim appears but is answered by restating the claim | A counterclaim is stated fairly and answered with evidence | The counterclaim is stated at its strongest, the rebuttal concedes what is true, and it answers the rest with evidence |
| Organization and conventions | Paragraphs are unordered and errors interrupt meaning | Some structure is present, yet transitions are missing and errors are frequent | Clear order, working transitions, and few errors | Clear order, purposeful transitions, formal tone suited to a school board, and clean conventions |
Differentiation
Support
Give students the claim sentence written three ways and let them select and adapt one, so drafting begins from a position rather than from a blank page. Provide the background figures already sorted into a two-column chart labeled by proposal, and allow a 500-word minimum instead of 700.
Extension
Ask students to write a one-paragraph addendum proposing how the board could start a smaller version of the pathway it did not choose, naming what would have to be cut elsewhere and what the county would give up by making that cut.
ELL supports
Pre-teach claim, counterclaim, rebuttal, and dual credit with a short model paragraph that labels each move in the margin. Supply sentence frames for the counterclaim and rebuttal, and allow the counterclaim paragraph to be discussed orally with a partner before it is written.
Extensions
Students can compare their essays with the actual career pathways offered in their own district and identify which local employers each pathway serves. A class can also invite a career and technical education director to describe how a pathway proposal is actually reviewed and funded.