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Wills, Joan L., Ed.Employers Talk about Building a School-to-Work System:Voices from the Field.American Youth Policy Forum, Washington, DC.; Institute forEducational Leadership, Washington, DC. Center for WorkforceDevelopment.ISBN-1-887031-61-81998-00-00103p.American Youth Policy Forum, 1836 Jefferson Place, NW,Washington, DC 20036-2505 ($10).Reports Research (143)MF01/PC05 Plus Postage.Articulation (Education); Basic Skills; ComparativeAnalysis; Curriculum Development; *Education WorkRelationship; Educational Improvement; *Educational Needs;Educational Policy; Educational Practices; EducationalTrends; *Employer Attitudes; Essays; Federal Legislation;Foreign Countries; High Schools; Labor Needs; NeedsAssessment; Partnerships in Education; Public Policy;*School Business Relationship; State of the Art Reviews;Strategic Planning; *Systems Approach; Trend Analysis; TwoYear Colleges; *Vocational Education; Work ExperienceProgramsEurope; *School to Work Opportunities Act 1994; UnitedStates

This document contains background information on theschool-to-work (STW) movement and 20 essays written by employers andintermediaries involved in STW program planning and implementation. Fourpoints are highlighted: (1) it takes time to assemble an STW system; (2) thenumber of students participating in structured work-based learning remainssmall; (3) STW marketing is required; and (4) brokers betweeneducation/training and employers are needed. The following essays areincluded: "'Skilled Workers Needed" (Rene Craft); "Stepping Forward andStepping Up to New Roles" (Lee Doyle); "'Sheer Necessity'" (George H. Kaye);"School-to-Careers: A New Revolution" (Larry Stupski); "Clear Links to CoreBusiness Goals: A Necessity!" (Dave Johnson); "Sustainable Strategy for theNext Century" (Renee Lerche, Mike Schmidt); "Building New Bridges" (MichaelBzdak); "Trust Is the Elixir of Commitment" (Lisa Goldberg); "WOMP: Give ThemSomething to Talk About" (Rogercarole Rogers); "A Sustained and EvolvingCommitment" (Sharon Knotts Green); "Links in the Education Chain" (JereHess); "Merging the European and American Systems" (John P. Tobin); "GivingStudents a Solid Start" (Kevin Healey); "Building a Support Structure TakesTime" (Mary Dodd); "The Connection for All Students" (William Diehl);"Spanning a Revolution: Can It Happen?" (Robert Gordon); "Developing aSequence of Actions" (Jeffrey M. Vega); "New Service Innovations AreRequired" (Mimi Bushman); "Block by Block Builds Success" (Neil Sullivan);and "Why School Intermediaries Are Needed" (William Bloomfield) . (MN)

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BOUT THE PUBLISHERS

The American Youth Policy Forum (AYPF) is a nonprofit professional development organi-zation providing learning opportunities for policymakers working on youth issues at the local,state and national levels. The goal of our nonpartisan forum is to provide participants withinformation, insights and networks to help them in their work on education, transition to em-ployment, national and community service and related policies and practices contributing tothe development of healthy and successful young people. Since 1993, AYPF has conducted35 to 40 events each year, including lunchtime forums and out-of-town field trips with a the-matic focus. AYPF also arranges one overseas study mission each year. Additional informa-tion about AYPF and our inexpensive and practical policy reports can be found at (http://www.aypf.org).

The Center for Workforce Development (CWD) helps leaders in both the public and privatesectors to build bridges that connect individuals with learning institutions and the workplace.The focus is on the ties that link the worker, the school or training institutions and the work-place and on the ties that promote the types of learning organizations that are needed toincrease the productivity of the nation's workforce. CWD is involved in qualitative researchand evaluation studies on key policy, program and education and training service deliveryissues at the local, state and national levels, as well as the provision of technical assistanceto federal, state and local governments, businesses and nonprofit organizations. Additionalinformation on CWD can be obtained at (http://www.iel.org/programs/cwd.html).

This publication is not copyrighted and may be freely quoted without permission,provided the source is identified as:

Employers Talk About Building a School-to-Work System:Voices from the Field

Washington, DC:American Youth Policy Forum and Center for Workforce Development, 1998

ISBN: 1-887031-61-8

Additional copies may be ordered for $10.00 prepaid, including postage and handling, from:

American Youth Policy Forum1836 Jefferson Place, NW

Washington, DC 20036-2505http://www.aypf.org

The activities of the American Youth Policy Forum are made possible by the support of a consortium ofphilanthropic foundations: Pew Charitable Trusts, Charles S. Mott Foundation, W. K. Kellogg Foundation,

Ford Foundation and General Electric Fund.

Layout by Susan Kim.

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EMPLOYERS TALK ABOUT BUILDINGA SCHOOL-TO-WORK SYSTEM:

I

VOICES FROM THE FIELD

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The School-to-Work Opportunities Act (STWOA) of1994 was designed to establish a national frame-work for statewide systems of business and educa-tion partnerships to (1) help students make the vitalconnection between what they learn in school andin the workplace and (2) prepare them for careersand advanced education and training. States andlocal partnerships were provided venture capital bythe federal government to design these systemsand pull together existing models and efforts tocreate a coherent set of activities and experiences.STWOA will sunset on October 1, 2001, at whichtime federal school-to-work funds will terminate andschool-to-work systems are expected to be institution-alized (and supported) at the state and local levels.Implicit in STWOA is that other, more permanent andtargeted sources of federal funds, such as those forvocational education and employment and training,will be redirected to support these systems.

Among the most important elements of STWOA isthe provision for employers, educational institutions,and state and local governments to build moreeffective bridges between schools and the work-place. To realize the full intent and effectiveness ofschool-to-work, these linkages must strengthen andcontinue beyond the sunset provisions of the lawand rely not on federal funds, but on the long-rangecommitment of the partners. Many partnerships,however, are still fragile and, unless effort is madeto ensure that they take root, they may disintegratebefore their potential is fulfilled. Unfortunately,experience has taught us that new initiatives, nomatter how worthy, often disappear when thenecessary infrastructure has not had time to matureand when targeted federal funds disappear.

As STWOA approaches its half-way point, the timeis appropriate to:

gauge where we are in the process ofdeveloping a system and institutionalizingschool-to-work strategies and principles;take stock of what we have learned about thechallenges of taking business and educationpartnerships to scale beyond the successfulmodels and individual initiatives that we knowmake a difference in the motivation andsuccess of young people;

PREFAClisten to the lessons from business leadersand employer intermediaries in the field; andthink about "next steps" in the future ofschool-to-work as current legislation expiresin 2001.

Who better to lend their voices and perspectivesabout creating a workforce development infra-structure in our communities and states thanrepresentatives of the employer community thecompanies and intermediaries* actively involvedwith students, teachers, schools and businesses?Because we value their experiences, we askedthem and they graciously shared their thoughtsand lessons about overcoming problems, findingsolutions to developing meaningful partnershipsand creating successful connecting activities thatspan the responsibilities and interests of thenumerous partners engaged in school-to-work.

This report is divided into three parts. Part Ibegins with an "Introduction" describing the historyand context of issues leading to the creation ofSTWOA. It is followed by a "Summary of theLessons" that emerge from the "Voices From theField" and concludes with "Recommendations for2001 and Beyond." Part II and Part III are compi-lations of short essays: "Voices of Employers"and "Voices of Intermediaries." They provideindividual accounts from communities and compa-nies all across the country. Each is thoughtful andunique. None suggests creating a school-to-worksystem in the U.S. is easy or guaranteed. As theircollective stories unfold, however, we sense a"can do" attitude and support for the future ofbusiness involvement in school-to-work.

Joan WillsCenter for Workforce DevelopmentInstitute for Educational Leadership

Samuel Halperin and Glenda ParteeAmerican Youth Policy Forum

Intermediaries have been recognized as critical players in building a new system of relationships and responsibilities. Whether localchambers of commerce, private industry councils or community-based organizations, their role is to provide the necessary "glue" to holdpartnerships together, often engaging in activities such as making initial connections with businesses, matching students with employersand helping solve problems or miscommunications that may develop.

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CKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This report reflects the work of many hands.The assistance received from each of the busi-ness and intermediary organization leaders whotook time to reflect about the lessons learned isgreatly appreciated. Their knowledge is a resultof personal involvement in helping to buildopportunities for students and teachers tounderstand the changing world of work. Allgave generously of their time and this publica-tion would not exist without their contributions.

A special note of thanks goes to BarbaraKaufmann and Sharon Davis for assisting me innumerous ways throughout the process ofsoliciting authors and collecting and organizingthe materials. Their help was invaluable.

Samuel Halperin continues to be a respectedcounselor and supporter (and oft times editor) tome as well as many individuals throughout thecountry involved in trying to make the workforcepreparation puzzle more easily understood anduseful for our youth. Sam never loses sight ofwhat is most important making the world betterfor the generations to come. His co-directorGlenda Partee was a joy to work with from theconceptualization to the production phases ofthis effort. Her help in reviewing the Voices

papers sharpened the collective lessons section.Her editorial support and keen insight are muchappreciated. Other American Youth Policy Forumstaff, Vincent Spera and Joseph Sena, were espe-cially helpful in reviewing the final draft of thedocument and making helpful suggestions.

