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

Study of School-To-Work Initiatives October 1996

PREFACE

For most young people in high school, there is no one who is responsible for their transition from school to work. Not their counselors. Not their teachers. Not their principals. Not their parents. Not the employers in their communities.

Consider two high school students: Gwen, who is planning to go to college and her friend Anita, who has no plans to attend college after graduating from high school.

Gwen has many resources available to her:

supportive parents and teachers;
a college counselor;
friends who go to college and can tell her what it is like;
a recognized credentialing system of GPAs, class ranking, SATs, ACTs, and other standardized and achievement tests;
Peterson's, Fiske, and other college guides and catalogues that describe different colleges and college options;
colleges that want her and will let her visit whenever she wants to sit in on classes, talk with students, and meet with faculty and staff; and
an extensive financial assistance program of scholarships and loans to help her pay.

Anita, on the other hand, has few resources. She has:

little encouragement to consider college and no help with her career planning;
no job or career counselor;
no friends with "good" jobs;
no resume that provides information about her employability skills, knowledge, and abilities;
no job search or interviewing skills;
no Peterson's guide to local employers;
no employers who will let her visit, talk with employees, and shadow different jobs;
no employers with good career ladders who hire young people before they've reached the age of 25 or 26; and
no extensive financial assistance program to support her.

Why should we be concerned about students like Anita? Because they are the very people our economy will depend on in the future. They represent the 50% of our high school graduates who do not go to college as well as the 50% of those who do go to college, who do not finish. In other words, 75% of our young people do not receive college degrees. Yet these people will be at the center of our economy. They will service our air conditioning and heating systems, maintain our offices and hospitals, work in our factories, install and repair our communication and information systems, and protect our families and communities. They will need to function in the high performance workplace predicted for the near future. But many of these young people are having a harder and harder time moving from school to work with any reasonable prospect of long-term productive employment. Many are not equipped with the basic academic and occupational skills needed for today's highly competitive global economy.

The lack of a comprehensive and effective school-to-work transition system has a significant impact on many students. It also means significant costs to business and our economy as a whole. A skill-deficient workforce hampers the nation's economic growth, productivity, and ability to compete in an international economy. In recognition of these problems, the catch phrase for American education in the 1990s seems to be "school-to-work transition." Too often that phrase is interpreted to mean that there should be one path taken by all young people directly from the classroom to the workplace. In practice, what was once the traditional route for most young people, completing school and then entering full-time employment, has given way to a variety of paths. Our use of the term "school-to-work transition" is intended to embrace this variety: young people who leave or complete high school and seek full-time work; those who enter the workforce and undertake employer-provided training; those who work and continue their education simultaneously; those who complete relatively new programs like academies or tech prep programs and then enter the full-time labor force or continue postsecondary education; those who remain in the labor force for several years and then return for postsecondary training; and finally, those who participate in high school programs that link education to work, regardless of whether the student is anticipating continued education or entry into the workplace.

With funding from the U.S. Department of Education, the Academy for Educational Development's National Institute for Work and Learning (AED/NIWL) undertook a four-year Study of School-to- Work Transition Education Reform supported by the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Educational Research and Improvement. The study focused on the planning and design, implementation, and impact of school-to-work transition reform initiatives. By documenting the design and integrity of exemplary programs and by assessing program experiences and impacts, the study offers critical lessons for those interested in adapting or adopting programs that effectively link schools with the business community to improve the transition from school to work.

This four-volume final technical report provides a comprehensive set of information on the different components of the study. Volume I presents the findings and conclusions for the overall study, the cross-site analysis, and the summary of the literature review. This volume also provides an assessment of the outcomes of school-to-work reforms for students, employers, and other partners in the system and an assessment of the resources required to implement school-to-work reforms. The volume concludes with discussions of the implications of the study for policy and practice and future research.

Volume II presents the fourteen case studies in their entirety. Each case study was prepared as a separate document and are combined in this volume. Volume III presents the research design and methodology for the study, and Volume IV contains all the products resulting from the study.

The School-to-Work Opportunities Act of 1994 offers a chance to bring together partnerships of employers, educators, and others to build an effective school-to-work system that prepares young people for either high-quality jobs or further education and training. While this study of school-to-work reform focused on programs that serve students like Anita, who are entering the world of work after high school, the findings have important implications for those at the state and local level with the responsibility for school-to-work opportunities for all students under the act.

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