V. CONCLUSION: A VISION FOR SUCCESSFUL JOB TRAINING PROGRAMS

How might job training programs be improved? Drawing on the explanations in the previous section, one tactic might be to improve each of their components. That is, the quality of job training needs to be carefully considered, and should be improved in many programs; the nature of instruction in basic skills is often very poor, and job training programs need to learn more from the education system about appropriate instructional methods; and efforts in assessment, case management, and placement may need to be strengthened (e.g., Dickinson, Kogan, and Means, 1994; Dickinson et al., 1993).

But this kind of piecemeal approach, valuable though it might be in specific instances, seems to miss the point. The real problem with existing job training programs is not that an individual component here or there is not of adequate quality, but that the offerings of the "system" as a whole consist of a welter of different services, none of them obviously more effective than any others and all of them poorly coordinated, with individual programs of limited intensity not linked to other opportunities even though they are intended for a population with substantial needs. In contrast, the most effective programs -- the Center for Employment Training and the Riverside GAIN program, for example -- seem to work because they encompass a combination of mutually-supporting practices. This suggests that the most powerful approaches to reforming job training would first create models of more comprehensive and interactive employment-related services, and then worry about the quality of individual components.

Furthermore, it would be important to connect job training programs to other training and education opportunities, rather than leaving them as independent, limited, one-shot efforts. The effects of job training programs, small as they are, seem to decay over time, while the benefits of education typically increase with further labor market experience. The disconnection between "education" and "job training", rooted in the very creation of job training programs during the 1960s, has been counter-productive for both Many of the reasons I gave in the previous section about the ineffectiveness of job training came from this divorce -- including the small scale of job training efforts, the ineffective pedagogy, the political influences in job training, and the provision of services in small, unstable organizations. And conversely education institutions could learn much from job training programs about the importance of employment and of services like job placement.

Fortunately, there is already a model in the United States that could be used as the basis for reforming job training, though it has not yet been implemented. The School-to-Work Opportunities Act, passed in May 1994, is intended to apply to secondary and postsecondary education programs, but it presents a vision that could be used to guide job training programs as well. The STWOA can be interpreted as specifying five elements for successful programs:

1. The inclusion of academic instruction. In many federal programs like JTPA and JOBS, these academic components are either remedial education or English as a Second Language (ESL).
2. The inclusion of vocational skills training, integrated with academic (or remedial) instruction. Integration does not imply (as it does in job training) that individuals receive both kinds of instruction, at different times of day; it is a much more complex practice in which academic and occupational content are combined within a single class, sometimes with the collaboration of two different instructors (Grubb, 1995a).
3. The inclusion of work-based education, coordinated with school-based instruction through "connecting activities", to provide a different kind of learning (as the Center for Employment Training provides).
4. The connection of every program to the next program in a hierarchy of education and training opportunities. In the STWOA, high school programs are explicitly linked to postsecondary opportunities. The analogy in job training programs is that every program would be connected to further programs providing higher level of skill and access to enhanced employment opportunities.
5. The use of applied teaching methods and team-teaching strategies. By implication, all school-based and work-based instruction should develop pedagogies that are more contextualized, student-centered, active (or constructivist), and project- or activity-based; they would adhere to the standards of good practice that have been developed for adult education, rather than ignoring pedagogical issues as job training programs currently do.

Such programs would also try to establish links among programs in order to create education and training "ladders" -- that is, a series of sequential education and training-related activities that individuals can use to progress from relatively low levels of skill (and relatively unskilled and poorly-paid work) to higher levels of skill and (presumably) more demanding, better-paid, and more stable occupations.[68] Individuals could enter the system at any level -- for example, welfare recipients with the lowest levels of education and labor market experience could enter programs similar to those now available through JOBS, but each program would be linked to other programs further up in the hierarchy of skills. The programs in the current job training system would be articulated with those in the education system through the community college -- that is, certain job training programs would lead into certificate and Associate programs in the community college, from which individuals could over time move into baccalaureate programs in four-year colleges. In this way individuals with minimal skills could move up a "ladder" of ever-expanding opportunities.