This report will not answer all of the critics' con-cerns about the involvement of employers in thetransition from school to work. It should, however,help arrest unwarranted fears that the opportuni-ties contained in the school-to-work legislation willresult in a reduction of emphasis on high academicstandards, limited opportunities for young people topursue higher education or loss of control over theschools by the proper authorities. To the contrary,the report describes many of the benefits andexpanded opportunities now available to our youngpeople. The most important lesson I gleaned fromthe stories told by each of the authors is how manypeople have become engaged in building newbridges between generations and how manypeople have given generously of their time to assiststudents in preparing for life beyond the school-house doors.

Joan L. WillsEditor

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TABLE OF CONTENTVOICES FROM THE FIEL

Executive Summary: Lessons from the Field

Introduction: Background of the School-to-Work Movement iv

Lessons Learned vii

Recommendations for 2001 and Beyond ix

VOICES OF EMPLOYERS

Advanced Micro Devices 1

"SKILLED WORKERS NEEDED"by Rene Craft

BellSouth 3STEPPING FORWARD AND STEPPING UP TO NEW ROLESby Lee Doyle

Partners Health Care Systems, Inc. 8"SHEER NECESSITY"by George H. Kaye

Charles Schwab & Company, Inc. 11

SCHOOL-TO-CAREERS: A NEW REVOLUTIONby Larry Stupski

Coors Brewing Company 15CLEAR LINKS TO CORE BUSINESS GOALS: A NECESSITY!by Dave Johnson

Ford Motor Company 17SUSTAINABLE STRATEGY FOR THE NEXT CENTURYby Renee Lerche and Mike Schmidt

Johnson & Johnson 21BUILDING NEW BRIDGESby Michael Bzdak

Exempla Health/Lutheran Medical Center 24TRUST IS THE ELIXIR OF COMMITMENTby Lisa Goldberg

McDonald's USA 29WOMP: GIVE THEM SOMETHING TO TALK ABOUTby Rogercarole Rogers

Motorola Semiconductor Products 33A SUSTAINED AND EVOLVING COMMITMENTby Sharon Knotts Green

Peavey Electronics Corporation 36LINKS IN THE EDUCATION CHAINby Jere Hess

Siemens Corporation 42MERGING THE EUROPEAN AND AMERICAN SYSTEMSby John P. Tobin

UNUM Corporation 46GIVING STUDENTS A SOLID STARTby Kevin Healey

VOICES OF INTERMEDIARIES

Capital Area Training Foundation 51BUILDING A SUPPORT STRUCTURE TAKES TIMEby Mary Dodd

The Corporation for Business, Work and Learning 54THE CONNECTION FOR ALL STUDENTSby William Diehl

Morris/Sussex/Warren School-to-Work Consortiurn 60SPANNING A REVOLUTION: CAN IT HAPPEN?by Robert Gordon

New Brunswick Tomorrow 64DEVELOPING A SEQUENCE OF ACTIONSby Jeffrey M. Vega

Oregon Business Council 68NEW SERVICE INNOVATIONS ARE REQUIREDby Mimi Bushman

Boston Private Industry Council 75BLOCK BY BLOCK BUILDS SUCCESSby Neil Sullivan

Civic Strategies/School & Main 79WHY SCHOOL INTERMEDIARIES ARE NEEDEDby William Bloomfield

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The following insights were gleaned from theessays of employers and intermediaries onthe issues of working with youth and teach-ers, building a system of school-to-work andchanging business practices.

Working with Youth

Career awareness and career explorationactivities such as employer visits toclassrooms, group visits to workplaces andshort-term job shadowing are relativelyeasy activities to implement in helpingyoung people learn about the world ofwork. These efforts represent good firststeps on the part of employers, but work-based learning opportunities of longerduration are needed. Creating theseopportunities requires additional time andchanges within the current structure ofbusinesses and schools.

Most employers are willing to participate inschool-to-work efforts that involve allyouth not just the "best in class" or asubset of the population. If clearexpectations are set, many of the most at-risk youth are capable of being productiveworkers and successful in school as aresult of their school-to-work participation.

Employers cite the following benefits tostudent involvement in school-to-work:reduced school-leaving rates, improvedgrades and higher postsecondary-goingrates. They feel that youth view them ascredible sources of advice (e.g., "Keepyour grades up." "Tardiness isn't rewardedand can get you fired.") capable ofproviding critical "signals" on getting andkeeping a good position in a firm.

Project-based learning is useful at both theworksite and in the classroom. For high

EXECUTIVE SUMMARLESSONS FROM THE FIEL

school students, the most frequentlymentioned and praised form of work-based learning involved projects requiringreal work activities that could be easilyconnected to classroom work.

Young people are the best salespeople forrecruiting students to school-to-work.According to Rogercarole Rogers ofMcDonald's USA, "We've learned thatparticipants with even one year'sexperience in the youth apprenticeshipprocess make the best sales people forrecruiting purposes. Educators have toldus that their student apprentices 'walk tall.'They seem more connected, confidentand mature" (pp. 29-32).

Working with Teachers

Externships and other staff developmentefforts designed to provide teachers andguidance personnel with critical exposureto the world of work are considered amongthe most important beginning steps indeveloping meaningful school-to-workpartnerships.

Bridging the cultural gap betweenemployers and education professionals isessential. This can be done best whenopportunities are available to brainstormsolutions to address key "sticking pointissues," such as how to create supportiveschool and work schedules, meaningfulassessments of student performance andappropriate forms of instruction orcurriculurn.

State and local school districts shouldreview policies regarding professionaldevelopment and opportunities forteachers and counselors to participate inplanning activities. Employers and

9

intermediaries need points of contact withinschool districts. These points of contactshould have authority to influence policysupporting effective externship and planningopportunities and have credibility withteachers and their unions.

Building a System

It is important to take time initially todevelop explicit goals for the school-to-workpartnership and to agree upon measures fordetermining its progress and effectiveness.Employers and intermediaries found thattime and trust were strained by not beingexplicit about evaluation criteria up front.

Intermediary organizations work to expandthe capacity and range of the partnershipand are trusted by both the schools andbusinesses. Local intermediaries oftenprovide critical administrative, planning andmarketing functions and student supportssuch as job matching and counseling. Insome cases, they even function as conduitsfor channeling student wages, thusobviating the necessity for placing studentson employer payrolls.

Using industry sectors (not occupations) toorganize employer efforts generates themost buy-in from a wider array of firms.Intermediaries that make connections withindustry-based trade associations have thecapacity to tap into natural networks ofemployers to help develop work-basedlearning opportunities, develop commoncore curriculum for specific occupationalclusters, such as for career academies, andadvocate for the overall effort.

Intermediary organizations are not naturallyoccurring. They must bd grown along withother parts of the evolving system.STWOA's emphasis on establishingeffective connecting activities has helpedlaunch some promising efforts throughoutthe system, but skilled and experiencedstaff that respect the needs of employers,

schools and students needopportunities to be trained for their roles.

Intermediaries are needed at the national,state and local level, with each playing asupporting role to the other. Nationalintermediaries, such as the NationalEmployer Leadership Council (NELC) andindustry organizations charged withdeveloping skill standards, were oftenmentioned as helpful to employers. Stateorganizations can help build networksacross the state, find the "cheerleaders"and advocates in the business communityand produce an array of "why and how"material for employers. Statewideintermediaries, such as the OregonBusiness Council, have been able toconduct cost effective "scale analyses" thatare useful for local partnerships and thestate's business community. Intermediarieshave been so successful in somecommunities that available work-basedplacements for students have gone unfilled.

A career pathway framework with attendantcareer guidance information services islacking. The career major requirementdescribed in the legislation was not aparticularly useful tool to help employers andintermediaries organize around meaningfuloccupational clusters.

State and school "report cards" and otherforms of public information and measuresof accountability should include informationabout school-to-work activities. This isnecessary if school-to-work is to be viewedand assessed as an integral part ofeducation reform and student achievement.

Changing Business Practice

Top corporate leadership support forschool-to-work is needed. This messagerang loud and clear throughout the essaysof employers in this report. Employer-ledmarketing campaigns, such as thosesponsored by the Oregon Business Council

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and NELC, are needed to obtain andsustain this level of commitment.

Specific processes and policies forinterviewing, hiring, assimilating andassessing students are needed. Largecorporations need a point person tomanage the whole process and market theinitiative inside the firm. In addition, manyfirms have to find new ways to classifystudent workers. Supervisors andmanagers functioning within departmental"head count caps" are often reluctant tohire a student who may be countedagainst "caps."

Internal rewards or recognition forcontributions made by employees tostudent or teacher programs are valuable.Several employers noted that anunanticipated side benefit of theirinvolvement in school-to-work wasimproved employee morale among frontline workers involved in these efforts.

Higher benefits are accrued to thecompany and the community whencorporate contributions become closelyaligned with school-to-work initiatives.Several corporations have made it a policyto align their social giving with theirbusiness interests. As the school-to-workeffort evolves, corporate involvement willcontinue to mix business interests withsocial responsibility.

Firms of all sizes should start with summeror short-term programs and build up tomore formal long-term training, such asyouth apprenticeships and internships.Most firms have begun their school-to-workinitiatives by starting small, either in onelocation or in one part of the plant. Movingto formal apprenticeship or long-terminternships requires firms to makeadjustments in the way they work withcurrent employees and develop the neededwork-based curriculum and rotationprocesses. Additionally, preparing mentorsto work with the students takes practice.

Top corporate leadership

support for school-to-work is

needed. This message rang

loud and clear throughout the

essays in this report.

