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
Cross-Site Analysis June 1995

CRITICAL ELEMENTS OF SCHOOL-TO-WORK REFORM

ELEMENT TEN: ARTICULATION WITH POSTSECONDARY INSTITUTIONS

Just as an effective school-to-work system begins before eleventh grade, it also extends beyond high school graduation. Given the reality of employment in the twenty-first century, with its demand for continual retraining and retooling, young people who do not believe they are capable of postsecondary training are placed at serious risk, simply by this attitude. Programs must provide multiple connections to postsecondary institutions, beginning when the student is still in high school and extending to provide post-high school education and training options. These arrangements at once greatly expand the training immediately available to high school students and offer them a ladder of opportunity towards progressively more advanced training and advantageous employment after high school.

Articulation with postsecondary institutions while the student is in high school may take the form of dual/concurrent enrollment, college credit for high school courses, acceptance by postsecondary institutions of alternative forms of assessment, such as portfolios or certificates of mastery, or an agreement that the postsecondary institution will grant credit for alternative instruction, such as work-based learning experiences. These arrangements expose students to high expectations in terms of their ability and responsibility to learn, and do so within an environment that supports them and helps them recognize that they can succeed.

School-to-work transition systems must also extend the bridges between secondary and postsecondary education to provide smooth passage for high school graduates to further education and training. Effective transition systems can utilize a variety of options, such as tech prep arrangements with community colleges, further articulation with a four-year college, traditional apprenticeship programs, and other structured training opportunities. The key is that the system must encourage a commitment to lifelong learning on the students' part and must be structured to provide information, resources, and accessible connections to postsecondary institutions. This element is particularly important in ensuring that transition systems promote equity, as programs which cannot ensure that postsecondary education is a viable option for graduates may result in a tracking system that places the better students in academic programs and the weaker ones in employment programs.

Patterson Career Center (PCC) Dayton, Ohio

The Patterson Career Center (PCC) in Dayton, Ohio offers students the choice of entering a career upon graduation and, at the same time, maintains a curriculum that is strong enough to allow students to continue their training by enrolling in postsecondary education institutions. In order to encourage more students to aim for postsecondary training, a four-plus-two tech prep curriculum was designed to be offered at PCC and one other high school, using the magnet concept. In addition, a cooperative agreement between Sinclair Community College (SCC), the local community college and Dayton Public Schools awards successful vocational program completers advanced standing SCC at no additional cost to the students. SCC views itself as a very accessible and innovative community college, with a high degree of responsibility for serving members of the Dayton community, which includes offering free education to every graduate of PCC. The very fact that students can attend classes at SCC while enrolled at PCC opens doors for some who might not otherwise consider themselves candidates for education beyond the high school level.

The articulation agreement provides for joint faculty interchange and cooperation, as well as program enhancement and assessment that enable individual PCC students to receive recognition of educational efforts through the awarding of college credits for skill attainment. The articulation agreement coordinates the learning experience that PCC and SCC offer to students they serve, thereby reducing the cost, time, and duplication of learning. For example, the Quick Start program is targeted primarily to PCC seniors who can benefit from the advanced course content available at Sinclair. The project enrolls electronics, drafting, business, and allied health students during the school year. Courses are team taught by SCC and Dayton Public School personnel. Electronics students work in a robotics lab, while health students earn credit for an introductory nursing class. Marketing seniors learn how to start their own business through an SCC class in entrepreneurship. Office Specialist students study desktop publishing.

East San Gabriel Valley Regional Occupational Program, East San Gabriel, California

A major element of the East San Gabriel Valley Regional Occupational Program's (ROP) plan for transition is the articulation agreement, which has served as the ROP's primary strategy for connecting its students to postsecondary education. The ROP has enlisted as partners seven postsecondary institutions, including three community colleges and four state universities. The advantage to this strategy is that it avoids the negative assumptions sometimes made about school-to-work programs: from the beginning it works against the perception of an academic/vocational dichotomy and helps bring parents along. The amount of theory taught in the ROP courses, those involved believe, gave them the edge in obtaining articulation agreements. Most of the ROP's courses are articulated to the community college level, enabling ROP students to earn postsecondary credit while still in high school, saving them time and money and encouraging some to consider college for the first time.

More than two dozen ROP programs are articulated, with some of these agreements carrying all the way through to the university (2 + 2 + 2). ROP staff spend considerable time meeting with community college and university staff on articulation matters, and attend the monthly meetings of articulation councils. Since the late 1980s, the ROP and its postsecondary and business partners have operated the Los Angeles Area Tech-Prep Consortium in order to advance these agreements.

Upon completing ROP classes, students obtain an articulation equivalency form from their instructors. Filing this form with the department chair at the college upon enrollment enables students to obtain college credit, advanced placement, or partial course fulfillment.

Pasadena Graphic Arts Academy, Pasadena, California

Advanced technical training is made available to Graphic Arts Academy students through articulation agreements signed between the school district, Pasadena City College (PCC), and California State University at Los Angeles. Beginning in their junior year, students may take classes at PCC, and they are required to do so as seniors in order to receive the specialized academy high school diploma. The equipment at PCC is more state-of-the-art than the academy's, enabling students to learn more advanced skills in such areas as computer typesetting, lithographic preparation, lithographic press operation, management, and screen printing. For their PCC classes, students can earn dual credit from both Pasadena High School and PCC.

Once they have completed fifteen units from PCC as well as four semesters of lab work in the academy, PCC automatically grants students twenty-one units of credit. With forty or more additional credit units, which can be completed in one year after high school, students can earn a certificate in printing from PCC in one of four crafts areas or in printing management. Another forty-five units of earned credit in academic subjects earns a student an associate degree from PCC. A student can apply up to seventy units of this credit in transfer to the bachelor of science program in printing management at California State University at Los Angeles. In effect, this represents a carry over of credits earned in high school to the university.


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