An Invitation to Your Community -- School to Work

A r c h i v e d I n f o r m a t i o n

School to Work

There's one element in particular that is conspicuously absent from American education, although it's vital to America's future. We're the only industrialized nation without a formal system for helping teenagers make the transition from school into the workplace.

Communities and states want to change that, and the President wants to help. His School-to-Work Opportunities Act offers financial support for businesses and schools, in communities and states, to create high-quality school-to-work programs.

These programs include rigorous academic preparation for students so that they may choose to enter challenging college and university degree programs or promising careers. In these programs, high school students will learn not only at school, but through carefully constructed experiences at one or more work sites. School and work-site learning will be coordinated and closely supervised.

All students in these programs will be expected to reach challenging academic standards, as well as portable, industry-recognized skill standards in an occupational area. When finishing high school, students will be ready to enter high-skill, high-wage jobs -- or continue on to postsecondary education.

Many communities and states are building school-to-work programs on efforts they already have. To strengthen their tech prep, career academies, cooperative education, and youth apprenticeships, they're incorporating three elements that are essential to any solid school-to-work effort, and central to the School-to-Work Opportunities Act:

Work-based learning -- a planned sequence of job training and job-related experiences across a broad range of tasks in an occupational area such as health or electronics. Work experience and workplace mentoring are included.

School-based learning -- a coherent, multiyear sequence of instruction that typically begins in 11th grade and ends after at least one year of postsecondary education. It is also fully compatible with academic and technical course work leading to both two-year and four-year college and university degrees, or further education. This instruction is tied to high academic and skill standards.

Connecting activities -- coordination of learning at work and at school. This may include redesigning what students do and learn, matching students with particular work-based learning options, and collecting information on what happens to students after they complete programs.

For more information on the School-to-Work Opportunities Act, call the School-to-Work Opportunities Information Center at (202) 260-7278.

[Improving America's School Act]

[More Than the Sum of the Parts]