| Introduction
In 1994, the School-to-Work Opportunities Act (STWOA) challenged states
and local communities to build a nationwide system of school-to-work programs
that prepare students for post-secondary education and rewarding careers.
The STWOA was informed by school-to-work initiatives already under way
in many localities, states, and other countries — initiatives that
had been implemented in response to changes in the global economy and
an increasing demand for high-skilled workers. The STWOA also had the
effect of ratifying and reinforcing home-grown initiatives in the United
States. These school-to-work initiatives bring together education professionals,
community leaders, and employers committed to improving public education
by creating opportunities for students to learn about careers through
classroom instruction and to participate in work-based learning.
In seeking to build upon such activities,
the STWOA established three core components for a nationwide
system in which all students will have the opportunity
to participate in (1) school-based learning about work and
careers, (2) work-based learning opportunities, and (3) "connecting
activities" that link experiences in schools and workplaces.
The federal government also provides technical assistance
and funding to help states and localities launch school-to-work
initiatives. As of spring 1997, all states received planning
grants to initiate school-to-work approaches, and 37 states
and nearly 125 local partnerships between schools and employers
are receiving competitive implementation grants, which continue
to be awarded on a rolling basis. This ambitious initiative
has now been taken up by schools, post-secondary institutions,
employers, unions, civic groups, and other public and private
sector organizations across the United States, in a richly
diverse collection of locally designed responses to the STWOA.
The experiences of 16 pioneering school-to-work
efforts that preceded the STWOA are a valuable source of ideas
and lessons for policymakers and practitioners — and
this study is part of a continuing effort by the Manpower
Demonstration Research Corporation (MDRC) to identify and
disseminate some of those lessons. The 16 programs featured
in this report are grouped into five different programmatic
approaches to school-to-work, as presented in Figure
1: Career Academies, Occupational Academic Cluster programs,
Restructured Vocational Education programs, Tech Prep programs,
and Youth Apprenticeship programs. Each of these approaches
is described in detail in Chapter 1. Many remarkable people
participated in this study; their openness and insights made
it possible for us to share the lessons from their experiences.
The study was funded by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation,
The Commonwealth Fund, The Union Carbide Foundation, Metropolitan
Life Foundation, The Travelers Foundation, and a private donor.
Jobs for the Future (JFF) was MDRC’s partner for the
project.
The principal lessons obtained from the experiences
of these 16 programs (first studied by MDRC in 1992–93),
based on newly updated information on the changes they have
experienced through mid-1996, are presented in this Executive
Summary. The evidence on expanding school-to-work is encouraging,
but significant challenges remain. Of the many lessons regarding
the growth of school-to-work that emerge from the experiences
of these 16 initiatives, those discussed below appear to have
the broadest significance.
Important Progress is Under Way
School-to-work initiatives at all 16 case
study sites have grown since 1993 along one or more dimensions,
including increasing the number of students served and employers
involved, expanding employer partner roles and activities,
adding new program features, branching out into new occupational
areas, and serving as models for replication or the development
of related systemic reform initiatives. In particular, the
16 case study sites have progressed in the following significant
ways:
- Despite the great difficulties and barriers
that affect all major educational and community innovations,
the 16 pioneering school-to-work initiatives have been sustained
and have grown.
Seasoned observers of public policy have pointed
out that while it is difficult to initiate a reform strategy,
it is much more difficult (and far less glamorous) to sustain
it, expand it to a national scale, and make it pay off. The
experience in these 16 communities shows that it is feasible
to sustain innovative school-to-work programs over time, to
expand school-to-work to serve large numbers of students,
to expand the occupational areas for which such programs prepare
students, and to gain the active support of enough local employers
so that work-based learning opportunities can grow. In 1992–93,
no one knew whether these things could be done. Now, three
years later — because of the experiences of the 16 programs
in this study — we know that expanding school-to-work
is feasible.
As school-to-work initiatives move from their
start-up phase into greater maturity, the experiences of these
16 communities show that they can make substantial progress
toward sustaining themselves as a core part of school and
community life.
Overall, the experiences of the 16 pioneering
initiatives support cautiously optimistic hopes for the future
of school-to-work. However, these initiatives — while
illustrating a cross-section of various approaches to school-to-work
— do not represent the universe of current school-to-work
initiatives; the efforts studied in this report may reflect
greater motivation, more staff and community commitment, and
more funding than do other efforts.
