Study Takes Hard Look at Challenges of Youth Apprenticeship
Rising demand for a higher skilled and educated workforce has made something old new again. With the urgent need for a new kind of American worker, the Clinton Administration, members of Congress and state leaders are looking back to yesterday for solutions, back to an 150-year-old practice that is as American as apple pie: apprenticeship.
But the apprenticeships that interest policy makers today don't look much like the systems of old. Today, youth apprenticeship offers education, training and a job to the 75 percent of Americans who are unlikely to complete a four-year college degree. Today, youth apprenticeship connects schools and work in new ways. Those connections, and the promises and problems that they bring, are the focus of YOUTH APPRENTICESHIP IN AMERICA: GUIDELINES FOR BUILDING AN EFFECTIVE SYSTEM.
The principal authors of this report are academics at the forefront of research on the subject and on the front lines in implementing youth apprenticeship. In taking a hard look at youth apprenticeship, the authors treat not only educational theory, but practical pitfalls. They offer teachers, employers and policy makers a range of approaches to youth apprenticeships and outline the pros and cons of each. And they ask critical questions about what is a high priority of the Clinton Administration's labor and education policy:
- Is youth apprenticeship a viable model for the United States?
- What lessons on youth apprenticeship can we take from our principal economic competitors?
- In what occupations will it work well?
- Does youth apprenticeship ask too much of schools, employers and young people?
- What incentives and preparation are needed for participants?
- Can other approaches -- co-operative education, tech-prep programs, career magnets and career academies -- achieve similar goals?
- How can youth apprenticeship change the way young people learn and the way teachers teach?
- What is the ideal location for learning in youth apprenticeships -- school, workplace or both?
Apprenticeship no longer means leaving school to start learning a trade. Instead, according to James E. Rosenbaum of Northwestern University, the vital training of youth apprenticeships can and should be a result of a partnership between schools and employers.
Why a partnership? Because, Rosenbaum writes, employers and teachers have shared interests: "Both employers and teachers want youth to acquire discipline, motivation and work habits...Both employers and teachers want higher academic standards...Apprenticeships are attractive because they help schools and employers meet each others' needs: Schools promise to teach the academic skills needed for apprenticeships, and employers promise to recruit students with good academic skills into apprenticeships."
The report's authors look beyond our nation's economic competitiveness as a motivating factor for youth apprenticeships. The research on learning theory and the debate over practical applications in the report make this a comprehensive look at how we can best make our youth not just better workers, but better neighbors and citizens.
The authors of YOUTH APPRENTICESHIP IN AMERICA: GUIDELINES FOR BUILDING AN EFFECTIVE SYSTEM:
Sue E. Berryman is an Education Specialist with the World Bank in Washington, DC and former director of the Institute on Education and the Economy at Teachers College, Columbia University.
Mary Agnes Hamilton is Senior Research Associate in the Department of Human Development and Family Studies at Cornell University and Associate Director of the Cornell Youth and Work Program.
Stephen F. Hamilton is Professor and Chair of Human Development and Family Studies at Cornell University.
James E. Rosenbaum is Professor of Sociology, Education and Social Policy at Northwestern University.
David Stern is Professor of Education at the University of California, Berkeley.
Richard Kazis is Vice President and Director of the National Youth Apprenticeship Initiative at Jobs for the Future, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
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