Connecting Education to Work: How Do Young People Respond?

Work in Progress at Teachers College

Teachers and parents tell young people they've got to finish high school, and perhaps college, grow up and get a job. But how many students find that high school really helps them discover their own strengths and career interests? School-to-work programs are designed to help students through the transition from education to meaningful work, and ongoing learning. These programs, which first began about 20 years ago, are now encouraged nationwide by the 1994 federal School-to-Work Opportunities Act. Are these programs measuring up?

What Does a "Good" School-to-Work Program Look Like?

A good school-to-work program should be small, like a school-within-a-school. It should provide a quality college preparatory education; and it should be mass producable at no more expense than a regular high school program. New York has built over a hundred such school-to-work programs in the past two decades. This makes it a perfect research site. Not only can we study the mass production of these programs, but since they use lottery admission, we have ready-made experimental design evaluations at each site!"

A team of researchers from NCRVE is examining the development of a career identity and changes in students attitudes toward their careers. Researchers include Erwin Flaxman, Robert Crain, Anna Allen, and Robert Thaler at Teachers College, and Gail Zellman at the RAND.

Researchers have noticed that students seem to like the school-to-work programs and feel as though they are becoming prepared for work. Furthermore, the programs have very low rates of drug use, class-cutting, or pregnancies. (Unfortunately, they do not have low drop out rates!)

The researchers are focusing on which specific activities make for success, but more importantly on the issue: what would vocational education mean in a city where every student who can graduate from high school might go on to college? This implies that we should not evaluate school to work programs by counting the number of graduates who have the job they were trained for, nor whether the graduate has wisely chosen and successfully entered his life-long career. Instead we should ask whether the high school has helped the graduate learn to enjoy work, develop important generic work skills, and to realize that they can and should pursue a career.

Building Career Identities

What school factors hinder or support the development of a career identity in students? As part of on-going research on career magnet schools, Flaxman, et al. are continuing to study the different ways city-wide career magnets and zoned comprehensive high schools affect students' career development. Since a lottery determines which schools the students attend, there is a natural experimental situation for comparing the effects of high school on the career development of the two groups of students, who are similar except in the high schools that they attend.

The research staff considers that students have a career identity if they have: (1) a concept of themselves as a worker with the ability and self-esteem to carry out work-related tasks; (2) an awareness of the necessary skills and responsibilities for a career; (3) an awareness of the educational and training demands of work; (4) taken steps to become competent; and (5) begun career planning and exploration.

Researchers are now analyzing the responses to 1110 two-hour interviews and 30 six-hour interviews with high school graduates, as well as interviews with family members, employers, and school staff identified by the students as having a significant influence on them. In general, the analysis has shown that career magnet high schools may foster the development of a career identity better than the zoned comprehensive high schools. The critical factors seem to be the continuity of the program and the sense of community in the career magnets.

This research will be completed in the fall of 1995. The results are intended to help educators rethink the guidance and counseling function in high schools so they can better support the formation of students' career identity.

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