Career Majors
Educating for a Flexible Work Force
David Stern and Mayo Tsuzuki
Increasingly, work demands continual learning. This has always been true to some degree in professional and managerial work, but now it is even more true in these occupations, and continual learning is also becoming increasingly necessary for clerical and production workers. The growing necessity for learning at work is rooted in the continual upgrading and spread of information technologies, which results in greater mobility of financial capital and greater turbulence in all kinds of markets, including labor markets.
Firms are forced to become increasingly flexible, and employees are therefore required to embrace continual change. Those who are caught up in reorganization or downsizing and find themselves moving from one firm to another must try to learn as they go. And for those who are self-employed, the need for constant learning is self-evident.
The ability to take charge of one's own learning at work is becoming increasingly critical for success in a fast-changing economy. The career major attempts to combine the best of traditional academic and vocational education in order to prepare every participating student for employment, further education, and a lifetime of learning.
Background
Since the 1980s, much educational reform has attempted to help students master a broad range of knowledge and skills that will enable them to be employed and stay employed in the global economy in the 21st century. Independent initiatives by states and localities, in addition to federal legislation in the 1990 Perkins Act and the Goals 2000 Act, have all sought new approaches to enable students to use their minds well as they prepare for a lifetime of continued learning in a fast-changing economy and society.
In particular, the 1994 School-to-Work Opportunities Act calls for the development of systems with three major components designed to prepare students for both postsecondary education and high-skill employment. These components are school-based learning experiences, work-based learning experiences, and connecting activities. From the viewpoint of participating students, the purpose of a school-to-work system is to provide a coherent educational and developmental experience called a "career major."
Making such career majors available to students entails sweeping changes in curriculum, methods of instruction, and relations between schools and other organizations including employers and institutions of higher education. But the rationale for attempting these changes is as compelling as the changes are far-reaching. Career majors would prepare students for a lifetime of learning at work by promoting high academic standards along with learning in a context of productive application.
New Design for High Schools: the Role of Career Majors
The definition of a career major calls for the integration of vocational and academic content at a sufficiently high level to qualify students for postsecondary education including four-year college or university. While a large proportion of students may enter the workforce full-time after completing career majors, they will possess enough theoretical understanding to adapt to changing technology and institutional configurations, and if they want to enroll in a college or university in the future they will have already satisfied the academic prerequisites. The emphasis on academic standards is intended to correct a perceived deficiency of some traditional vocational education in high schools. At the same time, the career major concept also addresses a deficiency of some traditional academic instruction -- namely, that students may perform well on tests and classroom assignments but never develop the knack of applying academic concepts to practical problems. Career majors would correct this deficiency by emphasizing the value of learning in an applied context. Including work-based learning as part of the curriculum gives students an opportunity to practice using work experience to develop their knowledge and skill in a deliberate fashion. This ability to take charge of one's own learning at work is becoming increasingly critical for success in a fast-changing economy. Thus the career major attempts to combine the best of traditional academic and vocational education in order to prepare every participating student for employment, further education, and a lifetime of learning at work.
Several states have adopted or are considering career majors as a central element of a new design for high schools. Some of these states -- Kentucky, New York, Oregon, and Wisconsin -- were among the first-round recipients of implementation grants under the STWO Act. Others, including Texas and Vermont, began looking into career majors even before receiving STW implementation grants (National Center on Education and the Economy, 1995).
Lessons from early implementation efforts can be used to help other states and localities. Where have career majors been successfully established, how was that done, and what obstacles have been overcome? These are some of the questions NCRVE will be looking at in a new study of career majors. For more information, call Mayo Tsuzuki at (800) (old phone deleted).
As defined in section 4(5) of the STWO Act,
"The term 'career major' means a coherent sequence of courses or field of study that prepares a student for a first job and that--
- integrates academic and occupational learning, integrates school-based and work-based learning, establishes linkages between secondary schools and postsecondary educational institutions;
- prepares the student for employment in a broad occupational cluster or industry sector;
- typically includes at least 2 years of secondary education and at least 1 or 2 years of postsecondary education;
- provides the students, to the extent practicable, with strong experience in and understanding of all aspects of the industry the students are planning to enter;
- results in the award of--
- a high school diploma or its equivalent, such as--
- a general equivalency diploma; or
- an alternative diploma or certificate for students with disabilities for whom such alternative diploma or certificate is appropriate;
- a certificate or diploma recognizing successful completion of 1 or 2 years of postsecondary education (if appropriate); and
- a skill certificate; and
- may lead to further education and training such as entry into a registered apprenticeship program, or may lead to admission to a 2- or 4-year college or university."
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