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1 TRODUCTIONBACKGROUND OF THE SCHOOL-TO-WORK MOVEMENT

During the 1980s, evidence emerged thattraining programs and schools were unableto meet the challenges of preparing the nextgeneration for the realities of the neweconomy. An array of ad hoc national andstate commissions and tasks forces identifiedproblems and their causes and developedproposals to refocus government-supportededucation and training services. At the sametime, researchers documented the changingnature of the workplace and the shiftingdemographic make-up of the workforce of thefuture. Common themes driven by theemployer community began to emerge bythe middle of the decade:

basic education needed to include higherlevels of problem solving, critical thinkingskills, and the knowledge ofinformation-age technologies;personal attributes of new workforceentrants, such as coming to work on time,taking responsibility for yourself and notusing drugs needed to be strengthened;traditional distinctions between educationand training needed to be re-thought;"employer-trusted credentials" wereneeded to inform the hiring process in theworkplace because many educationcredentials had lost credibility;better and continuous communicationsystems between the classroom and theworkplace were needed to establish acommon understanding about the skillrequirements of the workplace, how toshare know-how between the public andprivate sectors regarding the content ofwork-related curriculum and how toimprove the recruitment of studentinterns/workers;the unmanaged and uncoordinatedproliferation of governmental programs hadresulted in a plethora of education andtraining efforts as well as multiple and often

conflicting expectations of the employercommunity; andyoung people in general had little or noconcept about career opportunities invarious industries and the approaches usedwithin schools to expose young people tosolid career information were oftencharacterized as "hit-and-miss."

At about the same time, the education andtraining policy community had determined thata substantial retooling of academic andoccupational preparation programs wasurgently needed. Research, evaluations andexperiences of practitioners began togenerate another set of common themes:

insufficient attention was being given toaccommodating various student learningstyles, and greater attention needed to beplaced on designing contextual, applied orhands-on learning opportunities;students appreciate and absorb the lessonsof becoming responsible adults if they areexposed to a work setting with a strong andcaring mentor(s);clear expectations of what and whysomething needs to be learned is animportant stimulus for all students;inadequate attention was being given tointegrating academic and vocationalcurricula that are based on high qualitystandards and workplace requirements;professional staffs within school systemslacked an understanding of the changingneeds of the workplace and how to useinformation-age technologies;incoherent programs of study wereunnecessarily costing students, parents andemployers time and money, suggesting thatbetter alignment of course sequences andthe creation of logical pathways betweenhigh schools and postsecondaryopportunities was needed;

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mechanisms for awarding student credits,particularly in the articulation betweendifferent levels of education institutions,needed to be addressed;career guidance and information systemswere inadequate, required revision andneeded to be introduced earlier in theschooling process;the proliferation of federal and state fundingstreams and programs many with similargoals yet different operating rules provedto be more of an impediment than a supportto local and state education and trainingpolicymakers attempting to redesignworkforce preparation programs in concertwith the employer community; andall students, not just a select part of thestudent population, should be exposed tothe realities of the "new" technology-drivenworkplace.

These issues and themes created a publicdiscussion that converged during thelegislative crafting of what became the School-to-Work Opportunities Act of 1994 (STWOA)and resulted in many of its foundationprinciples, i.e., the integration of academic andoccupational learning, linkages betweenschool- and work-based learning and the needfor cross-sector coordinating activities.Whereas the Clinton Administration hadoriginally proposed a "new program" piece oflegislation that centered on developing youthapprenticeship projects around the country, thepush and consensus from the education andtraining communities was for a much broadereffort not another "program" but an effort toeffect systems change.

The initiative also broke new ground in theintergovernmental grant-in-aid system by notautomatically providing a formula grant to eachstate but instead creating a planningopportunity for all states and a staged roll-outstrategy for implementation. These innovativefeatures were in addition to the overarchingchallenge embedded in the legislationincreasing the role of employers in the young

person's transition from school to theworkplace.

A particularly optimistic feature of thelegislation was the assumption that statesand localities could build upon the existingelements of a system, create a sustainableredirection of public and private resourcesand practices in the preparation of theworkforce, address the aforementionedissues, and "go to scale" with a functioningsystem of school-to-work transition in all thestates all within a five-year period.

In spite of the daunting challenge thiscreated, the opportunity was given to:

shorten the preparation time for studentsto become proficient and career-directedstudent/workers;blend and focus the academic andcontextual learning processes for careerpreparation for all students, regardless ofthe setting where knowledge and skillswere attained;establish value-added occupationalcredentials for use by both workers andemployers;create more efficient mechanisms foremployers to communicate knowledgerequirements to educators and otheremployers; andenhance the economic competitiveness ofcommunities and their public and privateenterprises.

A mammoth effort was required. State-widegoals, benchmarks of progress and process,implementation plans that crossed traditionalinstitutional and funding stream boundariesand new forms of accountability all neededto be developed. New ways of organizingworking partnerships with employer networksalso had to be established to:

promote a range of age- and stage-appropriate work-based learningopportunities;

establish new forms of student screening,recruitment and other support services foremployers of all sizes and industries;develop new and better communicationchannels among educators and industrygroups;create career-oriented programs of study,including information on all aspects of theindustry;establish employer-respected credentialsbased on performance assessments; andestablish a cost-efficient, technically validand reliable ngtional voluntary assessmentsystem.

Because these networks did not exist in mostcommunities, it was necessary to build themfrom the ground up a substantial task for anappropriation of no more thau million a year.

oo

The notion of "going to scale" represented anenormous challenge. School-to-worklegislative goals include providing all youngpeople with an array of work-relatedexperiences, including the opportunity toreceive academic credit for time spent in theworkplace. As a result, one of the mostformidable challenges was building thecapacity within the employer community to (1)provide work-based learning opportunitiesdirectly connected to the schooling process foryoung people and (2) find ways to participatewith other parts of the education and trainingcommunity.

We are now far enough into theimplementation of STWOA to see the initialdevelopment of this capacity, especially in the

formation of new organizations and alliancesamong companies, educational institutions,governmental agencies and employerorganizations. For example, the NationalEmployer Leadership Council (NELC) wasestablished by employers interested in helpingpromote and develop a better workforce.Among their activities is the EmployerParticipation Model (EPM), which helpsemployers make choices about participation inschool-to-work and addresses areas ofconcern such as: (1) working with youth andteachers, (2) assisting in the building of asystem, and (3) changing business practices.(Information is available on NELC through itsWeb page http://www.nelc.org).

We are also far enough into theimplementation effort to begin to documentthe benefits and effectiveness of thesecollaborative efforts for students who receivethe value-added education of school andemployer resources and opportunities, onemployers who participate in the developmentof their future workforce' and on communitiesthat reap the benefits of a well-prepared andengaged citizenry.

So, what do employers and intermediaries tellus about their participation and experiences inhelping to develop a school-to-work system?What have they learned? How can we usethis information to support the transition ofyoung people from school to careers andnurture the partnerships necessary to create aworkforce development system in the UnitedStates? What are the next steps thatnational, state and local policymakers need totake to support the momentum of this effort?

' Among the benefits identified by employers that offer work-based learning to young people as part of a school-to-workprogram are: thevalue of the students work, reduced training and recruitment costs, improved productivity of new workers, improved community relations,improved productivity and morale of incumbent workers and increased diversity of the workforce (Laurie J. Bassi, Theresa Feeley, JohnHillmeyer and Jens Ludwig. Learning and Earning: An Employers Look at School-to-Work Investments. American Society for Training andDevelopment, for the National Employer Leadership Council: Washington, DC, 1997.). Students also completed the routine work of morehighly paid employees and covered for full-time employees when they took leave. Reduced training and recruitment costs resulted whencompanies hired students who had completed work-based learning, thus contributing to improved productivity and decreasing turnoverrates. The ratio of cost to benefits varied among companies, with some receiving two to three dollars of value for every dollar spent on awork-based learning program.

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Four overarching lessons emerge from thevoices of employers and intermediariesrepresented in this report.

1. It takes more time than anticipated to putall the pieces of the system together.

Contributors consistently voiced the importanceof time to build trust among the partners;establish common ground, a mutual vocabularyand measurable criteria for judging success; andintegrate school-to-work activities with otheraspects of education reform. School personnelare often concerned that school-to-work is justone more responsibility advanced on them by"outsiders." They need to be able to see andfeel a sense of long-term commitment on thepart of employers and other outsiders. Theseare necessary pre-conditions for partners to buyinto the effort.

2. The number of students participating instructured work-based learning opportunitiesis still very small.

There is no commonly agreed upondefinition of "going to scale." Does it meanproviding school-to-work opportunities for allhigh school students? Junior and seniorhigh school students? All high schoolstudents, plus two-year postsecondarystudents? Or all high school students, plustwo- and four-year postsecondary students?

There is also no generally accepted way todefine a structured work-based learningopportunity. Should it only include paidwork, or should it include short- and long-term paid and unpaid experiences? Perhapsin the future, these issues will be resolved,but for now a general pattern of participation

LESSONS LEARNED

shows that most, even the largest, employerswill only engage ten or fewer students at anyone worksite in a paid experience.2

According to William Diehl of The Corporationfor Business Work and Learning (CBWL), aMassachusetts school-to-work intermediary,"The major issue in providing work-basedexperiences is that of scale: given theavailable resources and employer partners, itis possible to provide short-terrn careerexposure experiences to most students, but itis not possible to provide longer-term, richwork-based learning experiences to more than15-25 percent of students" (pp. 54-59). Theseexperiences underscore the fact that going toscale by serving all students will requiresubstantially more capacity building within theemployer community.

3. Marketing for the school-to-work effort isrequired within a company.

Teachers, parents, school board members,employees and employers need to learn whyschool-to-work is "different and better."Thoughtful marketing of school-to-work withinfirms and within the education community isessential.

