Employers Participating in School-to-Work Programs
Work in Progress at Teachers College
All across the United States, employers are participating in
school-to-work programs, such as mentoring and on-the-job training.
Why do some employers offer these kinds of programs to students, when
others do not? Do the programs benefit business as well as student
workers and interns? How does it all work? New research at NCRVE
seeks to answer these and other questions.
Work-based Education: A Core Element of Change
Work-based education is one of the three core program elements called
for by the School-to-Work Opportunities Act. The Act lists the
following as possible work-based activities:
- Work experience, a planned program of job training and work
experiences that are coordinated with learning the school-based
component
- Workplace mentoring, instruction in general workplace competencies,
including instruction and activities related to developing positive
work attitudes and employability and participative skills
- Paid work experience
- Job shadowing
- School-sponsored enterprise
- On-the-job training
Employer Participation Is Critical
Although some work-based activities can be carried out completely or
in part by schools, employer participation is critical to the success
of work-based education. Indeed, most of the activities depend on the
ability of program operators to recruit an adequate number of
employers who will open their workplaces to students for job
shadowing, internships, or other types of work experience.
The goal of this project is to analyze the participation of employers
in several school-to-work programs in an effort to understand how to
maximize such participation. The research will combine analysis of
data collected through a formal survey and information collected from
on-site field work. The list of employers to be interviewed comes
from two types of programs: those with reasonably large numbers of
employers and those that have intensive involvement of a smaller
number of employers. The researchers will also interview a comparison
group of nonparticipating employers. In addition, researchers will
visit schools and workplaces, interview principals, counselors,
teachers, students, employers, and co-workers (or mentors).
Researchers will address the following questions: Why do employers
participate? Why do others not participate? What distinguishes
participating from nonparticipating firms? How intensive is the
participation? What recruitment strategies are most effective? The
staff will recommend ways that public policy could be shaped to
encourage employer participation.
The principal investigators are Thomas Bailey, Annette Bernhardt,
Susan Weiler, and Lea Williams at Teachers College, and Cathy Stasz,
Dominic Brewer, and David Finegold at RAND.
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