Opening Career Paths for Youth
What Needs to Be Done? Who Can Do It?
The authors of Opening Career Paths for Youth: What Needs to Be Done? Who Can Do It?, a new report published by the American Youth Policy Forum, answer the questions in the report's title with a wealth of practical experience. Since 1991, Stephen Hamilton and Mary Agnes Hamilton, two of the nation's leading practitioners in the school-to-work arena, have directed Cornell University's Youth Apprenticeship Demonstration Project in Broome County, New York.
The Cornell Youth and Work Program has been implementing the three essential components specified in the School to Work Opportunities Act, signed by President Clinton in May, 1994:
- work-based learning leading to formal credentials
- school-based learning organized around career majors
- strong connections between school and work
The authors outline these three components of what they term a "career opportunity system," that is, a system that goes beyond finding work for young people to helping them enter a career path. The Cornell program's apprentices learn and work in the areas of manufacturing and engineering technology, health care, or administration and office technology. They come from six high schools and work in 10 different firms.
Opening Career Paths for Youth is a clear and concise essay detailing the lessons learned in the program's implementation. The experiences of apprentices, teachers, employers and mentors in the Cornell program are woven into the larger discussion of the transition from school to work. The essay's blueprint for successful youth apprenticeship is drawn not from theory but from real-world lessons. The contours of an ideal program emerge from the demonstration project and the efforts to refine it. The authors discuss in detail the roles of the key players in the system, emphasizing the complementary contributions of organizations and individuals and describing the institutional arrangements and responsibilities for all partners.
Opening Career Paths for Youth presents practical lessons for practitioners and policy makers and an articulate commentary on what it takes to offer a true career opportunity system to young Americans.
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