There are several reasons for emphasizing vertical integration and the creation of education and training ladders, in place of isolated job training programs:

• The individuals within the education and training system who are in the greatest need require a number of different services: basic language skills and other competencies; job-specific skills; personal attributes like motivation, discipline, and persistence; help in conquering drug and alcohol dependencies, or mental health problems; and decision-making skills, making it difficult for them to negotiate programs on their own and requiring a counselor or caseworker. They need so much that it's impossible to think about integrating them into the economic mainstream except in small steps, providing support (via welfare, training subsidies, or unskilled work) in the interim. It might, of course, be possible to develop much more comprehensive and intensive programs like Job Corps, but these are so expensive that they are politically difficult to provide; a linked series of small programs is both more flexible and more acceptable politically.
• Many of those in need of education and training need to work while they are enrolled in programs. This is true almost by definition for those seeking retraining, upgrade training, and second-chance training, but it is also true for a number of those seeking initial entry in to the labor force. This means that they cannot afford to stop working for two to four years to accumulate a credential; they need instead to accumulate small amounts of education and training, work a while, and return to school (probably part-time) to further improve their skills.
• Even where communities provide a range of services, the pathways through them are unclear, particularly to those who are unsophisticated about finding and using programs. Furthermore, eligibility standards are inconsistent, assessment procedures are varied, and the content of programs is uncoordinated -- and so in practice the range of education and services provided is not a smooth continuum.
• The labor market has certain barriers which can be overcome only through specific education credentials. The labor market for middle-skilled occupations is almost completely closed to individuals without high school diplomas; therefore relatively unskilled individuals (e.g., high school dropouts in JTPA or JOBS programs) have a crack at entry-level jobs in the middle-skilled labor market only after they get their diploma. With experience, ability, and motivation they can advance, but some occupations may require subsequent education (e.g., from community colleges or technical institutes, in computer applications, specific business procedures, CAD, specific electronics training, etc.) in order to advance. Then many jobs -- management positions, accountants, computer programmers, many health positions, and most professional jobs with real advancement -- require B.A.'s. That is, advancement can be blocked sequentially by the lack of the high school diploma, certain forms of sub-B.A. education, or the B.A. itself -- so that continuous advancement requires going back into the education and training system to obtain further skills and credentials. This is particularly true in cases (like health occupations) where these skills have been codified by occupational licensing; and if the country moves toward skill standards in other occupations, this will be institutionalized in other occupations.
• Existing programs are hierarchically arranged anyway -- this is one reason that there isn't that much duplication. The clients in AFDC are typically less well-prepared and experienced than those in JTPA, who in turn are less well-prepared than the typical community college student. In job skills training, job training programs provide shorter and less sophisticated programs than community colleges. In the literacy/remediation world, community-based volunteer programs are set up to take in those who are completely non-literate, while adult ed programs typically start at the 4th or 5th grade-level equivalent and lead to a GED, while community college programs probably don't start at that low a level but aim to prepare individuals for college-level English courses. As long as there are such hierarchies in existing programs, it makes sense to take advantage of them.
• Currently there are no mechanisms for revealing low quality. If programs are linked vertically, and a receiving program finds preparation in the sending program to be inadequate, there is a new incentive for blowing the whistle.
• The creation of "ladders" of vertically-integrated education and job training programs would make it possible to move individuals into a succession of jobs of ever-increasing skill and earnings -- eliminating the kind of "fade-out" of earnings gains typical of training programs.

[68] The ideas in the section draw upon Grubb (1992). Within the social services field, the same idea is known as providing a "continuum of services" -- for example, providing a range of mental health programs from highly restrictive, for the most dangerous and worst-off patients, to minimum security facilities and halfway houses, to various forms of counseling and therapy for those able to live on their own. In theory, individuals can enter the continuum at any point appropriate to their needs, and progress up and out of the system.