An inspection of interviewee responses concerning the issues and concerns surrounding the implementation of STW opportunities for middle-level students revealed five categories of responses:
Introducing School-to-Work Opportunities Too Early
Three of the five association representatives (NMSA, ITEA, and NASSP) believed that introducing and implementing STW efforts at the middle school level was too soon. Interviewees suggested that middle school students were not developmentally ready for the challenges and decisions inherent in this type of approach. These association representatives viewed STW education as an effort to "force students to make career choices too early." The NMSA representative commented,
I think the bottom line, and I think our concern would be, we have no desire to endorse something that's going to make a child decide their lifelong career choices in eighth grade or in seventh grade. They're still so young at that age that they still have opportunities, plus maturity-wise they have tons of growth in that area. You're talking between seventh and ninth grade; they're not the same person; their maturity level will change. So, I guess for us, our concern would be that we're not tracking them into something that maybe they have a passion for right now but we know that realistically that's going to change within three to five years.
The ITEA representative shared a similar opinion:
I guess that's not the place where I would emphasize it [school-to-work education] and certainly not the place our association has looked to emphasize it. When you're talking about very in-depth, job sharing, apprenticeships, and out-of-school experiences at the middle school level, I think you're hitting a little too soon. I don't know that I could cite any research that could say that kids are doing a really good job of making career decisions at that level. They generally really don't know when they get out of high school. Now, I am and our association is a proponent of a broader background and exploring careers at that point.
Another concern voiced by the association representatives was the possibility of preparing middle school students for careers or jobs that will become obsolete by the time they graduate form high school or that haven't yet been created. The ITEA representative shared his concern:
If I've got a concern, I think it has to do with people who think that that is a time in a person's life where they should have students pursuing a very in-depth, job sharing, apprenticeship, out-of-school experience. It just doesn't line up with how occupations are going at this point. We don't even know what the occupations will be by the time they graduate from high school if we start in the middle school. It's just changing on us in leaps and bounds. We have to watch what we're doing there. To us, to go with strong school-to-work at the middle school level is not there yet. I don't think we'll push that for awhile.
Introducing School-to-Work Opportunities Too Late
Association representatives from AVA and ASCA belonged to the "opposing camp" when discussing the appropriate time to implement STW education programs. These two associations believed that implementing STW efforts at the high school was too late to make an impact. In fact, both representatives suggested introducing this approach at the elementary level. The ASCA representative commented, "I think that people are finally catching on that STW education is not nine through twelve. And that it really needs to start at the elementary and not the middle school." They also indicated that their associations have received several requests for STW curriculum materials and inservice programs from middle and elementary level educators in the field. The AVA representative reported,
I am hearing about middle school needs more as I go places. People are saying. `Why don't you do more for the middle school?' I think that's definitely the next thing that has to happen. Because truly you can't start this process in ninth grade. They've really have got to start it early. I think people are recognizing if they're waiting until the kids are in high school, that they have waited too long. And they're not having the level of success that they'd like to have. If they really want to be successful, they're going to have to start earlier.
This association representative also responded to the concern that middle school students were being asked to make decisions about careers before it was warranted:
In response to the issue of forcing young people to make decisions too soon, we can counter that very quickly and say it is helping young people realize how important it is that they think about what they want to be so they are able to then get into those classes. You see, what's going to happen more and more is--and kids are finding this out--they can't even get into the college they want to go to because they didn't take the right courses. So they've got to do that and they've got to do it early on or they're spending more and more time on remediation. And colleges are getting tired of spending all this money on remediation.
Defining School-to-Work/Careers
Persons on both sides of the "timing" issue agreed that, perhaps, the real issue may be the variability and inconsistency in definitions and interpretations of "school-to-work." The NMSA association representative indicated that this "confusion" has been an issue they have grappled with. He commented,
I would assume that most school districts would probably have a different interpretation of school-to-work, and I think when you get into interpretation, then you get into what would be something we'd endorse and something we wouldn't. It all depends on interpretation, we deal with that on a daily basis with middle school philosophy. It's interpreted many different ways.
The ASCA interviewee suggested envisioning STW education, careers, and work in a broader fashion. She believed a broader view of these concepts would allow educators to accept the idea of a comprehensive K-12 approach to career development and begin to realize that they have already addressed this area, to some extent, in their curriculum. She stated,
If we look at career as life, rather than getting a job, it's never too early. A lot of teachers don't understand that when they tell kids they need to be to school on time or if an assignment is due or you have to get along with people, that's part of work. We need to broaden that view of what work is or what career is. And I think once we broaden that view, educators will understand that their needs to be a career piece K through 12. And not only that, but I think they would be surprised to know that they're probably doing a lot of that right now. No one has ever framed it like that before for them.
Dealing with an Image Problem
The NMSA representative commented that STW education may have an "image problem." STW initiatives were viewed by many educators and parents as a "tracking situation" that leads to a career directly after high school. STW "paths" were seen as the less inviting alternative to participation in a college-bound preparatory "path." The representative elaborated,
If you were looking at school-to-work in an upper middle class neighborhood, maybe it would be frowned upon because people would anticipate that their child is going direct to college. That's what they all think. They all have that instilled into them.
Coping with Conservative Groups
Representatives from two associations voiced concerns about the ability of conservative groups to discourage local school systems from implementing a career-focused or STW curriculum. An interviewee expressed her concern:
I hate to even say this, but there are real right wing people out there that don't even want kids to be taught how to make decisions. And that's real frightening to me. So when we talk about school-to-work, a lot of these people scare me because they don't know the basics of what we're trying to accomplish.
One representative echoed these concerns:
It's really the far right. And you know that more of those people are getting on school boards, which is very smart on their part. I used to serve on a school board and I'll tell you, it's a very, very important position; people don't realize it, they kind of poo-poo it as kind of the lowest of all the positions; but I'll tell you what, those are the people that touch the two things that are most important to everybody, and that is their property and their children.
These association representatives also shared their frustrations with conservative groups and influential individuals at the state level:
Our state had a real hard time recently; parents and conservative group members just went in and kept saying, "They're trying to track our children. They're trying to force them into making decisions. They're trying to take away their choices and making them do things before they're ready." And really, it's just the opposite. It does expand the choices; that's the whole point. It makes it so much more possible that these young people are going to get to do something. It's really amazing, and people that listen to that are certainly short-sighted. As long as they have a governor who is so anti-everything, they're in trouble. He doesn't allow them--up until recently they couldn't even get school-to-work money. Does he realize he's paying for it? He may not want to get the money back, but everyone else is getting it. Now you explain that one to me. We're making all the other states have more money and more productive children. Figure that one out.