Having outlined some of the major sources of energy and funding for the STW movement, we now attempt to describe what is actually happening on the ground. This will not be a quantitative survey because statistical data on the prevalence of various STW practices is not available, although Mathematica's evaluation of the impact of STWOA has begun to fill some of the void (Hershey et al., 1997). This part of our report also does not review evidence of effects on students; that is the subject of Part IV. Instead, the purpose here is to describe what STW initiatives are doing or trying to do, according to written documents and our own observations in the field.
To explore the opportunities and challenges that schools and communities are encountering, we divide the discussion into a set of separate issues. How are high schools and community colleges promoting the integration of academic subject matter with work-related knowledge and skill? How are links being strengthened between secondary and postsecondary education? What is the role of work-based learning? How and to what extent are employers becoming involved? How are STW systems or ideas serving young people who are not in school and have not finished high school? Under each of these topics, we describe some of the obstacles that are arising in the field, and attempts to overcome them.