- Because of vigorous outreach activities
at many sites, sufficient employer participation has been
obtained to provide participating students with work-based
learning opportunities. Most early employer partners are
still participating in school-to-work; more employers have
been successfully recruited; and employers are participating
in school-to-work through a greater variety of activities.
As a result, the total number of students working with employers,
across the 16 sites, has increased.
In the communities we studied, almost all
of the students enrolled in a school-to-work initiative were
able to participate in work-based learning. Few students were
excluded because of a lack of employer participation. This
remarkable accomplishment demonstrates that aggressive outreach
to the employer community can succeed. In most of the 16 case
study sites, lack of employer involvement or limited capacity
for providing work-based learning slots did not limit
program growth and expansion into new occupational areas.
In fact, because more employers are now participating and
most early employer partnerships have been maintained, more
students are afforded the opportunity to participate in work-based
learning activities, even though many individual employers
generally continue to limit the number of students they can
accommodate at the workplace to four or fewer students at
any one time (although some employers do routinely work with
more than four students).
Employers have also expanded the type of work-based
learning opportunities they offer by adding job shadowing
(in which students follow an employee for one or more days
to learn about a specific occupation or industry), internships,
work-based learning that earns school credit, and occupation-related
projects with employer participation in the classroom. In
many of the case study sites, as more employers have become
involved, students now have several different opportunities
to participate in work-based learning experiences throughout
their enrollment in school-to-work.
- These programs’ experiences indicate
that regular and candid reassessments of each school-to-work
initiative’s curriculum, methods of instruction, and
work-based learning activities, followed by strong and sustained
efforts to bring about needed improvements in these key
areas, are a crucial responsibility of each program’s
leadership team, and are necessary if school-to-work is
to make a difference in students’ lives. In addition,
experience shows that teachers in school-to-work need to
participate in shared professional development efforts that
enable them to collaborate with their colleagues in bringing
about instructional change for their students.
Close, ongoing monitoring of every school-to-work
initiative — and continued efforts to improve core components
— is essential if the program is to achieve high standards.
Among key efforts to improve school-to-work are activities
from which teachers can benefit, such as regular meeting time
with action-focused agendas, visits to workplaces, curriculum
development efforts, and other activities that challenge them
to move beyond traditional instruction. Avoiding the problems
of clashes between academic and vocational mindsets, professional
isolation, administrative barriers to change such as scheduling
conflicts and graduation requirements, and the inevitable
flaws in every new program’s initial plans requires vigorous
involvement by teachers and school administrators.
- Incrementalism — building on the
original program components to create new ones that reflect
the initiative’s overall goals and vision — has
been an effective strategy for expanding the number of students
and employers who participate, for adding broader and more
comprehensive features to a school-to-work initiative, and
for building connections to other education reforms (including
systemic reforms).
Launching a new school-to-work initiative
can demand an overwhelming number of tasks, including recruiting
employers, designing innovative school- and work-based components,
creating new ways to bring students and teachers together,
and adjusting the school day to accommodate work- and school-based
learning time. In tackling the task, many of the case study
sites began by focusing on implementing either school- or
work-based activities more strongly. Since 1992–93, many
of these programs have strengthened what were initially weaker
elements of their programs by improving the quality of work-based
learning, developing new courses, and adding new program features.
In addition, the case study sites have been able to make these
improvements without diminishing the quality of their core
components.
While building their original school-to-work
initiatives, many of the case study sites have become models
for systemic reform efforts that go far beyond their initial
programs. Leaders at the 16 case study sites have played a
central role in district, regional, statewide, and even national
efforts to improve education, by heading up local efforts
to implement school-wide reform initiatives, by making presentations
to other districts and hosting numerous visits to their schools,
by participating in evaluations, and by providing input to
state and federal policymakers. Again, most of the case study
sites started with a defined focus and target population,
and, over time, have incrementally expanded their sphere of
influence by sharing their experiences, expertise, and leadership
to help develop and implement system-wide reforms.
Significant Challenges Remain
Fostering change in long-established school
practices is difficult and slow, and efforts to sustain and
expand school-to-work face a number of challenges. The 16
school-to-work initiatives in this study provide a unique
preview of the issues that will likely confront the school-to-work
movement in the coming years — as its focus turns from
bold new beginnings to the hard work of expansion and system-building.
- Significant trade-offs between scale
and intensity appear to exist.
