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Contained in the definition sections are terms for Curriculum Frameworks, Curriculum Alignment, Curriculum Standards, Integrated Curriculum Standards, and Integrated Academic and Vocational Education Programs. They are all interrelated but somewhat different. Each was included because no one concept currently captures the range of issues that members of education enterprise must consider when developing standards driven education curriculum and instructional materials.
Concepts that find their way into the definition section of legislation often launch a search for a common understanding of what the words mean. A current case in point is the term Tech-Prep, a highly popular program idea codified in Perkins II. Each state developed its own working definition with mixed degrees of effectiveness. Tech-Prep promotes integration of academic and occupational curriculum and the use of coherent sequences of courses across institutional boundaries. There is growing recognition that the lack of a common and workable definition used across all states has unfortunately hampered growth of Tech-Prep type efforts. Tech-Prep advocates are now calling for Congress to establish a common definition (U.S. Department of Education, 1996, AVA,1997). This is not an atypical cycle in terms of how our intergovernmental system operates.
The Metropolitan Education Research Consortium (MERC) in Richmond, Virginia, was asked by its seven school district members to assist them in the development of a systemic approach to integrate academic and vocational education. A solid review of the literature and practice led them to develop a framework because they found most education policy makers and practitioners were more than a little "fuzzy" regarding exactly what integrated curriculum meant. They also concluded this fuzziness was a major impediment to moving forward efforts to promote integration of curriculum. They developed a framework that includes delivery techniques, use of standards and indicators, and suggest four levels to measure systems performance and student performance (MERC,1997).
Some building blocks are in place and lessons have been gained over the past few years. If this were a document focused on sharing best practices it could be filled with wonderful vignettes of great things occurring in classrooms all over the country focused on standards integrated into curriculum and instructional methods. This rabbit warren by rabbit warren approach to telling the story clearly has its place; arguably it is one of the most important ways to spread the news about any type of reform. From a policy perspective such stories confirm that the "state of the art is better than the state of the practice." Over the past few years it has become increasingly possible to find integration of vocational and academic curricula, especially within high schools. And in the near future, more standards based integrated curriculum will be available. The challenge is to move the whole state of the practice to the state of the art. Otherwise, common practice (or scale) will never be achieved. There are some serious problematic undercurrents impeding integration. These include at least the following:
All of these issues need to be addressed by state policy makers. The last two points, the lack of a framework and information regarding career progression information that shows the escalating knowledge requirements normally attained through formal education, need attention at the national level. It is hindering the full potential of integrating the industry/occupational skill standards within the overall curriculum frameworks established by the states. They are also hurting students. It is difficult for them to grasp the full implications of why a standards based education matters for them. It limits their visions of opportunities and impedes their understanding of what it is going to take to get to the "top" if that is their aspiration.
MERC's definition (see Definition Section) is noteworthy in that it captures a strong message from the employer community by including the need to incorporate personal qualities (emphasis added) in the curriculum in addition to the academic and technical skills. The definition also takes lessons from the cognitive scientist that curriculum is best delivered in an applied, contextual manner.
The inclusion of personal qualities in their framework is important because it recognizes attributes such as being responsible, attentive, and respectful can be taught and need to be addressed. Employers note these characteristics are consistently lacking in many new entrants into the labor force. These attributes, too often, are not explicit parts of the school curriculum. This leads to employers consistently expressing concern about the lack of most of the generic workplace readiness skills in young applicants.
Just exactly what is meant by the term integration of standards driven curriculum may still be in development but it is possible to assert that priorities can be established for specific types of skills that need to be addressed as early as possible in the schooling process. Academic and workplace readiness skills need to be acquired long before high school graduation dates. States promoting proof of mastery for both of these types of skills prior to the last two years of free public education schooling are on the right track.
The 22 skill standards pilot projects were asked to focus part of their work on the skill requirements in high performance workplaces. Gaining agreement within the industry group regarding what constituted a high performance work organization was not always possible and some projects were more successful than others in achieving this goal. Some found the characteristics of high performance workplaces can be identified within the sector but that few, if any firms, were practicing all of the identified characteristics of a high performance workplace. Even with these types of identification challenges, it is possible to report a key general finding. The type of skills that are most likely to be required in high performance workplaces than others are: personal attributes, interpersonal skills, thinking, problem-solving, communications, basic academics, and an understanding of the use of technology. (See Definition Section, generic workplace readiness). All projects found the need for these skills to one degree or another but, as noted, more so, in high performance workplaces.
