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Introduction

This case study starts in the late 1980s when a study team was formed to assess the need for a new school-to-work concept in Pennsylvania. In August of 1991, their recommendations led to a team of teachers being brought together in Pittsburgh to create a curriculum for a new school-to-work program (later called the Pennsylvania Youth Apprenticeship Program [PYAP]) and to help train other teachers to use it. The curriculum that the team developed, and which is now used in 26 school districts across Pennsylvania, is called Integrating Academics and the World of Work. As this case study unfolds and describes the development of our original concept, the curriculum, and the formation of our development team for the PYAP, it will become clear that AAI, while not explicitly identified, was woven implicitly into the PYAP from the beginning.

In the fall of 1993, three of our original five member teacher team--Maggie Holder, Dave Pacolay, and Jean Simcic--and the guidance counselor for the PYAP at Peabody High School, Diane Coumos, were given the task to revisit the curriculum from the particular focus of All Aspects of the Industry (AAI). The core of this case study focuses on our discussion of implementation of AAI into PYAP. During the 1993-1994 school year, members of our Pittsburgh team worked with the local PYAP stakeholders and rethought the student competencies for the Youth Apprentice in the language of AAI. (Samples of stakeholder documents that illustrate the development of the stakeholder group, the specific competencies, as well as specify some of the challenges presented to the program and the stakeholders' reactions to the challenges appear in "History of Curriculum Development" in the Pennsylvania Youth Apprenticeship Program section of the Supporting Materials.) We then developed a project, "Bridge to Learning," after analyzing AAI as the assessment criteria for student projects. Materials related to this project are located in the Supporting Materials under the Pennsylvania Youth Apprenticeship Program section--the Bridge Project. In this project, teams of students formed companies to research the need for, implement the development of, and build a model of a bridge to fill a real community need within a budget; meet local, state, and federal regulations; and develop skills based on AAI.


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