According to Larry Stupski, Vice-Chair ofCharles Schwab and company, "Initially wethought school-to-careers was such a great ideathat it would sell itself. This doesn't happen untilafter managers start to work with high schoolstudents. Before, there can be misperceptionsabout the maturity and competence levels ofstudents and the time commitment necessary towork with them. We have found that STCrequires a four-part sell within a company likeSchwab, including the CEO, Human Resources

2 Evidence from a recently released national survey administered by the U.S. Bureau of the Census shows that of employers with at least 20or more employees, at least 26 percent of the sampled establishments participate in school-to-work partnerships (secondary and two-yearpostsecondary schools included) (Institute for Research on Higher Education. Bringing School-to-Work to Scale: What Employers Report.University of Pennsylvania, in concert with the U.S. Bureau of the Census: Philadelphia, PA, 1997). The most frequent school-to-workactivities included job shadowing, intemships and mentoring. The least frequent activities involved smaller numbers of young people inapprenticeship-type opportunities.

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director, manager and supervisor. The effortmust be made at all levels to insure buy-in andsustainability of the initiative" (p. 11-14).

4. Intermediary organizations that serve asbrokers between the education andtraining community and employers areneeded.

Employers do not perceive or identifyoverwhelming barriers to participation inschool-to-work. Collectively, however, theyview the lack of "connective networks,"primarily between the public and privatesectors, as impediments to the success ofschool-to-work efforts. An example of aconnective network, or intermediary, isBellSouth's use of the High Schools that Workinitiative sponsored by the Southern RegionalEducation Board (SREB). BellSouth uses thisinitiative to help translate to school personnelthe mathematic, scientific and communicationskills required in the workplace. One of thekey reasons BellSouth works with SREB isbecause it helps them reach into all ninestates the corporation covers.

Networks of national, state and localemployer-led intermediary organizations have

been created and/or expanded. Among thetypes of intermediaries that employers find ofvaluable are: (1) local organizations providingdirect service, such as in Austin, Texas,which organize industry cluster committees tohelp identify skill gaps for the occupations inthat particular industry (e.g, health,construction, information technology) andsolicit work-based learning opportunitieswithin the industry, or in Boston where thePrivate Industry Council provides careercounselors that serve as the bridge betweenthe school and the workplace; (2) state-basedintermediaries providing connections to widereducation reform efforts and research andmarketing support to employers, such as theOregon Business Council, or the CBWL inMassachusetts, which provides support tocommunities across the state to help organizelocal intermediaries; and (3) nationalintermediaries, such as NELC, which providegeneral support to employers that specificallywant to focus on school-to-work efforts, andthose with an industry-specific focus involvedin areas such as skill standards developmentand collaborative efforts among likebusinesses, such as the National Institute forMetalworking Standards.

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RECOMMENDATIONS FOR 2001 AND BEYOND

The U.S. has a checkered history of fits andstarts regarding federal legislation aimed atimproving the quality of workforcepreparation. As Americans, we are oftenimpatient and want quick, "silver bullet"solutions to fix a problem. The lessons fromthe past 100 years suggest there are no silverbullets nor does changing complex humanenterprises, such as education and traininginstitutions, come easily or evenly. Theenormity of the challenge to support a verydifferent transitional system from the schoolinto careers will become an unmet challengeif STWOA expires without considering whatneeds continuous support and what remainsto be accomplished, including incorporatingcritical ingredients from this venture capitaleffort that heretofore had been missing.

STWOA was wisely constructed as a systemschange endeavor. The lessons culled fromthe Voices From the Field recommend a setof tools or requirements that should remain inthe legislative arsenal to ensure: (1) highquality educational opportunities and (2) costeffective and efficient ways to engage all of thestakeholders in making those opportunities areality. Whether as components of stand-alonelegislation or within broader workforcedevelopment legislation, the following elementsshould be preserved:

Serving "all students." For the federalgovernment (not state and local), the ideaof allowing federal education and trainingfunds to be spent under the rubric ofuniversal coverage represents a break withthe past, but it is a central tenant thatneeds to be continued as a transitionalschool-to-work system unfolds. This doesnot mean that employers or intermediaryorganizations did not recognize that manystudents have special needs but that moreneeds to be done to connect programstargeted to at-risk youth (both in and out ofschool) with school-to-work efforts.

Expanding the networks of intermediaryorganizations. There is a need to cultivateand support such organizations. Many ofthe most respected, "honest broker"intermediary organizations were launchedwith foundation or special demonstrationfunds. To expand and improve theseorganizations will require more permanentand pervasive funding. There is also valuein having national, state and local networksof such organizations centering at leastsome of their attention on the transitionfrom school to the workplace.

Building and maintaining supportsystems for both employers andeducation and training providers will bean ongoing task. A constant need willexist to:

a. Provide staff developmentopportunities for teachers, counselorsand administrators to understand theneeds of the "new economy "workplace and how to providecontextual learning opportunities fortheir students.

b. Develop standards-driven andintegrated (academic andoccupational) instructional materialfor all levels of education institutionsand work- or community-basedtraining organizations.

c. Generate processes that assess whatindividuals are able to do and that arelinked to appropriate credentials. Thisis an area that has been slow to developand will continue to require attention.

d. Provide national or regionalclearinghouses of "best practices"that can be tapped by employers,educators and others in the design ofcunicula, assessments and evaluations.

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This list represents a starting point for thediscussions that need to take place at thenational, state and local levels and amongstakeholders involved in improving thetransition from school to work for all youngpeople. Because other federal or state fundscannot be easily directed to support theabove functions, the issues listed help gluetogether pieces of federal authority andsupport for employment preparation andeducation. They represent minimal, yet"smart glue" dollars.

It would be unwise to assume thatcorporations can or should be expected toprovide these smart glue dollars. Many of thecorporations represented in this publicationhave used their own funds (showingexceptional commitment), generally from theirfoundation arms, to aide the overall effort, butmost firms in America are not as wellendowed. To rely on the "corporate citizen"motives of the largest firms in the country tobuild an improved national transitional system

is both unfair to these employers and moreimportantly to those students andcommunities where a corporate headquarteror branch presence is non-existent.

One final concern involves how the effort atthe national level would continue. TheNational School-to-Work Office, jointlymanaged and operated by the U.S.Departments of Labor and Education, haspresented its own challenges to thoseinvolved. This is in part due to the need tofind common ground about administrative andgrant procedures. On a more substantivelevel, developing a sense of common"ownership" of the systems change agendapromised by the legislation has remainedmore illusive than desired. However, thevalue of this "neutral agent" or intermediaryhas been lauded by the states and localitiesand most certainly by the employers involvedat the national level. The need for such aneutral agent will no doubt remain.

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19

Today's Environment

The U.S. semiconductor industry isfacing a major shortfall of skilledoperators andtechnicians, which will

directly impact Advanced Micro Device's(AMD) ability to remain globally competitive.Nationally, this shortfall is projected to reach40,000 by the year 2002.

AMD is one of the largest companies in theU.S. semiconductor industry and is based inSunnyvale, California. However, the majorityof AMD's manufacturing takes place in Austin,Texas, where AMD is the fourth largest privateemployer with approximately 4,000employees.

Competition for skilled technicians hasincreased dramatically as Austin has becomea national hub of semiconductormanufacturing. It is estimated that there areas many as 1,000 current openings fortechnicians in the Austin area. These arechallenging and well-paying jobs. At the sametime, the number of students graduatingnationally with two-year technical degrees hassteadily declined, from 60,000 in 1982 to42,000 in 1994.

Current hiring trends reveal that AMD is onlyable to find 25 percent of its technicians in thelocal job market. Thus, growing a pool ofqualified talent from the local area makes senseboth for the company and the community. Oneinnovative approach was the creation of AMD'sAccelerated Careers Electronics (ACE) initiative,an award-winning high school program thatencourages students to pursue a career insemiconductor manufacturing.

"SKILLED WORKERS NEEDED

by Rene CraAdvanced Micro Device

What is ACE?

ACE is a collaborative workforce developmenteffort between the Austin Independent SchoolDistrict, the Del Valle Independent SchoolDistrict, Austin Community College, CapitalArea Training Foundation and AMD. Begun in1995, the goals of the program are to increaseawareness of and prepare students forcareers in the high-tech industry.

Equally important, the program seeks toprovide relevancy to help students make theimportant connection between what they arelearning in the classroom and what goes on inthe workplace. ACE students enrolled in theelectronics curriculum are eligible to apply forpaid summer internships at AMD.

One of the most important aspects of the ACEcurriculum is the inclusion of "connecting"activities, including tours of the AMD site,guest speakers, industry videos/publicationsand various "show and tell" activities. In 1997,AMD discovered that many of the studentsstudying the curriculum did not have a clearunderstanding of what the career entailed andits importance to the world economy.Therefore, the ACE partner organizations areenhancing the high school curriculum byadding an overview course on thesemiconductor industry.

Although many college-bound studentsparticipate in ACE, the intent of the program isto serve as a feeder into the SemiconductorManufacturing Technician Program at ACC.However, parental bias against two-yeardegrees and a general lack of understandingabout careers in the industry often keepstudents off the community college track.

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If

ft

Clearly, a concerted marketing effort isneeded to educate parents, counselors andstudents about career opportunities availablewith a local community college degree.

Recruitment

School counselors and parents play a major rolein identifying students for the program. In itsfirst year, ACE partner organizations noticed adirect correlation between the success of ACEstudents and their math abilities. Therefore,counselors began targeting students with strongmath scores for inclusion in the program.

