We're not talking about getting into a "good" college here, or about trends in standardized test scores among K-12 students. This is about a silo effect that's developed in most of our communities: educators have their agenda, and business and industry have theirs. But rarely does anyone bother to compare the two. That's too bad, because there is plenty of evidence that such willful ignorance of the other guy's concerns is going to have calamitous effects on our economic prospects and our social welfare in the years ahead.
Lynn Olson's purpose in writing The School to Work Revolution is to point a way out of the silos. Reporting on pilot projects in the United States and more established programs in Germany and Japan, Olson shows how school-to-work initiatives are facilitating educator/employer alliances that benefit students and their schools, and businesses and their communities.
Establishing school-to-work programs takes effort -- lots of curriculum and facilities planning, some serious financial commitments, and a perseverance that may be the scarcest resource of all. But the results can be astonishing, lifting a bored student in an aimless curriculum out of a dead-end career path and motivating him or her to levels of effort and achievement that amaze parents and teachers alike. Olson's book is full of such success stories.
Despite these happy results, school administrators don't always jump at the chance to implement school-to-work programs. For one thing, many discount the idea as old-fashioned vocational education dressed up with a new label. As Olson makes clear, this is a misconception. School-to-work is a bridge between what the student learns in the classroom and what the student will need to know in the workplace. (Haven't you ever heard yourself ask, "What are they teaching these kids anyway?" Well, there you have it!).
Practically speaking, school-to-work programs are also extremely labor-intensive in terms of staffing. They require lots of contact hours between students and teachers and often between employers and teachers as well. Moreover, school-to-work is also an idiosyncratic business. In most programs students are encouraged to develop their educational plans on the basis of heartfelt career interests, instead of quickly checking off a menu item on a guidance department form -- not necessarily an attractive proposition for an already overworked high-school staff.
But I think it comes down to this: We can come up with the resources to get this done now or pay a lot more later on. With my car, I've finally learned to fork out the money before things get out of hand. In the case of workforce preparation, Olson shows, the time to pay up is now. It will make for a much smoother ride later on.