Archived Information

Conclusions

Implications of this review are clearer for research than for policy. That is because work conducted so far has raised many questions but answered few with confidence.

Implications for Research

Research to date has been hampered by data and modeling limitations, but it points towards an agenda for future studies. The near-absence of short-term effects on wages, and the presence of short-term effects on employment, are fairly well established when studies of course work and skills are both considered. In the future, we will need more evidence on long-term effects of course work on wages and earnings. New studies must control for cognitive skills prior to high school course work, and use data on subsequent test scores to assess the hypothesis that growth in cognitive skills is the mechanism through which academic courses enhance labor market opportunities. Additional mechanisms, such as career mobility and on-the-job training, should also be considered. A well-specified study would adjust for varied propensities to participate in the labor force at different career stages.

Ideally, new research would allow one to disentangle the effects of (a) years of schooling; (b) certification/diplomas; (c) academic experiences in school, i.e. course work; and (d) cognitive skills gained through academic experiences. Such a study could follow Kang and Bishop's (1989) approach of allowing for non-linear effects of academic courses, and for tradeoffs between academic and vocational courses, but with an additional set of test scores obtained prior to course work. New research could also follow Hotchkiss (1993) in considering the possibility that effects may differ for varied occupational fields. Studies adopting this type of design would be better suited than existing research to address the predictions derived from theoretical formulations and presented earlier in this review. As noted by Altonji (1992), the 1992 follow-up of High School and Beyond will provide a new, rich source of information for addressing these questions.

Because there are many countries that exhibit tighter linkages between secondary school and the labor market than exist in the U.S. (U.S. General Accounting Office, 1990), comparative research on the transition to work is also called for. Comparative studies could assess the impact of academic course work and skills on work outcomes in systems such as Germany, where apprenticeships provide key connections between school and work, and Britain, where training programs select students partly on the basis of school performance and prepare them for the workplace.

Implications for Policy

Policy recommendations derived from such tentative evidence must be tendered with great caution. Unlike the implications for research, the evidence does not point clearly to new directions for policy. It is, however, consistent with several current policy trends.

The evidence reviewed is consistent with arguments advanced by Bishop (1989), Rosenbaum (1989), and others that both individuals and firms would benefit from improvements to the transition from school to work for persons who terminate their schooling after high school. Academic course work and skills would matter more for the workplace than they do now if there were better articulation between the worlds of school and work. An assessment of competencies, such as that proposed by the Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce (1990), might be part of this system (see also Berryman and Rosenbaum, 1992). Such a system would allow firms to take better advantage of the productivity benefits of more able workers (by identifying more able workers earlier on), and applicants would realize more of the benefits of their own skills (because they could show evidence of skills to employers). As Bishop (1989) and Rosenbaum (1989) argued, increasing the salience of high school performance for job selection and advancement may induce students to take more academic courses, and to take them more seriously.

Evidence obtained so far is also consistent with the move towards eliminating the general track, as is occurring in several states (Olson, 1993). To the best of our current knowledge, both academic courses and job-related vocational courses add more to labor market outcomes than general and remedial courses. The contrast between academic- and general-track work outcomes is supported by the achievement benefits of the academic track, which presumably mediate the impact of academic courses on labor market outcomes.

Plans to improve the integration of academic and vocational studies (e.g., Stern et. al, 1988, 1989; Grubb and Stasz, 1992) are also consistent with the research reviewed in this report. Both by enriching academic course sequences for non-college-bound youth, and by better incorporating academic study into vocational courses, labor market outcomes may be improved, if current findings generalize under such systemic change. If the general track were eliminated and students who did not continue to college had better academic preparation, they would at least have better opportunities to find work, according to the evidence uncovered so far.

Yet it would be naive to conclude that one can simply thrust low-achieving students into the midst of the current academic regime. Indeed, two studies indicated that initially low-achieving students may not benefit much from advanced academic courses (Alexander and Pallas, 1984; Gamoran, 1987a). Rather, the findings call for innovative ways of stimulating and motivating young persons. Part of this may be the new incentive structure that is supposed to arise when course work and/or tests are more clearly relevant for job applications. Another element may be to place academic learning in an applied context so as to make academic skills more useful and meaningful to students. As Sticht (1990, p. 125) claimed, "[Academic] skills are best learned within a context that is meaningful to students, instead of in the decontextualized manner characteristic of academic education."

Finally, it is worth noting that arguments for enhancing the academic experiences of non-college-bound youth rest on firmer foundations than their labor market impact. From the standpoint of an individual choosing a high school program or course sequence, it is generally wise to take more academic courses, because this leaves open future opportunities to enroll in postsecondary education. Moreover, academic courses are important because they provide access to valued ideas and knowledge. Thus, narrowly-focused evidence on courses, skills, and job success, and the broader argument about intellectual development and citizenship, are complementary in their call for increased attention to academic study among young persons not bound for college.

[Interpreting the Evidence]

[References]