Voices From the Field:
Employers Talk about Building a
School-to-Work System
A Forum — February 12, 1999
The School-to-Work Opportunities Act (STWOA) of 1994 is designed to improve the transition from school to work for American youth by integrating school-based and work-based learning and exposing students to high quality workplace experiences. The legislation requires the establishment of partnerships involving schools, employers, and other community representatives to design, implement and monitor school-to-work initiatives. Five years is not enough time to evaluate the impact of such an ambitious reform, observed Joan Wills, Director of the Center for Workforce Development of the Institute for Educational Leadership (IEL). However, throughout those years, some trends have already emerged and a stock of experience has been accumulated. About two years ago, the Center for Workforce Development asked employers to reflect on their experiences with school-to-work. The report, Employers Talk About Building a School-to-Work System: Voices from the Field, published by the American Youth Policy Forum, compiles reflections from thirteen employers and seven intermediaries.
BellSouth Corporation is an international telecommunications company that operates in nine southeastern states and thirteen countries spread across five continents. Lee Doyle, Director of Corporate Affairs, BellSouth Corporation, explained that BellSouth had traditionally been involved in community activities as a public relations strategy. However, the technological advances in the telecommunications field and the expansion of an extremely competitive market placed new strains on the company. BellSouth understood that, to survive, the company needed to ensure a steady source of highly skilled workers, in addition to building customer loyalty. Their involvement in school-to-work seemed like a logical response to these two forces.
Doyle advised that, for effective employer participation in school-to-work efforts, employers must be clear about what they can do best and what they cannot do. BellSouth, for instance, can mobilize a large pool of potential volunteers among their employees and retirees to help in schools. In 1997 alone, 100,000 BellSouth volunteers provided about 11 million hours of service to schools in Georgia, in activities such as speaking with students about careers and organizing the nationally successful "Groundhog Day." With regard to school-to-work programs, BellSouth cannot require their employees to supervise students in the workplace due to a high number of employees under each supervisor already. Therefore, rather than providing internships for students, BellSouth established a summer internship program for teachers. In cooperation with educational publishing company Scholastic, Inc., BellSouth also produced material to help teachers understand what skills are necessary for employment in the telecommunications field.
Siemens is the sixth largest electrical/electronics manufacturer in the world, with over 300,000 employees in Germany, and about 66,000 in more than 400 sites in the United States. John Tobin, Director of Institutional Relations and Vice-President of the Siemens Foundation, observed that public schools are the largest source of potential employees in America. As any other supplier, schools need to provide high quality "products," because, in this international market, work goes where knowledge is. Siemens sees its relationship with the educational system as part of the knowledge supply chain and encourages the public education system to create high quality connections between elementary, secondary, postsecondary and lifelong learning. Recently, Siemens opened a factory in Richmond, Virginia, with a need for 12,000 highly skilled employees, but could find only 7,000. To emphasize the advantages of a school-to-work approach, Tobin recounted the story of a young woman who entered the Siemens Apprenticeship Program after dropping out of school, being arrested on drug-related charges and having two children. In the program, she received high quality training, counseling and support. She is now a customer engineer at Siemens, earning a $45.000 salary. Siemens gained a qualified employee, and the country saved on welfare, jail and other social costs. Indeed, the advantages of a school-to-work approach are not a surprise for a company where the last two CEOs were products of Germany's apprenticeship system.
Employers must determine the return on investment that makes their participation worthwhile, Tobin emphasized. It is also essential to focus on development of standards and best practices. "The higher the level of work in which students are trained, the higher the return on investment," clarified Tobin. He spoke enthusiastically about Tech-Prep, using the 2+2+2 model, that is, two years of high school, leading to a two-year Associate's Degree from a community college and two more years in a four-year college to complete a Bachelor's degree. Using this model, the company is graduating their first class of engineers, who started 11th grade in the Siemens Apprenticeship Program. In addition to the apprenticeship program, Siemens' Education Foundation finances numerous K-college activities, focusing mostly on motivating children and youth to study math and science and helping teachers to teach students how to do and enjoy research.
Doyle and Tobin agree that employers need clarity about what is expected from their participation and a structure of support. Both can be provided by intermediaries. William Diehl, Program Manager of the Center for Youth Development and Education, Corporation for Business, Work and Learning, explained that a cultural gap exists between the world of schools and the world of business. Eighty percent of teachers have never been out of the classroom and are preparing children for a workplace that no longer exists. While employers do not have time to develop activities, schools do not have the knowledge to define which activities must be developed. Intermediaries focus on closing the gaps between systems and getting all partners at the table to identify problems, resources and solutions. Diehl agreed with Tobin that small and medium-size business can participate as actively as large corporations. Small business can be linked together to develop internships. Telementoring, for instance, is a new approach that connects students and teachers with employers through computers, independent of their locations. Those are solutions that intermediaries can facilitate. Business and other community organizations are enthusiastic about school-to-work and many want to get involved. However, employers do not want to limit their participation to short-term, small impact projects. They want to see meaningful, sustained results. Systemic changes are at the core of school-to-work, but can happen only when the necessary linkages are well established.
STWOA has spearheaded important concepts and reforms, which should not expire in 2001 when the legislation sunsets. Many of those concepts are in a fragile, incipient stage, such as the presence of intermediaries that have proved essential in supporting employers and facilitating communication between systems. The development of portable skills-certificates or credentials, an essential element to facilitate workforce movement across state-boundaries, needs further work. The need for highly skilled employees is not a short-term trend in our economy, and schools must be prepared to lead the country into the 21st century.
This information is from an American youth Policy Forum held on February 12, 1999 on Capitol Hill.
The events of the Forum are made possible by the support of a consortium of philanthropic foundations: The Pew Charitable Trusts, Charles S. Mott Foundation, Ford Foundation, and an anonymous doner.