School to Career Movement

• Author: Jill White
• Pages: 651-654

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One of the purposes of education is to prepare students to become productive workers. As occupations within the workforce become more specialized, the development of specific job skills remains on the forefront for educators. The changing labor market dictates that educators prepare all students for future success. To ensure that students are adequately prepared, a transition has taken place from narrow-job-specific vocational programs to programs that reflect the modern workplace. New programs such as biotechnology, the teaching profession, and logistics blend the lines between academic and technical education.

Part of the U.S. Department of Education, the Web site of the Office of Vocational Education (OVAE) states:

Career and technical education exists in approximately thousands of comprehensive high schools, technical schools, and postsecondary educational institutions. Virtually every high school student takes at least one vocational education course, and one in four students takes three or more courses in a single program area. One-third of college students are involved in vocational programs, and as many as 40 million adults engage in short-term postsecondary occupational training.

Today, eighty-five years after the passage of the first piece of federal vocational education legislation, vocational education is evolving from its original focus on preparing students for work immediately following high school to addressing the needs of all students. With national and state school reform efforts focused on academic achievement and with the fastest-growing occupations now requiring some postsecondary education, vocational education is seeking effective ways to contribute to these goals. (U.S. Department of Education, OVAE)

To better prepare highly qualified career and technical education teachers across the country, the Career and Technical Educational National Dissemination Center provides online resources that enable individuals to participate in discussion boards and to submit initiatives as well as teaching and learning strategies. Strategies include policies, rubrics, frameworks, techniques, procedures, and action plans. These online resources provide documentation

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and examples of programs that have been successfully implemented.

Educators must continue the implementation of model sequences of courses as well as frameworks for instruction to expand the school to career movement. These frameworks and guidelines provide and support the integration of academic and vocational education to establish specific student learning outcomes and to engage students in the learning process.

HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

The Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills (SCANS) was formed in 1990 by the secretary of the U.S. Department of Labor to investigate the skills needed by young people to succeed in the world of work. The commission's initial 1991 report identified three foundation areas (basic skills, thinking skills, and personal qualities) and five workplace competencies (resources, interpersonal, information, systems, and technology). The commission's fundamental purpose was to encourage a high-performance economy characterized by high-skill, high-wage employment. The Department of Labor Web site states: "Although the commission completed its work in 1992, its findings and recommendations continue to be a valuable source of information for individuals and organizations involved in education and workforce development" (U.S. Department of Labor).

The School-to-Work Opportunity Act of 1994 (STWOA) resulted from the SCANS report. STWOA was the most comprehensive attempt to implement improved academics skills, the SCANS directive, and a greater emphasis on standards. The primary focus of school to work was on the role of secondary education to prepare young people to enter the...