The Benefits to AMD

AMD's management team views ACE as a long-term workforce development effort that linksdirectly into post-secondary education.Therefore, the shortest cycle time in which todevelop a potential employee beginning in highschool is four years. Because the program isonly three years old, it will take more time todetermine whether these efforts have improvedAMD's ability to hire skilled technicianstheultimate measure of success. As proof ofAMD's commitment to the program, thecompany agreed to continue hiring interns in thesummer of 1996 at a time of declining corporateprofits, hiring freezes and layoffs.

In the short-term, however, the companybenefits through its enhanced relationship withthe local school districts and a more positiveimage within the local community.

Challenges for ContinuedSuccess

While the high-tech industry has growndramatically in Austin, this problem is by nomeans a local issue. The visibility of this issuemust be raised on all fronts. Companies needto understand the business costs of not takingaction. Businesses and other organizationsshould be encouraged to open their doors tostudents willing to explore career options. One

daunting aspect of these types of programs isthe amount of human resources it takes to"shepherd" one student through the work world.

This approach is necessary to ensure anunderstanding of the task at hand and avoidbehavioral issues. AMD provides an extensive"Charm School" to communicate workplaceexpectations to new students prior to theinternship. This component was added after weexperienced a larger than anticipated amount ofbehavioral complaints from supervisors with theirinterns. Throughout three summers thecompany has hosted students we have seen ahigher than normal amount of HR issues. This isdue in large part to the young age of thestudents (17-18) and the fact that for many thisis their first exposure to the work environment.The time that each student requires in "handholding" factors into reluctance by manycompanies to offer workplace internships.

Conclusion

ACE has been successful in large part due tothe ability of AMD and other partners to workquickly to design a program addressing localworkforce development needs. It is a win-win forthe community, allowing schools, employers,students and their families to define those needsand create an action plan with little governmentinterference. While AMD applauds the federalgovernment for providing money to develop localpartnerships, the company urges that futurelegislation in this area maintain the same degreeof flexibility. Additional federal laws mandatingworkforce development would only serve to limitour ability to design, implement and adapt theselocal initiatives.

Rene Craft is a Senior Community Affairs Specialist atAdvanced Micro Devices. As the community affairsliaison, she works with its neighbors in the nonprofitcommunity, adjoining school districts, community collegesand almost any other group or person in Texas that wantsto talk to "AMD." She is responsible for day-to-dayoperations of the company's $1 million corporate givingprogram and oversees AMD's community outreachthrough volunteer projects.

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BellSouth is a telecommunicationscompany headquartered inAtlanta, Georgia, with operations in

nine southeastern states and seventeencountries on five continents. While itsemployee base has decreased its telephoneoperations in the states, its cellular andinternational operations have continued togrow rapidly. Through the work of theBellSouth Foundation and the personalleadership of Chairman John Clendenin,BellSouth has built a national reputation ofstrong support for systemic, educationalreform. With community service as one of thefive corporate values, communities andeducators across the southeast identifyBellSouth as a corporate champion foreducational issues. In recent years Bell-Southhas developed strategies which align thefocus of the community outreach efforts withthe business need for a better preparedworkforce.

BellSouth recognizes that school-to-work isgood for business "because it's good businessto have strong relations with key suppliers."We know BellSouth cannot compete in thefuture without well prepared workers and wehave no intention of opening our own schools.Our greatest "value added" is to help schoolsunderstand both today's and tomorrow'srequirements of the workplace. Because wecannot achieve our business goals for growth,continuing opportunities for employment andlifelong learning without highly skilledemployees, we must insert our standards andrequirements into the education supply chain.For us, skilled employees and competitivecosts are closely linked. Staying competitivemeans that we must rely on the publiceducation system to teach core skills.

STEPPING FORWARD ANSTEPPING UP TO NEW ROLE

by Lee DoyleBellSou h

Therefore, partnering with educators as oursupplier is fundamental to our success.

What BellSouth Did

In 1994 BellSouth made a commitment tobetter align our resources to address thecentral issue of workforce preparedness. Thiseffort reached across employee volunteerism,executive leadership and anticipation,advertising resources and some of ourphilanthropy. For a full description of the grantmaking activities of the Foundation and ourlarge investment in our nine southeasternstates, see our web site(www.bellsouthcorp.com/bsf).

There are several strategies that have helpedus tighten the focus of our communityoutreach in order to align corporateinvestments of time and dollars with the needsof our business for a more preparedworkforce. These strategies include:

Seek to match employer resources to theneeds of the education system. Do thisby thinking analytically about what uniqueresources the employer can supply to thepartnership to meet needs or demands thatare unmet on the education side of thepartnership.

Example: At BellSouth we frequently ask,"Is this request something a garden clubcould do or is it something that requireswork experience with a high-techcompany?" This question helps us makedecisions about how we can best use ourresources. On a small scale, it helps usdecide to provide judges for science fairsrather than provide chaperones for field

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trips. On a much larger scale, in 1996 weidentified the national NET DAY movementfor wiring schools for the Internet as anactivity to which we could contribute ourtechnology expertise and facilitate the useof our services. By taking an earlyleadership role in the southeast for theimplementation of NET DAY, we saw anopportunity to align our resources,technology, philanthropy and volunteerservice all for the goal of wiring 4,000schools in our region.

Enhance existing programs to meetdefined needs rather than start all overand disconnect from existing supporters.It is wiser to use TQM techniques forcontinuous improvement to redirectmobilized resources than to begin newinitiatives.

Example: At BellSouth, we invested insupport materials for job shadowingbecause many of our small volunteerprograms brought children into our worksite.We partnered with Jobs for the Future todevelop a definitive guidebook thatidentified specific responsibilities andactivities for students, teachers andemployees. We upgraded this program bymarketing it as Groundhog Day,encouraging our employees to volunteerduring the week of February 2, 1997 as agroundhog and have a student shadow.The collateral materials includedpromotional posters, groundhog pins andmedia kits that made this event morenewsworthy than earlier events. We wereable to grow participation from 60 pairs(student and employee) to more than 1,250pairs in a single year and now we areworking with communities in several statesto have metro wide programs in 1998 whichwill engage multiple employers.

Provide direction to volunteers. We knewthat our volunteer resources were bothbroad and deep. In our nine southeasternstates, we have more than 100,000

BellSouth Pioneers, members of the nation'slargest industry-related volunteerorganization, Telephone Pioneers ofAmerica. In 1996, their volunteer serviceexceeded 11 million hours.

Example: We sought ways to alignvolunteer activities with our corporateinterests. As a result, in the last three yearsan increasing percentage of Pioneer servicehours have gone toward educationprograms. We communicated to ourvolunteers our goal of "a closer link betweenlearning and earning" by investing staffresources in the development of guidelinesand collateral materials.

Sharpen your focus as a way to make thesum exceed the parts of your outreachprograms.

Example: We have focused ondemonstrating the link between learning andearning, drawing applications from theubiquitous telecommunications industry. Tocommunicate the skills needed in high-techservice industries to students and teachers,we have written publications, designedclassroom programs and internships forboth students and teachers and worked oncurriculum integration at multiple levels. Weworked with Scholastic, Inc. to publish"Hook-Up," a publication that providesmiddle school students and teachers withexplicit descriptions of the types of jobs inour industry, the skills needed for these jobsand the salary ranges for these jobs. Morethan 100,000 copies have been distributedvia 1-800-631-1586.

Work collegially to leverage innovationand change. Employers must learn fromand share with each other if our goal oflasting change is to be realized.

Example: BellSouth was a foundingmember of the National EmployerLeadership Council (NELC). Early on,employers identified a serious need for

42 3

articulating the roles they were asked tofulfill in building an effective school-to-Worksystem. The member companies createdthe Employer Participation Model (EPM) andput it on their web page (www.nelc.org) sothat all employers and educators would havethe model that identifies 56 distinct initiativesthat employers can embrace in four specificareas. In addition to defining theseactivities, NELC also developed a ResourceGuide that identifies employers' bestpractices for each of the 56 activities andhas sponsored definitive research on thereturn on investment of school-to-workinitiatives in eight companies.

Recognize and respect the educator asan equal. Employers do not have the skillsand experience necessary to educatechildren teachers do.

Example: Whenever we produce materialsfor use in the classroom, BellSouth engageseducators to participate in the design. Forbroader audiences we also seek the adviceof teachers. They were our consultants forthe Education Gateway on our Internetservice and helped design the user friendlyindex to education topics to allow betteraccess by teachers, students and parents.

What BellSouth has Learned

BellSouth has learned much from the students,teachers and employees participating in ourinitiatives across the nine southeastern states.Some of the lessons have come easily, whileothers have taken persistent analysis at boththe school site and worksite. Lessons havebeen gleaned from our BellSouth Foundationgrantees, our colleague employers and manyof our volunteers. But no matter where welearn, we have made communicating ourlessons a high priority.

Continuing this tradition, let me share ourcurrent priorities which have evolved fromlessons learned about how an employer canbest impact systemic reform.

Our current thinking identifies four priorities:

systemic efforts will be our first priority;programmatic efforts must be focusedmore tightly;the employer role needs more clarity and aninfrastructure of support; andintermediaries are required for creating andsustaining change.

Systemic efforts will be our first priority

How do we define "systemic"? As anemployer with large employee populations inmany states, we feel compelled to direct ourinvestments where we have confidence thatsignificant change can be initiated andsustained. To achieve this goal, we need toinfluence a wide range of decisions, fromcorporate board membership roles and theguidelines for the BellSouth Foundation'sgrants to our choice of programs for volunteerparticipation.

