This Innovative Program Proves You Dont Need Vouchers to Create Real School Choice [Video]

This story originally appeared in the February 2025 issue of Texas Monthly as part of our public-education feature, “What Our Schools Actually Need.”

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 …