Why Wait to Improve the School-to-Work Transition?

REMEMBER the childhood game Mother, May I? You could throw your limbs around in wild contortions as long as you first asked permission. Viewed in the light of years of learning about psychological and social theories, this requirement seems like an early way of getting us accustomed to authority. The message: ask permission or lose the game. Reading through a great deal of the current literature on the school-to-work transition -- so as to be ready for whatever the Clinton Administration comes up with -- brought the game of Mother, May I? to mind. At first, the connection might seem far-fetched, but not when you realize that most improvements in the transition from school to work depend on the will and initiative of schools and communities. Successful programs certainly do not depend on what comes out of Washington -- on waiting for permission. So what should make school leaders want to play this game of school-to-work transition? The data. Those in high schools and district offices need to stop fooling themselves into believing that their main responsibility is to prepare students for careers that require a bachelor's degree. If they truly believe that all young people are important, then they will realize that the quality of education received by the forgotten half -- those who will not attend four-year colleges -- needs as much attention and requires as many resources as that of students in Advanced Placement courses. Let's look at the figures. Even if we ignore those young people who drop out or who do not enroll in postsecondary programs of any kind after high school, 42% of the remaining students enroll in two-year institutions or in programs that require even less than two years to complete. Almost two-thirds of these students attend only part time. While counselors, principals, and district-level data collectors may fool themselves into thinking that they are preparing a majority of their students for a traditional college experience, the truth is that a very large proportion of young people enter the job market (even if only part time) immediately after high school. In 1990 about one million students were enrolled in noncollegiate postsecondary institutions -- two-thirds of them in institutions (often for-profit training schools) with programs of less than two years' duration. The completion rate of those entering college programs should also make high schools look more deeply at the post-graduation experience of their students. Only about 25% of young people under age 29 have earned bachelor's degrees. So, no matter what they put on exit surveys, a very large percentage of high school students will soon be in the work force (or numbered among the unemployed). Yet high school counselors spend only about 30% of their time helping students careers (as opposed to colleges) or find jobs. In the U. S. young people entering the work force can expect to flounder throughout their twenties. According to Paul Osterman of MIT, they experience long periods of unemployment, with one-third of all high school graduates unable to find steady employment by the time they are 30. Meanwhile, public K-12 education has to some extent washed its hands of the problem. U.S. employers -- the same businesspeople who have been pressing the schools to produce young people with higher levels of skill - have done little to ease the transition and make room in their own organizations for higher levels of skill. Despite the rhetoric, even the nation's best employers choose against youth, according to Ray Marshall and Robert Glover in a paper on improving the school-to-work transition. Firms that pay the highest wages and offer the most opportunities for promotion and training do not typically hire high school graduates. AS SO MANY experts have pointed out, our major competitors in the global economy have a different system of school-to-work transition. In Germany and Japan, for example, employers work closely with the schools. …