Our experiences tell us that systemic changecannot come without addressing fundamental"building blocks" such as assessments,curriculum and instructional strategies. Theseelements must be prioritized within theeducation community and supported by thepublic. This support includes the philosophicalcommitment as well as support for the fiscalresources required. Only then is it evenpossible for systemic changes to occur andthen it is still difficult at best. But it isimpossible without consensus.

Programmatic efforts must be tightlyfocused.

Large systemic change can also be fostered atthe program level and, thus, we realized thatwe must give more focus to our programs thatengage both students and teachers directly.We narrowed our scope and decided tosupport those efforts which contribute directlyto building capacity for change, both withstudents and teachers. We claimed forourselves the role of advocacy for teachers

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who want and need experiences that helpthem understand the skill requirements inindustry today. We believe that teachers arethe most effective "agents of change" and thatinvesting in their professional development isboth strategic and tactical. The impact of oneteacher experience is exponential to the valueof one student workplace experience. Thus,we encourage the funding and developmentof teacher internship programs across ourregion and among our employer colleagues.Other program investments for educatorsinclude leadership training and the redesign ofschools of teacher education.

BellSouth's support for teachers in theworkplace was raised to a new level inFebruary, 1997 when we announced a granttotaling almost $1 million. Designed to fundteacher externships for a maximum of nineschool districts, the grant requires that thedistrict initiative include a team of curriculumand teaching staff for the workplaceexperiences. The grant recognizes thatcurriculum change is the driver of educationreform and that teachers must be offered staffdevelopment opportunities in order to bringdirect workplace experience to theirinstruction in the classrooms. Most granteesused the funds to support summer internshipsacross a wide range of models.

For students, we support programs thatstrengthen the link between earning andlearning. With our focus on middle schools,we believe that job shadowing and mentoringare two effective programmatic approaches.Thus, we are expanding our Groundhog Dayshadowing program to engage many moreemployees and more sites; in addition, we aresupporting several communities who want tomake the program available in all middleschools.

For seven years we have supported a varietyof mentoring programs. In the moresophisticated ones, we developed materials torecruit and train employees to serve as rolemodels, particularly for inner-city youth. As

the programs have matured, we focused ondeveloping a corporate model as opposed toa school- or community-based mentoringprogram because this enabled us to leverageour lessons learned and to share the bestpractices. This corporate model offersaccess to:

a wealth of lessons learned acrossmany communities;large numbers of employees and mentorshoused in just a few locations;employees in their own environment, whichincreases participation;corporate communication networks forcontacting volunteers; andcorporate resources such as vans, graphicand printing services and training talent.

This year we have entered into an agreementwith national Big Brothers/Big Sisters todevelop a plan for taking over theadministration of this program.

The employer role needs more clarity andan infrastructure of support

EPM, published by NELC, defines 56 specificinitiatives for employers to participate inbusiness-education activities. However, evenin these 56 areas the role and expectations ofemployers are not always sufficiently detailedto facilitate good decisions by the willingemployer.

If significantly larger numbers of employersare going to be engaged in school-to-work,employers need technical assistancedesigned by and delivered by otheremployers. This detail and clarity arefrequently the value added by intermediariesor third parties working with multipleemployers.

Intermediaries are required for creatingand sustaining change

BellSouth recognizes and supports the needfor intermediaries who can provide the

6 2 5

interface needed between employers andeducational institutions who can bring aboutlasting change. We believe thatintermediaries are necessary to help facilitateopening the workplace to larger numbers ofstudents and teachers.

Intermediaries build capacity in the workplaceby defining roles, resource requirements andprocesses. Their talent and contributions aretransferable across communities, althoughtheir focus and leadership must be verycustomized to the local economy.

Many large employers like BellSouth feel theycannot take the lead in the creation ofintermediaries in each community or regionwhere they have employees. Thus, inincreasing numbers, large employers areturning to regional/national alliances to bestleverage their resources and lessons learned.

At BellSouth, the organizations we see asintermediaries range from educational groupssuch as the Southern Regional EducationBoard and the American Association ofCommunity Colleges, to the employerorganization NELC, to the national humanservices delivery agency, Big Brothers, BigSisters. We are looking for similar outcomesfrom each of these relationships: to leveragebest practices and minimize development andoverhead expenses.

Conclusion

We know that partnering takes time and wemust invest more time with our educationpartners at the planning table when we areplanning for new worksites, new technology,and new work processes. Educators cannotmeet our needs if they do not know them. Wehave been humbled at BellSouth and admitthat we are not as good as we need to be atsharing information with the educationcommunity in a way which enables them totranslate our changing needs into curriculumand instruction. We have learned much about

how to best use our workplaces as a learninglab for teachers first, rather than students first,because teachers are universally welcomed inthe workplace. Teachers are viewed as "verylow maintenance" colleagues who workindependently and can quickly identify aplethora of opportunities to integrate theirwork-based experiences into their classroomcurriculum.

Ourselves

BellSouth will always engage in a widespectrum of activities because we have a largeemployee body, both active and retired, whoare committed to serving the communities inwhich they live and work. In order to maximizeour contribution, we must work to align ourphilanthropy, leadership and volunteerism.We will continue to support our volunteers withstrong collateral materials that equip them tofoster higher academic achievement whereverthey go. These materials need to "link learningto earning" in concrete ways, by identifying theskills and knowledge required in the world ofwork.

We are hopeful that focusing our resources willhelp BellSouth contribute to the systemicreform of our national education system and,in turn, to developing a national workforcedevelopment system. We make theseinvestments because it is important to ourbusiness that the future pool of candidates forour jobs be more competitive on a globalstandard.

Lee Doyle is the Director of Corporate Affairs forBellSouth. In her current position, Ms. Doyle hasdeveloped the school-to-work strategies which havehelped BellSouth better align their broad contributions tomeet their business needs. In addition, she serves onthe Advisory Council to the National School-to-WorkOffice, the Managing Committee of NELC and the Boardof Directors of the American Society for Training andDevelopment.

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SHEER NECESSITY"

by George H. Kayeartners Health Care Systems Inc.

0 ur nation's competitive success in the21st century will be determinedby the creative and analytical

capabilities of its workforce. Substitutingbrawn for brains will count far less than it hasin the past. Those parts of the world wherethe citizenry can think for itself and makerational decisions about how various tasks arecompleted will be very highly valued bybusiness.

The service industry will dominate the futureeconomic landscape in much the same waymanufacturing firms did during the first half ofthis century. The new order will requireemployees who possess problem solvingabilities to work in fields such as accounting,finance, marketing, computer software,environmental consulting and health care.

What makes this challenge so great is that therequirements for future success are changingjust as we are confronting the fact that oureducational system is not meeting its mostfundamental goals, such as ensuring that highschool graduates can read and write.

In the fall of 1991, 88 Boston high schoolstudents embarked on a new kind ofeducational journey, a journey called ProjectPro Tech, which has now touched the lives ofmore than 800 students in the Boston PublicSchool System. Health care has been thepioneering industry in developing this newlycreated youth apprenticeship program forallied health careers.

"Sheer necessity" drove us to this point. In thelate 1980s the Boston health care communitywas facing a severe shortage of trainedtechnical help. We needed radiographers,

medical technicians and medical secretaries.The public schools were not producinggraduates that were interested or could betrained in technical fields. They did not havematurity, the right attitude, or the skills.Mentorships, internships, and job shadowing ,

opportunities existed, but were superficial. Wedid not need 500 programs we neededfundamental change.

Under the joint leadership of EmmanuelBerger, Vice President for Human Resourcesat New England Medical Center and myself, acoalition of six hospitals (Boston City Hospital,New England Baptist Hospital, New EnglandDeaconness Hospital, St. Elizabeth's Hospital,Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) andthe Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH))designed and implemented what is now a verysuccessful school-to-career program.

When Partners Health Care System, Inc. wasestablished in 1994 to oversee the affiliation ofthe Brigham and Women's Hospital and theMassachusetts General Hospital and to createan integrated health care delivery system, thePro Tech Program became a Partner initiativeand a proving ground where interestedstudents could successfully pursue health carecareers. Between the two stellar institutions ofBWH and the MGH, and another hospitalwithin the system, Spaulding RehabilitationCenter, we presently have 94 Pro TechStudents.

The Challengesand Promising Practices

Unlike traditional vocational educationprograms that offer last-ditch alternatives forthe "non-college-bound," Pro Tech's "two-plus"

8

design (spanning two years of high school andtwo years of postsecondary education) opensup a range of opportunities. From theseopportunities and our experiences, we havelearned the following lessons:

The demands of the worksite and ofpresent day business world technologychallenge the students and they meetthat challenge.

First, they achieve and seek higher levelcourses in schools. Second, they becomevalued well-trained employees and third,they are motivated to aspire to a higher levelof employment/education. We recruit innercity students with "C" averages, not thesuperstars, but they become superstars intheir own right. In 1995, all 85 of our school-to-career high school graduates went tocollege. The old paradigm that these kidscannot do it is wrong. With the rightstimulation and motivation, they can and will.

Each student needs to be matched with amentor/supervisor.

This business world of ours is so foreign tothe young adults who enter it that they needexpert and caring guides. Many of ourstudents come from families that cannotoffer the support needed to help thesestudents progress to higher levels ofeducation. This is where the mentor and/orsupervisor becomes so vital.

In the beginning, we made the mistake ofnot including the educators and teachers inthe design phase of the process. Welearned the hard way that teachers areintegral to our developing the correctcurricula. We also learned that we posed ahuge threat to them.

Schools are extremely hierarchical andtradition bound.