Some advocate that standards should only be developed by going to high performance work organizations, although a common usable definition of a totally high performance work organization has yet to emerge, despite substantial time and effort spent over the past five years to do so. Even if this approach were followed, it is highly probable the results would simply reinforce that which has already been documented. Everyone needs solid academic and generic workplace skills as the foundation.
Such findings support the work of other research (Carnevale, Gainer, Meltzer,1990; Department of Labor/Secretary's Commission of the Skills of the American Workforce (SCANS),1991; Cappelli and Rogovsky, 1995; and Murnane and Levy,1996). Additionally state after state's efforts to identify workplace requirements from their own employers affirm these findings. In the face of all these affirmations of the need for such skills, the education enterprise needs to explicitly incorporate such skills and knowledge throughout the learning process.
MERC's review of current efforts to promote integration led them to the work of several organizations. They found the various works of Norton Grubb and others from National Center for Research in Vocational Education provide the best research and synthesis base of lessons being learned across the country (NCRVE,1992). MERC identified one of the most impressive efforts to integrate academic and vocational education. It is through the work that is now over a decade old and under the sponsorship of the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB). SREB's High Schools That Work (HSTW) initiative is generating impressive student achievement results and is now in 21 states and 658 sites throughout the country.
Another state consortia effort, supported by the National Center on Education and the Economy and the Learning Research and Development Center of the University of Pittsburgh, recently announced they are ready to "go on line." Their New Standards Project covers English/language arts, mathematics, science and applied learning opportunities for elementary, middle school, and high school. New Standards material explicitly ties content standards to performance. Their applied learning materials build upon the work of the SCANS and materials gathered from other countries that have had a longer experience than the U.S. in supporting workplace learning as a part of the initial education system.
The academics and the general workplace basics are the foundations. However -- and it is an important however -- individuals with occupation and industry knowledge are the more sought after employees and they earn more. While some employers may say "we will teach them the specifics" they are normally referencing machine specific or site specific processes. They are not referencing the type of skills that can be identified under the industry and occupation family skill categories discussed earlier.
Occupational standards have potency as instructional materials throughout any curriculum. The growing research and knowledge base regarding how individuals learn strongly supports the inclusion of contextual learning opportunities into the instructional methods used in all classrooms (including second chance programs). Clearly, not all contextual learning opportunities need to be geared to learning about the world of work. Yet, a cause for celebration exists in that so many work-related materials are being made available for use in improved curriculum and instructional materials. If the academic basic level requirement for many entry level jobs are the sixth grade then sixth grade teachers have some wonderful contextual learning tools. The scenarios that many of the projects have developed are especially useful tools for classrooms from grade school and beyond.
Regardless of the some groups' rhetoric that fear insertion of career clusters and industry standards into school curricula, no one has argued that occupational or standards should, alone, drive all curricula. Such rhetoric defies history, curricula from high schools through Ph.D. programs in the professions, have long been users of occupational standards. Indeed, the professional schools (such as medicine, engineering, law, accounting, social work, the arts, and teaching) provide important models for integrating work-based requirements into curriculum.
Mention must be made regarding the academic knowledge and skill requirements identified in several of the skill standards. Concern has been expressed they are too low because they are geared to the sixth or the eighth grade levels. Such observations can be heard, most specifically from individuals familiar with the nationally developed academic standards. Questions are raised about why employers are calling for high academic standards if lower standards are required for the workplace.
Observations such as these lead to substantial debate on many fronts. Some have argued the solution is to ignore skill standards as a tool for use in education reform efforts. Others have suggested the solution is to adopt the academic standards as the base for industry standards -- this solution ignores the potential legal implications of a certification service that requires the assessments be validated against actual workplace requirements.
Responses to such observations are also varied. A representative of a national skill standards project has countered some of these complaints with a retort. "It may be eighth grade mathematics but less than 50 percent of the individuals coming to our apprenticeship program can pass our entry test and it is costing our industry millions of dollars each year to finance remediation courses!" Others have suggested the process to develop the academic standards was flawed by not including a wider range of stakeholders in the process including those familiar with the requirements of the workplace.