The most intensive school-to-work innovations
are so demanding — in terms of the new skills that students
must learn, the guidance that employers must provide, and
the time required of both students and employers — that
it is often difficult to expand them to include large numbers
of students. In particular, intensive work-based components,
which must be supported by rigorously defined, complementary,
school-based learning, often require that students, teachers,
and employers invest significant amounts of time in learning
and teaching skills for a specific occupational area. Such
intensive programs, which are designed to totally replace
traditional high school experience with preparation for a
specific occupation, attracted fewer students than did less
intensive programs. Conversely, larger programs — while
offering students some work-based learning opportunities and
new school-based curricula — appear to be making more
modest changes in students’ day-to-day educational experiences,
at least at this point in time.
However, issues of design and intensity do
not necessarily present "either-or" trade-offs for
school-to-work partnerships. Several of the case study sites
have mixed various school-to-work approaches in designing
their initiatives to include an intensive offering for the
subset of students interested in acquiring job-specific skills,
alongside other school-to-work options focused on broad-based
career preparation and exposure to the workplace geared toward
a majority of students.
- Despite early fears that school-to-work
might be viewed as serving primarily low-achieving students,
the instructional approaches used at the 16 case study sites
have demonstrated broad appeal and have in many instances
attracted more high-achieving students over time. Thus,
efforts are needed to assure that lower-achieving students
continue to have access to school-to-work innovations if
school-to-work is to serve all students.
Continuing hard work is required to make sure
that school-to-work serves both higher-achieving and lower-achieving
students, and both female and male students. Attention to
recruitment strategies and methods, program content and focus,
and classroom practices can help to ensure that school-to-work
continues to serve a broad mix of students.
- Explicitly designated resources continue
to be needed to pay for the intensive staff time, employer
outreach, professional development, and curricular change
required by school-to-work.
School-to-work requires intensive staff resources
for outreach to employers, curriculum development in schools
and workplaces, and expansion efforts. The changes sought
by the school-to-work movement are difficult ones that are
not achieved quickly. District administrators, program staff,
and teachers must have adequate time, over an extended period,
to devote to these activities. Also, consistent staffing can
facilitate program development, whereas high turnover may
cause setbacks.
Maintaining the participation of employers
who provide work-based learning positions and other important
school-to-work activities, as well as continuing to expand
the rolls of participating employers, will require continuing
outreach efforts and staff time. The hard work of sustaining
and expanding school-to-work cannot be accomplished "on
the cheap" or exclusively through the use of time donated
by regular school staff. Some programs now pay for school-to-work
staff through regular school budgets ("hard money"),
while others continue to rely in part on special demonstration
funding and grants.
- While school-to-work efforts have emphasized
preparing students to access a wide range of post-secondary
education options, building linkages between secondary and
post-secondary institutions has been a lower priority. Students
do not often take advantage of the formal linkages that
programs have developed — for example, articulation
agreements (which allow students to earn college credit
in specific areas of study for high school course work and/or
work-based learning experiences) and post-secondary components
within school-to-work. Informal linkages, such as getting
more students to take college prerequisite courses and increased
college admissions counseling, appear to provide important
supports for helping young people connect to college.
Articulation agreements between schools and
community colleges are widespread; however, few students in
the 16 programs we studied use them to earn significant post-secondary
credits or even to influence their post-secondary enrollment
decisions. The programs’ experiences suggest that most
schools, employers, and post-secondary institutions have generally
placed a low priority on building attractive formal linkages
to facilitate the transition from high school to a post-secondary
institution or on adopting school-to-work innovations at the
post-secondary level. On a more positive note, several programs
have demonstrated the feasibility of having students take
post-secondary courses while they are still in high school,
as part of their school-to-work program.
Many of the case study sites have developed
informal, supportive strategies — to help prepare students
for post-secondary learning and to help students make choices
beyond high school. Many programs provide extra counseling
to help students explore college options, make sure they earn
the high school credits needed to gain admission to post-secondary
institutions, complete college and financial aid applications,
and, in general, become familiar and comfortable with a wide
range of post–high school options through shared activities
with nearby community colleges, occasions to mix with college
students, and opportunities to take college-level classes
(on a high school or college campus).
Implications for Systemic Reform
School-to-work provides a flexible framework
within which broad-based education reform — suited to
serving all students and matching local resources and needs
— can take place. The 16 pioneering school-to-work programs
examined here provide a "bottom-up" perspective
on the evolving relationship between school-to-work approaches
and other education reform efforts. Four broad empirical findings
stand out:
- School-to-work’s hands-on instructional
methods demonstrate the kinds of instructional change sought
by systemic reform advocates and other education reformers.
