School-to-Career
No
reform in education has accomplished as much and received as little
recognition as School-to-Career (STC). Launched by the Federal Government
in 1994, STC has enhanced the high school experience for millions
of young people and brought about about more positive business involvement
with schools and with young people than any education reform in
U.S. History.
Today,
at the start of 2002, the federal law has sunset and few states
have taken up the torch. STC partnerships and intermediary organizations
are either in their last year of federal-to-state pass through funding
or have used up their five years of funding.
Great
educators and business leaders across the country are working to
sustain this important reform. If the Federal Government and the
states don't rise now to the challenge, they will likely need to
"re-invent" STC in the coming years.
Research
Accomplishments
of STC--The Research
STC has
led to increased college-going rates, retention rates, and other
indicators of post-secondary success, according to longitudinal
research to date.
NSTWO Web Site Archive 
National
School-to-Work Office (NSTWO) Web Site Archive
Thanks
to the Wayback Machine, a service from the Internet Archive and
Alexa Internet, the outstanding web site developed by the National
School-to-Work Office (NSTWO) is now archived at http://web.archive.org/web/20011127035903/http://www.stw.ed.gov/.
The Wayback
Machine allows people to access and use archived versions of
stored websites.
Best
Intermediary Organizations
The
Boston Private Industry Council
The Boston Private Industry Council is a nonprofit
workforce intermediary that builds connections between employers,
labor, schools, training providers, and public agencies. We bring
these groups together to help employers find and train workers,
to help young people prepare for success, and to help adults locate
appropriate training and job opportunities.
The
Bay Area School-to-Career Action Network (Internet Archive)
The
Bay Area School-to-Career Action Network (1997-2004) brings together
regional and statewide business, labor, education, and local School-to-Career
partnership organizations. This powerful coalition works to provide
students with powerful learning--in and out of school--that better
prepares them for success in college, careers and life.
The
Intermediary Network
Launched in 1999, a national network of school-to-work
intermediaries serves as a voice for intermediaries throughout the
country.
CalSCAN
(Internet Archive)
CALSCAN (2001-2004) is a coalition of organizations
across California dedicated to the success of school-to-career efforts.
It is a "grassroots" organization that is the result of
team work and leveraging of resources across organizations.
Return-on-Investment
NELC ROI
study "Intuitions
Confirmed...The Bottom Line
Return on School-to-Work Investment for Students and Employers"
Autodesk
Case Study
This
case study originally appeared in a report published in 1997 by
the American Society for Training and Development, in collaboration
with the National Employer Leadership Council (NELC). The report,
entitled Learning and Earning: An Employer's Look at School-to-Work
Investments (coauthored by Lauri J. Bassi, Theresa Feeley, John
Hillmyer, and Jens Ludwig), was based on data gathered by field
researchers working with eight U.S. employers offering student internships,
apprenticeship programs, or paid part-time employment. Along with
Autodesk, Inc., these firms included BellSouth, Charles Schwab,
Crown Auto World, Eastman Kodak, McDonald's, Siemens, and Sutter
Health.
The
report was subsequently published by the NELC with the assistance
of the National Alliance for Business and the National School-to-Work
Office under the title Intuitions
Confirmed: The Bottom-Line Return on School-to-Work Investment for
Students and Employers.
For
more information on NELC, now disbanded, visit http://web.archive.org/web/20040128065551/http://nelc.org/.
Changing
the High School Experience: Internships
[Note,
2009: Great work was done on promoting student internships from
the mid-1990s through the end of the School-to-Work Act circa 2003.
Since 2000, despite the demise of some of these intermediary organizations,
these practices have been incorporated in the best new secondary
school designs.]
The
Boston Private Industry Council
The
Bay Area School-to-Career Action Network (Internet Archive)
CalSCAN
(Internet Archive)
The
Academy X Internship Experience
Watch and listen to the stories students tell about
their
experiences in the Academy X high school internship program.
See the enthusiasm and interest these young people have in learning.
Learn
how this model high-performance internship program challenges students
to meet high standards and develop personal qualities that will
help shape their future for success.
This video, made by Drake student Matt Cohen as his internship with
film producer Fred Cohen (His father), is one of the best videos
on high school internships ever made.
Mentors
International
Telementor Program
BeAMentor
Teacher
Externships
The IISME
Summer Fellowship Program places San Francisco Bay Area K-14
teachers of all subjects into high-performance work sites for the
summer. Teachers complete a project for their sponsors and are paid
$7,000 for their work. Teachers also spend time focusing on ways
to transfer their Summer Fellowship experience back to their students
and colleagues. In the past 20 years, IISME has offered 1,824 Summer
Fellowships to 1,059 individual teachers.
LIFT2 
Leadership
Initiatives for Teaching and Technology(LIFT2) is an innovative
professional development model in Eastern Massachusetts aimed at
strengthening the classroom practice and content knowledge of teachers
of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). Led by the
Metro South/West Regional Employment Board's Technology Initiative,
it is designed to improve student interest and performance in STEM
curriculum by offering teams of middle and secondary school teachers
a fifteen-month program that includes:
- 5+ week summer
work externship in a 21st Century industry setting
- a nine-credit
graduate professional development course
- academic
and school leadership team development
Articles
|
Met Student Sandy
at her Internship