We, the business community, an unknownquantity, came through the door demanding

reform, picking students and wanting thecurriculum to be "work-based." As businesspeople who are always conscious of theeffect of change on our workforce, we havea tendency, when we step outside of ourdoors, to fail to see the stress we are placingon another system and the people in it.

Students need to be paid as workers.

Although volunteerism is alive and well inAmerica, school/work-based education doesnot fall into the volunteer category. If youare trying to instill good work values in yourstudents and if you want to treat them asemployees, then it follows suit that you needto pay them for their work. Our expectationswere met. We found by sometime duringtheir senior year, if not earlier, thesestudents became good workers coming inon time, dressing properly, having thecorrect attitude and being productive.

The major challenge facing school-to-career programs is finding moreemployers to participate.

ProTech now includes the health care,financial services, utilities andcommunication, environmental services andbusiness services industries. Collectively,we have only reached 800 of the 6,000 highschool students in the Boston PublicSchools. If only 30 percent of thesestudents are college-bound, then there arestill 70 percent in the available pool. If only25 percent of this number were to qualify fora ProTech, there would still be a minimum of1,000 students a year who could profit fromthis opportunity. In fact, headmasters andprincipals report that they have qualifiedstudents who want to get into ProTech, butthere are not enough slots.

Health care is now in a phase where it mustsuccessfully compete for customers(patients) like other business entities in thecity of Boston. Within this industry, wecompete against each other for business

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advantages and to obtain employees. Yet,one of the hallmarks of the Pro Techprogram is that health care institutionscooperate, and do not compete, when itcomes to developing a training programto enhance the education of the youngadults who will be our future workforce.

We have forged a strong coalition between theschools, the teachers and the employers, allheld together by the Boston Private IndustryCouncil and "sheer necessity." As we enter yet

another period of severe workforce shortages,we are confident that school-to-careerprograms can continue to provide opportunityand hope to additional generations ofstudents.

George H. Kaye, Human Resource Executive withPartners Health Care Systems Inc., is one of thefounders and designers of Project ProTech. Mr. Kayeis the former Chairman of the Board of Directors of theHealth Employer School-to-Work Network. TheNetwork is a national organization that encourages andassists health care employers in implementing school-to-work.

2P10

Charles Schwab is an internationalfinancial services corporationmanaging investments for more than

four million individuals and institutions througha network of 235 branch offices, regionalphone service centers, automated telephonesystems and on-line services. In 1975, whenCharles Schwab & Co., Inc. opened its doorsfor business, brokerage services wereprovided one way through commissionedbrokers. Our philosophy of helping investorshelp themselves revolutionized the industry.We saw a business opportunity in 1975 thatwould change the way our industry didbusiness. Now, more than 20 years later, wesee another such opportunity in the areaof workforce development.

The recruiters in our Human ResourcesDepartment tell me that our ratio ofapplicants to hires is too high and the qualityof the applicant pool is too low. Recruitingand training costs are high. Turnover of ourentry-level workers is up. We see school-to-careers, (STC) as a means to address theseissues, and through our STC initiative wehave gained visibility and credibility in thecommunity.

We recognize that the same principles thatapply to our company have implications forthe broader community as well. If connectingthe classroom to the workplace can helpdiminish the skills gap between whatemployers require to remain competitive andthe jobs for which graduating students areadequately prepared, this is an effort that willserve our entire nation.

SCHOOL TO CAREERA NEW REVOLUTIO

by Larry StupskiCharles Schwab & Company, Inc.

STC at Schwab

Schwab is involved with STC both at nationaland local levels.

In 1993, before the passage of the School-to-Work Opportunities Act, Schwab initiated asystem of workforce development in which webrought high school juniors and seniors intoour corporate headquarters for part-time workand paid summer internships. We havefound that students do productive work for us,allowing us to enhance productivity in theshort run while building a workforce equippedwith the skills that we need to meet our plansfor the future.

Examples of productive work done by highschool students include managing both thesubpoena process in our legal departmentand the electronic peer review system in ourtechnology department. Students are alsohelping to run the summer internshipprogram.

We are convinced that STC is a goodbusiness decision and have been growing ourcompany initiative by expanding the paidinternships to our call centers nationwide.We encourage managers to consider ways tomake use of part-time student hires whileproviding students with opportunities to learnnew skills. Employees throughout ourcompany are eligible to sign up as speakersat schools or as workplace mentors. We alsofeel it is important to support teachers indeveloping SCANS-based curricula as well ashosting teacher training externships and jobshadowing experiences.

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We limit our high school program to publichigh schools which are focused on SCANScompetencies, open to curriculum change andflexible in working as partners. By defining theterms by which high schools can participate inSchwab's STC initiative, we hope to leveragechange in the high schools.

The San Francisco STC Partnership

We are also engaged in the development ofSTC on a local community level. In mycapacity as the 1997 Chairman of SanFrancisco Chamber of Commerce, I helped toinitiate the city's STC Partnership. Withleadership from the Chamber, San FranciscoUnified School District and City College, thePartnership is working on a plan to bring thecommunity stakeholders together to create asustainable STC system in San Francisco.This has been an arduous, but productiveeffort, and we continue to learn as thepartnership develops.

The National Employer Leadership Council

Perhaps one of our best links to the nationalscene is our company's involvement with theNational Employer Leadership Council(NELC). Through NELC, we participated inthe development of the widely used employerparticipation model as well as "employers-only"conferences on STC.

What is Working Well

Through our participation in STC we havelearned both about what works well and whatcan be challenging in this arena:

Paid internships

In addition to the skills and experiences thatstudents and our employees develop, paidinternships help to extend awareness of theSTC effort throughout the community.Students have become STC ambassadors

on their high school campuses, sharing theirexperiences with other students andteachers, as well as with their parents. Astudent can be a real bridge builder for theeffort.

The success stories that arise from theinternships are great internal and externalmarketing tools. We recently had a highschool summer intern who was sosuccessful that she continued to work withus part-time through the school year. Whenshe was accepted to college on the eastcoast, she applied for and got a part-timeposition as a customer servicerepresentative at a local retail branch, andwill continue to work for us throughout hercollege years.

Utilizing a community-based organization toact as the employer of record for studentsunder 18 years of age has been a real helpto us. This reduces our workerscompensation and insurance liabilities andmakes it easier for us to participate in STC.

Teachers in the Workplace

We have found that bringing teachers intothe workplace is invaluable to the effort.Visits, in addition to a simple tour of variouswork areas, often include opportunities to"shadow" our employees as they do theirjobs. I have seen many teachers have"oho" experiences after spending time in ourvarious facilities around the country fromrealizing the importance of verbalcommunication and business English to thevalue of computer skills at work. Teachershave been surprised at the importance of anemployee's contributions during businessmeetings. After a recent visit, one teachersaid that she was going to refocus hercurriculum to develop her students' ability tothink on their feet, verbalize their thoughtsand present them loudly and clearly to

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others. Both teachers and students alikeare surprised by the widespread use oftechnology in the workplace, and teachershave revised curriculum as a result.

Employees in the Classroom

Sending employees into the classroom hasbenefits for both our employees andstudents. It not only increases employeemotivation around STC but also helpsdevelop their public speaking and coachingskills. For the students, these class visitsraise awareness around high skill, highwage careers one of the first steps inengaging students in school. Academicsbecome more relevant to the real world andstudents' personal goals are often raised toinclude postsecondary education and acareer. These lessons are not lost onteachers and often a classroom visit breaksdown the communication barriers betweenbusiness and educators.

Lessons We Have LearnedAlong the Way

We are still learning from our experiences.Following are some of the challenges wecontinue to face in moving STC forward in thecompany and community:

STC does not sell itself.

Initially we thought STC was such a greatidea that it would "sell itself." This,however, is not true until after managersstart to work with high school students.Before that, there can be misperceptionsabout the maturity and competence levelsof a high school students and the timecommitment necessary. We have foundthat STC requires a four-part sell within acompany like Schwab: to the (1) CEO, (2)HR director, (3) manager and (4)supervisor. The "selling" effort must bemade at all levels to insure buy-in andsustainability of the initiative.

Staffing (personnel) should be theorganizational home for STC.

STC is a strategic staffing initiative, and thisshould be reflected in the budgeting andpositioning of it within the company.Housing the initiative elsewhere creates theperception that it is an add-on, not aninitiative of high commitment. When weplaced the effort elsewhere, we found thatthe company did not perceive the studentsto be as legitimate a staffing resource aswe would have liked.

A fast-paced corporate culture does notalways support STC.

Because of our rapid growth, both recruitersand hiring managers seek the "alreadyready" employee versus the "almost readyor in process" employee. The corporatestructure is not yet strategically orientedinto the longer term perspective that STCinitiatives require to be successful. Also, asa result of growth and internal promotions, itis difficult to create a stable environment forstudents. A manager may not stay in his orher department or position long enough tomentor student workers. This can befurther complicated by turnover at schools.

We can't get them here!

Some students cannot get to the worksite.A major hurdle to success in STC is thelack of adequate public transportation inmany of our locations. Help is needed fromseveral public agencies to improvetransportation for the students.

School hours and work hoursit can betough to schedule students.

Our busiest hours are when the financialmarkets are open, yet the schools saystudents are available after school only.This is a disconnect that we have run intoacross the country.

When creating partnerships, do notforget postsecondary institutions andsmall businesses.