It is correct that occupational standards validated in the workplace by many of the pilot projects do not require high level mathematic and, in some cases, science knowledge under the category of basic academic skills. However, the communication and critical thinking skills identified for in even the entry level occupations call for higher levels of content and performance (some past high school expectations).8 It is important to note the occupation specific skills often require knowledge that is not explicitly stated in academic terms. Often the occupation specific skills presume a level of knowledge considerably higher than that identified in the core academic category. It is also correct that students are not graduating from schools with the required skills to become employed in jobs with good career potential.
It is this latter point, students graduating from high school (and sometimes college) without proving they have mastered the core academic and general workplace basic skills must remain a central concern. The cost implications for individuals, families, and taxpayers are high. For example, one of the projects, whose standards have been considered too low by developers of K-12 academic standards, have geared their materials to upgrade (emphasis added) the curriculum for community colleges because most of their firms only recruit individuals with at least associate degrees.
One of the lessons that can be gleaned from other countries who have had more experience than the U.S. in the development of standards based curriculum is that identifiable mechanisms need to exist that help translate the work requirements into useful material for the education enterprise (IEL, 1993). Since that study, two other countries (Australia and the England) have developed closer ties between the education policy making bodies and the industry standards development organizations. In the U.S. there are some efforts that can be used to build support systems to help integrate standards based materials into curriculum.
For example, CORD is currently working with a consortia of states to launch a more systemic approach to promote integrated curriculum. They want to overcome the problems of slow and isolated change that has characterized efforts of the past two decades. They are organizing curriculum around 11 career families/clusters. They view this effort as an evolving vision. The design from which they are building the effort incorporates key principles of the STWOA legislation and the Tech-Prep initiative. They are taking advantage of the materials from the national skill standards pilot efforts by incorporating these standards into the curriculum material being developed.
Several national skill standards pilot projects are involved in curriculum integration efforts. Illustrative examples of such efforts show a wide range of approaches are being pursued:
These examples reflect a range of possible directions to build more effective bridges between the schools and industries. However, just focusing on curriculum is not sufficient.
5 A recent publication by the State Higher Executive Officers (SHEEO) Postsecondary Education and the new Workforce provides a suggested framework for the states to improve the processes and systems of postsecondary institutions in workforce preparation efforts. SHEEO embraces the principles of the STWOA and calls for the states to expand the core concepts embedded in that legislation to fully embrace postsecondary education institutions. It does not, however, recognize the utility of occupational standards as a key organizing tool to promote such efforts.
6 Australia, a country that is using a standards driven approach for all of its investments in education and training, provides an example of a possible framework to show career pathway opportunities in a context that also describes occupational standards. Through negotiations between industry and education representatives they established suggested equivalencies between the requirements of the workplace and the needed levels of education. An eight-level framework shows the needed progressions (IEL, 1993).
7 Many of the traditional professional or industry-based credentialing services have focused on a single occupation and have not included emphasis on career ladders and/or multiple pathways for gaining recognition (IEL, 1993). The occupation standards developed by states for vocational education are primarily used at the high school level (Border and Losh, 1996). The national pilot projects were not required or encouraged to address career pathway issues in the development of their standards, thus generating a gap of information for use in designing career pathways and broad based programs of study.
8 The basic academic skills and general workplace skills identified in the 22 pilot projects and selected others have been pulled together into one set and reorganized into categories being used by O*NET. This material has also been cross-walked with national academic standards. Additionally, for the basic academic skills a set of equivalency levels have been used to correlate the resulting "common standards" with education levels. Work in this area should eventually result in the development of relational databases between the two types of standards plus provide assistance to curriculum and assessment activities (IEL and V-TECS, 1997).
9 VSOs are organizations legislatively recognized in the Perkins II legislation. The U.S. Department of Education has recognized the following organizations: Business Professionals of America; Distributive Education Clubs of America; Future Business Leaders of America--Phi Beta Lambda; National FFA Organization; Future Homemakers of America; Health Occupations Students of America; National Postsecondary Agriculture Student Organization; National Young Farmer Education Association; Technology Student Association; and Vocational Industrial Clubs of America. The national governing bodies are composed of representatives of the private sector and educators. The private sector representatives on these boards have a long history of providing information to educators about the skill requirements within the occupational areas. The VSOs have state and local chapters.
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