Given the multiple starting dates, the pilot projects are at different stages of development. By early 1995, all projects had completed the development of content standards. Almost two-thirds have completed the validation of the content standards as well as the development of performance standards. Most of these projects have disseminated their standards to industry groups, employers, and educators. During the middle of 1995, most of the projects are focusing on the development of curriculum guides, instructional tools, and assessment instruments, and pilot testing procedures to implement and evaluate the standards.
In a further development of the skill standards movement, Congress established the National Skill Standards Board as part of the 1994 Goals 2000: Educate America Act. The Board was mandated to work towards strengthening the connection between education and employment in developing and implementing skill standards. Not only was the Board charged with establishing a framework for joint participation between business, industry, labor, educators, and other key groups but it was also given the responsibility for the development and implementation of a standardized national system. Its primary functions include the following:
Chart 1 in the Appendices lists the projects and some relevant information about them. This information includes the lead organization and formal partners, the funding department, the year started, and other information that will be discussed later in the report.
In this section, we analyze the pilot projects. One significant issue is that there is not a strong consensus about the goals of the projects. Although advocates hope to achieve a variety of goals, we focus on the two broad objectives outlined in the introduction--a short-term and a long-term objective. From the short-term perspective, the goal of the system is to improve the nature of the communication between schools and employers by specifying a set of required skills and then measuring the extent to which students have achieved them. From the long-term perspective, the goals of the skill standards movement are to help advance a broad reform strategy for both schools and workplaces. Both perspectives can be found in the pilot projects, and any judgment about the effectiveness of the projects will depend on which goal is being pursued.
We find that project organizers have made great progress, especially if one focuses on the short-term goals. For example, in some projects, the process has led to a reexamination of the needs of the industry. Less progress has been made on the long-term goals. Few of the projects have broken out of the traditional frameworks--the skill components model is still powerful. Both substantive disagreements and practical problems prevent change.
We examine three aspects of the pilot projects. In the first section, we look at the form of the standards themselves. Here we find great diversity with some projects adhering closely to the skill components approach and others making important breaks with the past. We then turn to project governance, focusing on the nature of the partnerships between schools and employers, and the role of workers. In most of the projects, workers play primarily an advisory role. The third section examines the job analysis techniques used by the projects. It is in that area where the tension between the ambitious goals of the skill standards movement and the practicalities of their implementation is most obvious.
First, this should not be seen as an evaluation of these projects. The DOL and DOE gave the pilot projects considerable latitude which led to wide variation in project outcomes; thus, the criteria that we are using to analyze the projects were not necessarily the criteria that the projects set out to meet. Second, we are focusing on the form of the standards, not their industry- or occupation-specific content. Third, in this section of the report, we do not discuss the governance of the projects. Therefore, while the form of the standards may coincide with the professional model, the governance may include only a secondary role for workers. If this is the case, we might expect the occupational or industry specific content to differ from that developed under a project which allowed a more meaningful partnership with workers.
How do we operationalize the professional and skill components models with respect to a skill standards system? What would a set of standards consistent with the professional model look like? One of the crucial distinctions between skill standards as conceived under these two models is the ultimate purpose of the "skill." In the skill components model, skills indicate a set of specified tasks that, given supervision and instruction from someone with more knowledge and organizational control, will allow a worker to perform pre-established, often routine, duties. In the professional model, on the other hand, skills indicate a set of "enablers" that will enhance the worker's ability to effectively carry out broad roles or duties within an organization in an autonomous fashion. This distinction is what allows the skill components model to function based on a set of abstract domain-free skills while the professional model must supply more context for the work performed and the interactions that exist among individuals involved in the work process. In categorizing skill standards systems, we focus on two dimensions--(1) the extent to which academic and vocational skills are integrated and (2) the extent to which the workplace is integrated into the standard.
The professional model, on the other hand, minimizes the distinction between the types of skills--academic or vocational--that workers possess and concentrates on how the two types of skills are combined to achieve a workplace-related goal. The fact that a lab technician can write complete sentences in a paper for a science course may be of little use in the workplace--the technician must be able to utilize, transfer, or apply this "academic" ability as written communication in a "real" setting for the skill to have any value.
We categorized the projects into one of three groups with respect to the extent of academic and vocational integration. In the first group, there is no integration between skill "types"--academic and vocational skills are listed separately. Six of the projects fall into this group. In the last group, which includes six projects, academic skills become embedded or integrated in the technical functions (vocational skills) required in the occupation. In the second, or transitional group, academic skills continue to be differentiated from vocational skills but are applied to a generic workplace setting or task which is meant to illustrate their use in the workplace. Nine projects applied academic skills in this manner. Chart 2 in the Appendices displays each type of academic and vocational integration and gives illustrations.
We categorized the pilot projects into three groups with respect to the extent that skills include aspects of the workplace. In the first group, which included eleven projects, skills are listed with no workplace application relevant to the specific occupation or industry. For four projects at the other extreme, the skills illustrate critical aspects of the occupation by including an organizational and industry context for the job. How workers are expected to operate in their surroundings plays an important role in skill development. In the intermediate group, specific workplace applications are provided as examples to indicate how skills may be used. Six projects fell into this group. Chart 3 in the Appendices displays each type of workplace integration and gives an illustration.
