Good vocational technical schools understand incentives. And how to use them well.

Incoming voke students are a little unusual in that they’ve all done some thinking about their futures. Usually, they want a skill that will land them a job that allows them, hopefully, to be good and done with school. But they want something, and that’s important.

Massachusetts’ Diman Vocational School keeps putting carrots in front of them — how about this opportunity? — until voila! The kids want a bit more for themselves. And more. And more. They get motivated to meet goals.

Take Jonathan “Wojo” Wojtowicz. For him, school had been a drag. Now neatly dressed and sitting like a young professional across a conference table, he explained, with a momentary hangdog look, that in his Rhode Island middle school, he’d gotten “B’s” and a few “failing grades, too.” As an eighth-grader, what he really wanted was a fast track to a job as an auto mechanic.

So he moved in with his dad, who lives in Fall River, to go to Diman, because of its great reputation for automotive technology.

“Since being here, I’m all ‘A’s’ and captain of the football team.” And as a senior, he landed a plum internship at Midas, earning industry wages now, with an offer of a full-time job when he finishes school. But after his auto tech program at Diman, fixing cars doesn’t interest him nearly as much as engineering. He’s applied to several four-year colleges for their engineering programs.

Alexandria Lascola’s world also got bigger at Diman. She was sure she wanted to work in culinary. But already as a freshman, she switched to office technology. Now she’s a senior and wants a four-year college program so she can get into entertainment management. Most high-school students don’t even know such a field exists.

From September to December, Diman’s freshmen must take eight exploratory courses, chosen from the school’s 16 vocational offerings. Besides the obvious, the school offers air conditioning and refrigeration, facilities management, metal fabrication and welding, and dental hygiene. The state requires that of those eight exploratory courses, three have to be nontraditional, meaning girls in welding and boys in dental hygiene. (They do not offer cosmetology.)

So not until the end of the exploratory period do students commit to a trade.

The kicker is that if you’re gung-ho for a particular program, you have to do well in all of your exploratory courses to win a spot. The school rewards students who can work hard whenever asked to, and not just when they feel like it. For example, the precision mechanics program is highly competitive, which forces would-be machinists to give their all when baking a pie in an unloved culinary class — a good lesson in itself. Students can switch trades up until the end of sophomore year.

Then there are competitions, travel opportunities and, finally, co-op jobs. The school keeps holding out things kids want, and the kids reach for them. Diman has a tiny drop-out rate and averages about a 60 percent rate of kids going to college or further training. Local businesses and industries gratefully welcome Diman’s well-prepared graduates when they go directly into the work force.

It is signficant that Diman is a stand-alone vocational school, not a program inside a larger school. English, math, sports and special education are all in one place. Academics aren’t way over there, detached from the daily life of a future plumber or electrician. Students are not bused from another high school to a facility that houses all the machinery related to trades. Diman is a full-service school, and the Tigers is its football team. No divided loyalties.

Furthermore, Massachusetts finances its vocational schools directly from the state, much the way charter schools are financed. This means that eighth-grade guidance counselors have no reason to steer kids away from vocational education which would cost their local school district more money. In Rhode Island, among other states, the district saves money if they can keep the kid in regular ed and not pony up for the vocational extras.

But where incentives really come into play is the way Diman starts right off feeding and growing each kid’s increasingly robust vision of an imaginary future. Good vocational schools — and other engaging magnet programs that specialize in the arts or environmental science — are places where adults actively help kids think through what they want life to be like after high school. What do they see themselves doing? How will they get there? By having concrete ideas about a real future, kids can feel somewhat in charge of their lives. And they get the idea that school can help them achieve their goals.

As opposed just to being told what to do. Too many kids feel like they have no reason to be in school. And they totally turn off when they hear that tired old rap about education leading to good jobs and good wages to buy lots of stuff. It’s too abstract.

At the end of my visit, my hosts treated me to lunch in the school’s public restaurant, which helps support the culinary program. I chatted up Michael, our server, who came to Diman for the culinary program. His interests had grown beyond food to business. His current goal is to become “an upper-level executive at the Disney Corporation. And to move to Florida,” he adds, on what was a nippy New England day.

He’s got options, motive and a work ethic that helps him persist in school.

Julia Steiny, a former member of the Providence School Board, consults for government agencies and schools; she is co-director of Information Works!, Rhode Island’s school-accountability project. She can be reached at juliasteiny@cox.net , or c/o EdWatch, The Providence Journal, 75 Fountain St., Providence, RI 02902.