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Forum Brief

Promising Practices:
A Study of Ten School-to-Career Programs

A Forum — January 23, 1995

This forum presented the findings from a study examining the evolution of ten innovative school-to-work programs. The study--Promising Practices: A study of Ten School-to-Career Programs--was conducted by Jobs for the Future (JFF), a national, non-partisan, non-profit organization focused on improving the connections between work and learning in the global economy.

Forum presenters included Hilary Pennington, Richard Kazis and Hilary Kopp of JFF; Patricia Clark, director of the Oakland Health and Bioscience Academy in Oakland, CA; Tom Panzarella, a school-to-career business partner at Cook Specialty in Green Lane, PA; and a student from the Pro Tech school-to-career program in Boston, MA.

The ten programs analyzed in the study are members of JFF's National Youth Apprenticeship Initiative, a multi-year, foundation-funded effort that explored the potential for new models linking school and work between 1990 and 1994.

JFF's research is one of the first systematic attempts to document how these programs are organized, their essential features, how they have evolved, and their impacts on participating students, employers and schools. The study provides detailed descriptions of how these programs have organized themselves to deliver school- and work-based instruction and how those initial designs have changed in the first few years of implementation. In addition, JFF's study draws lessons about the feasibility and promise of these new efforts and suggests lessons from their experience on how best to target public investments -- at the federal and state levels -- to improve the way our nation's young people are prepared for careers and their futures.

The ten school-to-career programs studied were:

Cambridge Youth Apprenticeship Programs (Cambridge, MA); Cornell Youth Apprenticeship Demonstration Project (Broome County, NY);Craftsmanship 2000 (Tulsa, OK);Kalamazoo Health Occupations Program (Kalamazoo County, MI);Oakland Health and Bioscience Academy (Oakland, CA);Pasadena Graphic Arts Academy (Pasadena, CA);Pennsylvania Youth Apprenticeship Program (6 programs in 4 regions);Pickens County Youth Apprenticeship Program (Easley, SC);ProTech (Boston, MA);Roosevelt Renaissance 2000 (Portland, OR)

In 1991, when it first began to work with some of these programs, JFF posed several key questions about the viability of the school-to-career movement, including:

  • Would these programs serve a diverse segment of the youth population -- or would they recapitulate existing patterns of tracking in public high schools?
  • Would initial enthusiasm and activity be sustainable over time -- or would costs and complexities take their toll in diminishing commitments from key partners?
  • Would there be significant demand for these new efforts from local employers -- or was this a policy idea with no real constituency?
  • Would these new programs be able to demonstrate positive educational and labor market results for participants?
  • Would participation expand -- or limit -- participants' post secondary options?
  • Would school-to-work efforts be a catalyst for systemic change in schools, workplaces, and the interactions between employers and educators -- or would they create just another layer of "add-on" programs?
  • Would these reforms be affordable -- or would they be too expensive for what they would accomplish?
Through visits to the programs, review of their written materials, interviews with program directors, a survey of participating seniors and other strategies, JFF derived preliminary answers detailed in the Promising Practices report.

In brief, the major findings of the study were:

  1. The ten programs have experienced significant expansion: over time, the numbers and types of students, industries, and schools involved have all increased.
  2. The programs have significant and sustained employer involvement, and the intensity of employer involvement has increased over time.
  3. Significant percentages of students are enrolling in post secondary education and training.
  4. Students, employers, and teachers are extremely supportive of the school-to-work approach.
  5. Programs have become more involved in strategies for systemic change in schools, workplaces, and the connections between them.
From the findings of the study, JFF makes the following recommendations for federal policy:
  1. Preserve the School-to-Work Opportunities Act framework and funding.
  2. Invest in developing the infrastructure for collaboration among schools and employers that is critical for school-to-career systems to take root and succeed.
  3. Set performance benchmarks that reflect the full range of educational, labor market and institutional change goals.
  4. Collect accurate and detailed data from states on local and state progress -- and hold them accountable for results.
  5. Restructure federal education and work force development policies to be more effective, not just less costly.

This brief summarizes an American Youth Policy Forum that took place on January 23, 1995 on Capitol Hill, reported by Jennifer Cusack.

The American Youth Policy Forum (AYPF) is a non-profit, nonpartisan professional development organization that bridges youth policy, practice and research for professionals working on youth policy issues at the national, state and local levels.

AYPF’s events and policy reports are made possible by the support of a consortium of philanthropic foundations: Ford Foundation, Ford Motor Company Fund, GE Foundation, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, WT Grant Foundation, George Gund Foundation, W. K. Kellogg Foundation, KnowledgeWorks Foundation, Lumina Foundation for Education, Charles S. Mott Foundation, Nellie Mae Education Foundation, and others.