The compartmentalized perspective creates a fundamental distinction between technical and academic skills. Technical skills define the explicit knowledge and abilities which are necessary to perform industry- or occupational-specific tasks and/or duties (or set of tasks and duties). Academic skills comprise an employee's foundation or basic knowledge component. These skills form the competencies that an employee needs BEFORE gaining technical skills. Employability skills such as SCANS skills, when included, form a third, separate listing of skills which are usually appended to the skills framework.
In the same manner that types of skills are disconnected from each other, they are disconnected from any workplace context or application. The standards are not related to any workplace scenarios or settings in which worker skills and activities can be utilized or integrated. This lack of skill application is especially apparent for academic skills. For example, compartmentalized standards do not provide any background to indicate how a mathematics skill such as the conversion of fractions into decimals or percentages must be used by technicians in the performance of their jobs. Rather, the required skill is simply listed and the task that will utilize this skill is listed separately and generically.
To illustrate how skills can be compartmentalized, we have included excerpts from one project that identified skills in three overall categories--(1) technical, (2) employability, and (3) related academic--and listed them separately. Below are illustrations of the skills included in each category:
The consolidated approach structures skill standards in a framework that depends fundamentally on broad-based workplace scenarios rather than specific worker tasks to produce occupational profiles. This is more in line with the professional view of work which is less structured and more autonomous.
The professional model, by not adhering as strictly to labeling skills, promotes the expansion of worker roles within the organization. Skills identification has less value than understanding the underlying aspects of worker roles and the responsibilities that the skills, workplace scenarios, and problem-solving situations aid in identifying. Categories such as community context, worker activity statements, key purpose, position snapshot, and workplace setting/workplace situation are often a key aspect of the skill standards statements and are used to ground the skills in the workplace, not as an optional description. As one project staff member commented, standards center around what the work actually looks like and its relation to the organizational or industry mission. The knowledge, skills, attributes, and task competencies required of workers are seen as "enabling" the performance of broad organizational roles.
An example of a project that integrated critical aspects of the job as well as organizational and industry contexts into the skills is illustrated by the following format:
As the chart illustrates, there are three ways in which the projects were able to contextualize the occupational skills of employees. At one level of contextualization, projects created applied academic skills that include some generic function or object for the skills. Unlike traditional academic skills that are listed as objectives in and of themselves, academic skills at this level are "applied" in the sense that they are related to some object or activity. This application, however, does not constitute a real-world workplace orientation, for the skills and academic skills continue to be differentiated from technical skills. At another level, applied academic skills are given workplace applications as examples. These examples, however, appear more in the form of "add-ons" than fundamental underpinnings for skill development and utilization. A third level of contextualization attempts to minimize the distinction between academic and vocational skills and attaches both "types" of skills to generic workplace examples of their use (similar to the workplace applications provided by the second form of contextualization).
An example of the first level of contextualization--applied academic skill with no real workplace or organizational orientation or context--is illustrated by the following narratives for the Related Academic Skill of Language Arts:
The second level under the contextualized conceptualization is comprised of those projects that created academic skills which were applied generically with some workplace context offered through examples, applications, or scenarios. An example of this is offered by a project that differentiated a set of core skills and gave a brief context for those skills such as the one below:
Basic Mathematics: Expert press operators are often called on to use mathematical skills in their daily work. They use fractions and percentages, for example, to compute the portion of a page that is print. They use ratios and proportions to compute ink proportions and may need to know Roman numerals to ensure proper page sequencing. Rounding and estimating skills are useful in projecting paper and ink usage.This type of scenario was also used for other core skills that the project found to be important. One can see a difference in this presentation of skill and the previous example. Clear workplace applications are being used to demonstrate the use of academic skills, although there is still a difference between what the project considers "academic" and what it considers "vocational." Furthermore, there is little in the standards to indicate the extent to which the worker will be called upon to use his skills alone or in a group, with or without supervision. In other words, even though a workplace context has been used to demonstrate the skill application, the workplace context does not indicate important aspects of the organization and the worker's role within that organization.
The third type of contextualized standards moves away from the sharp differentiation of academic and vocational skills. But the workplace application does not involve the integration of the skills into the critical aspects of the worker's role within the organization or the industry. (This is what differentiates these standards from the consolidated standards.) Instead, these standards use the workplace for its examples of how skills could be used.
An example of a case where skill standards were integrated along the academic and vocational lines but where the workplace was used as an example of skill usage is illustrated by a project that presented its standards in the following manner:
[10] Another example of the first level of contextualization is a format where academic skills are matrixed with the appropriate technical skill. Clearly, an attempt is being made to connect the two types of skills (which differentiates this format from the compartmentalized format) although the application is somewhat weak and of little benefit in creating an overall context for skills in the workplace.