Of Vital Concern: National School-to-Career Conference
Erika Nielsen Andrew
The National Center for Research in Vocational Education and Jobs for the Future are pleased to announce: The Fifth Annual NATIONAL LEADERSHIP FORUM on School-to-Career Transition from June 30-July 2, 1996 in Long Beach, California. This conference, designed to be one of the premier educational conferences of the year, is expected to draw 2,000 participants from all around the country.
It's Everybody's Business
Nationwide, hundreds of communities are working to improve the way students are prepared for high skilled careers and further education. School-to-career, as a method for school redesign, can equip students with the knowledge and experience they need for success, and provide businesses with the skilled workers they need to be competitive. While the number of excellent programs is growing, opportunities to participate in the school-to-career initiative are still only available to some students. Therefore, this year's conference theme, Education at Work: It's Everybody's Business, highlights strategies for involving whole communities in developing better educational systems for all youth.
It is essential that school-to-work systems begin to serve all students. In an economy where employment is fluid and continual learning is required at many jobs, the employee who has learned how to learn has a distinct advantage. Traditional forms of education do not serve this end easily: vocational education has been too focused on specific skills and occupations which may change, while traditional academic education often fails to teach students how to apply abstract knowledge in a practical context. Ideally, a successful school-to-work
system would equip all young people with high levels of academic and occupational knowledge and skill, and would enable them to find employment that uses their capacities.
Four Pathways to More Effective Learning
Therefore, this year's conference is organized around two key questions: (1) How can the educational system best serve all students? and (2) What is the best way to encourage the participation of more diverse, multifaceted stakeholder groups in the system design? Conference sessions are organized into four pathways to provide coherence among diverse course offerings. The pathways are:
- How can we create effective learning environments that serve all students?
- How can we create organizational structures that serve all students and encourage the participation of more stakeholder groups?
- How can we create partnerships among business, educators (from elementary to postsecondary), labor, community, parents, policymakers and other key players?
- How can national policy and state government enable the development of school-to-career systems that serve all students and involve a broad partnership of stakeholders?
A variety of session formats--case study presentations, action labs, and topical seminars--will be offered to meet the learning preferences of parti-cipants. In addition, the conference faculty--a group of the nation's leading school-to-career practitioners--will be on hand for either individual or team-based consultancies. Faculty are available to answer questions, facilitate team sessions, lead
reflection groups about tough implementation sessions, and create impromptu issue forums.
Youth Leadership
In addition, this year students from across the
country will participate in this event. Over 150 students will participate in a variety of sessions and activities designed to strengthen their leadership skills, showcase their achievements, and improve their capacity to serve as spokespeople for the school-to-career movement. The conference will provide students a public platform for their opinions and ideas about creating a national school-to-career system. Given this opportunity, what insights can the students share which will be different from the insights of the adults present?
Students will create a product for the field that represents their unique perspective. They will make presentations about their product to large and small gatherings at the NLF.
Focus on Teams
This year's NLF will feature a special focus on teams. Because school-to-career--at the core--is about partnership and collaboration, the event will offer special opportunities for teams to work together with conference faculty. One particular group of teams, NCRVE's Urban Schools Network, will kick off the event with a two-day preconference dedicated to team planning and consultancies about their particular school-to-career implementation goals. While team composition varies by site, most teams will contain both academic and vocational teachers, administrators, counselors, and postsecondary partners.
The National Leadership Forum is open to the public. Early registration closed April 15th, but readers may register if openings are still available. For more information about either the Urban Schools Network or the Forum, please call Erika Nielsen Andrew at (510) 642-5759.
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