School-to-work activities that change the
way students and teachers work in the classroom and provide
students with opportunities to learn at a workplace typically
involve hands-on applications and project-based work. However,
school-to-work’s more experimental instructional techniques
have not sacrificed rigor or core academic classes, and may,
in fact, raise academic expectations for all students.
At several of the 16 case study sites, school-to-work
approaches to learning have been adopted school-wide in an
effort to change pedagogy, upgrade curricula, and raise academic
standards for all students. At other sites, school-to-work
leaders have helped to launch new reform initiatives that
build from their original programs and from successful efforts
to change classroom activities and incorporate learning at
work into the educational experiments of students and teachers.
- School-wide education reforms have been
implemented in 5 of the 16 school-to-work programs, demonstrating
that school-to-work can be the basis for a school-wide reform
process.
These efforts have contributed varying but
often substantial progress in reforming curricula, somewhat
less progress in reforming pedagogy, and progress at just
a few sites in changing assessments or building performance-based
outcome goals and skill standards. Some of the 16 programs
have placed more emphasis on initiating and scaling up school-to-work
than on operating it as a key part of systemic school reform;
other places have built systemic reform agendas around the
original school-to-work programs. However, program experience
across the 16 sites suggests that the goals and methods of
school-to-work and systemic reform are very similar, holding
out the promise of closer ties in the future — perhaps
after systemic reform has become more widespread.
- Some form of performance standards or
skills certificates have been tried in less than half of
the communities examined here. Yet, the limited base of
experiences indicates that these reforms can be implemented
as part of school-to-work.
Skills certificates or their equivalent are
used to document the occupation-related skills of school-to-work
graduates in 7 of the 16 programs, and performance standards
are being put in place throughout Dauphin County’s cluster
program. Occupation-related skills standards are more prevalent
in the programs that emphasize technical training, and have
less frequently been part of the other programs. More and
broader support for skills standards may be required before
they are likely to be widely accepted; while such standards
fit well with the goals of many school-to-work programs, other
priorities often take precedence — leaving the development
of skills standards as a longer-term (and still largely unfulfilled)
goal. In several cases, local programs appear to be waiting
for larger entities (such as states, trade associations, and
so forth) to develop widely recognized (portable) skills standards
that could be further adapted to local circumstances and needs.
- It appears that local programs can benefit
substantially from state and federal assistance — and
"support from above" from regional consortia and
other partnerships — in a number of areas.
In continuing to grow and become a larger
part of system-wide reform efforts, local school-to-work initiatives
are likely to benefit from regional, state, and federal assistance
in building post-secondary connections (for example, through
regional articulation agreements and adapting college entrance
requirements to fit new school-to-work credentials earned
by students), developing portable credentials, providing staff
training and curriculum development assistance, coordinating
employer education and outreach campaigns, creating networks
of practitioners, linking school-to-work with other school
reform efforts, and continuing to contribute financial assistance.
School-to-Work Is Growing, But Not Yet
Grown
A final lesson that emerges clearly from the
experiences of people in the 16 communities is that it
is crucial for policymakers, practitioners, and the public
to set realistic expectations for school-to-work. These
school-to-work initiatives teach all of us to be cautious
in the goals and timetables that we set for school-to-work
in general. The STWOA has set an extremely ambitious agenda
for change, and there are no guarantees that it will be achieved.
Indeed, daunting challenges remain for every school-to-work
program. Consequently, it is valuable to have the counsel
of experienced program operators when making decisions about
allocating the scarce resources of time and energy on which
the expansion of school-to-work will depend. It is also important
to heed their warning that major investments — of time,
energy, consensus-building, and, in many cases, money —
must be patiently applied over a period of years if real change
is to occur.
Asking for too much, too soon is a recipe
for disappointment. The timetable for building school-to-work
across the nation must be measured over a decade or more,
with opportunities for revising those efforts that, perhaps
inevitably, will fall short of what the pioneers have proven
to be attainable. Expectations should be realistic, even as
people strive to build on the accomplishments of cutting-edge
school-to-work programs like the ones described here.
It remains to be seen whether the school-to-work
programs in this study and similar programs will be able to
expand into local and state school-to-work systems that can
serve large numbers of high school students nationwide. However,
the evolution of these pioneering programs should provide
encouragement for educators, employers, and community leaders
who see school-to-work programs as an important method for
improving young people’s preparation for post-secondary
education, training, and rewarding careers, and who are working
to scale up school-to-work nationwide.
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