Postsecondary institutions play a criticalrole in STC because STC is for all students

college- and non-college-bound.Postsecondary institutions can play animportant role in preparing students for highskill, high wage careers. When they are notat the table, the nuts and bolts of the effort(articulation agreements, collegepreparatory activities) and the perception ofSTC suffer. Small businesses, while oftennot having the resources to implement full-scale programs, are a great resource foropportunities at the workplace andparticipation in the classroom. Smallbusinesses represent the largest categoryof businesses in the nation; theirparticipation is important.

Getting STC off the ground requires realdedication, constant attention and effort.

There is still plenty of work to be done toimprove the effort both at Schwab and inthe community at large. The solutions tothe workforce development challenges oftoday cannot be addressed by business,education or government alone. Thesolutions will be found in efforts that requiretrue partnerships. When a partnershipmakes an investment in a forward-lookinginitiative like STC, a hurdle is crossed. Theadditional costs of serving greater numbersof youth are marginal.

It is that very first step in building partnershipsthat will have a long-term payoff for us all.

Larry Stupski is Vice Chairman of the Charles SchwabCorporation. On behalf of Charles Schwab, Inc., Mr.Stupski's civic focus includes K-12 education reform,school-to-careers, technology in schools and economicand workforce development for the San Francisco BayArea and nationally.

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Coors has partnered with theeducation community innumerous ways. Since 1985,

Coors has had an Engineering internprogram, recruiting seniors fromuniversities throughout the West. Wehave hired more than 20 degreedengineers in five different disciplines fromthis pool. In 1993, we hired an intern froma local community college, and we arecurrently working with Golden High Schoolto provide job shadowing for four studentsin the upcoming school year. We havealso established an intern program withDenver Public High Schools servingminority students. Currently, eightstudents are enrolled in this program.

In 1993, Coors Brewing Company alsooperated an internal apprenticeshipprogram that was less effective thanintended. At that time, we wereanticipating attrition of more than 60percent within our maintenance work forceover the next six years. As theapprenticeship program was very difficultto administer, we partnered with educationto develop a curriculum and administer amaintenance training program. Wediscovered that Coors must focus on ourcore business of making quality beer, notthe business of educating employees.

In fecruiting new maintenance trainees, itis mandatory that they have a recent two-year associate degree from institutionsthat have curricula that meet our needs.New trainees complete a two-year on-the-job training program, then become full-time journeymen. Through this program,

CLEAR LINKS TO COREBUSINESS GOALS: A NECESSITY!

by Dave JohnsCoors Brewing Compa

we have assisted in the development oftwo Associate Degree programsIndustrial Maintenance and IndustrialElectronics using curriculum from twolocal community colleges.

Melding Tech PrepWith School-to-Work

A big success story occurred wheninstructors from Front Range CommunityCollege and Delta High Schoolparticipated in Coors' on-site technicaltraining classes at no cost to theireducational institutions. About $57,000 instate-of-the-art electronic equipment wasdonated to Delta High School following thetraining of two of their instructors. DeltaHigh School has since applied for a TechPrep grant and is working on articulationwith the Unified Technical EducationCenter (UTEC) in Grand Junction,Colorado. Both institutions are located onthe western slope of Colorado, with Coorslocated in the Denver metropolitan area.This program will be expanded to theAdvanced Higher Education Center atLowry in Denver (Lowry was formerly anAir Force base). The ColoradoCommunity College System acquired partof this facility and now has multiplecommunity colleges and universitiesproviding classes. Also located at the siteis another center we are consideringpartnering with for training, the RockyMountain Manufacturing Center.

Coors Ceramic Company has aManufacturing Academy which partnerswith two local schools, Golden and Arvada

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West High Schools, for the purpose ofcurriculum enhancement. Employeesinitially started worked with environmentaltechnology teachers, but have expanded toworking with chemistry, accounting,drafting and English teachers. In thedrafting class, a business simulation istaking place, and the classroom functionsthe same as the drafting department atCoors Ceramics.

Representatives of secondary andpostsecondary schools from Colorado,Wyoming and Oklahoma have visited Coors.We have hired employees from FrancisTuttle Vocational School in Oklahoma City,Rankin Tech in St. Louis and localcommunity and technical colleges.Additionally, Coors technicians assisted indeveloping curriculum for the TelectronicAssociate Degree program at Front RangeCommunity College in Denver.

My personal involvement began in 1986 afterI had acquired a new technical group, all withassociate's degrees. Wanting to learn moreabout training, I volunteered to serve onColorado's State Vocational-TechnicalAdvisory Committee, and helped develop thePrinciples of Technology classes, which wasthe first time such courses were introducedto Colorado's education community. Thatparticular committee evolved into the StateTech Prep Advisory Committee in 1991, andin 1995 it became the Colorado Tech Prep/School-to-Career Advisory Committee, onwhich I served as chairperson.

The committee has assisted in a systemicchange movement in many educationalcommunities throughout the state. It meetsstatewide, and members have theopportunity to speak about Tech Prep andschool-to-career with educators, students,parents, community, business leaders andschool board members. Committeemembers delivered more than 50 suchpresentations in 1996. Members also

participate in selecting Tech Prep granteesand are involved in the technical assistanceand review process. This process involvesbusiness and educators coming together toachieve common goals, improvecommunication and expand the concepts ofTech Prep in creating school-to-careersystems.

Mentoring is extremely important if studentsand instructors are to understand workethics in business and industry. Workingwith school personnel has madeadministrators and teachers aware of thecurrent work environment, technology andethics which need to be incorporated into theclassroom curriculum. I would also like tosee business and industry partner witheducators to develop re-credentialing/recertification programs.

As partnerships between business personsand educators grow, more companypersonnel learn about school-to-career andget involved. A huge obstacle is dedicatingthe time to School-to-Career, since as anemployee of Coors Brewing Company, myfocus is on our core business of makingquality beer. Thus, investing in people andthe future work force has to be tied to corebusiness goals. Convincing others at alllevels to be involved as partners is thechallenge. One excellent strategy is to havemore employers use the EmployerParticipation Model of the National EmployerLeadership Council to build support.

Dave Johnson is Manager of Core TechnicalServices and Instrumentation for Coors BrewingCompany. Mr. Johnson has served on numerouscommittees and boards whose mission is toimprove the current workforce and help preparestudents to become our future workforce. Hecurrently serves on an advisory board to develop aContent Standards Program for the JeffersonCounty (Colorado) school district, the largest K-12school district in the state with an enrollment of85,000 students. Content Standards-basedlearning is demonstrated learning which drivesstudent and teacher accountability.

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The School-to-Work Opportunities Act issuffering a mid-life crisis. Buoyed bythe tremendous bipartisan political

support it received upon passage in 1994 andthe numerous new local partnerships thathave sprung up all across the country, school-to-work supporters can look back at the pastfew years of activity with justifiable pride.However, as we look forward to the final yearsof the Act, a number of difficult questionsemerge to which there are no easy answers.The most pressing of these questions is: Howcan we ensure that, after the Act sunsets, wehave sustainable school-to-work systems inplace in all 50 states?

In this paper, we outline a series of steps thatcan and should be taken to address thequestion of sustainability. To provide somecontext for our views on this issue, we beginwith background information on Ford MotorCompany's approach to school-to-work andthe way this approach has evolved over thecompany's history.

Background: Ford MotorCompany and School-to-Work

At Ford, we view our involvement in school-to-work and other education reform efforts in twoways. First and foremost, it is an issue ofgood corporate citizenship. As a member ofthe community, we have an obligation to doour part to work to address critical issuesfacing the community, and few issues are asimportant as the quality of educationalopportunities we provide for our children. AtFord, this commitment to education is not justa slogan it is a part of our history.Throughout his lifetime, Henry Ford had a

SUSTAINABLE STRATEGY FOTHE NEXT CENTUR

by Renee Lerche and Mike SchmFord Motor Compa

deep interest in education, founding a numberof K-12 schools. These schools linked theacademic knowledge that a student learned inthe classroom with what he or she might laterdo in the workplace. Ford Motor Companycontinues to support this notion today with itscommitment to school-to-work and educationreform.

This view of school-to-work as a corporatecitizenship issue is intimately linked to a viewof school-to-work as a key workforcedevelopment strategy for the company. Intoday's intensely competitive global economy,a highly skilled workforce is critical to oursurvival and continued success. In aknowledge economy, where capital is mobileand advances in technology are quicklyreplicated, human capital is the key to acompany's competitive advantage. Theeducation system is our supplier in this area,and we have a vested interest in its health andwell being. Investing in systemic reformefforts like school-to-work is therefore not aperipheral issue, but a critical activity that liesat the core of our mission and strategy.Ford's investment in school-to-work andeducation reform is an evolutionary process ofbuilding partnerships with public educationthat continue to evolve and adapt to meet theneeds of a changing world.

Early in our company's history, Henry Fordfounded a series of trade academies that gavestudents a solid grounding in academic andworkplace skills. These academies, the last ofwhich closed its doors in the late 1960's, werevocational in nature and created a uniquemodel of linking work-based skills with astrong grounding in traditional academic

idtny

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subjects. The company also developed astrong philanthropic focus on educational giving,which has evolved over the years into a multi-million dollar endeavor.

In the late 1980s, as the school-to-workmovement began to take off, Ford moved to adeeper involvement in curriculum developmentand deacher professional development bycreating the Ford Academy of ManufacturingArts and Sciences (FAMS). FAMS is arigorous academic and work-based highschool program that introduces students to theconcepts and skills that they will need tounderstand and succeed in the complex andever-changing manufacturing world. Designedas a career academy model, FAMS coursesprovide an opportunity to learn math, science,technology and communications skills in real-life contexts. FAMS is currently in 57 highschools in 15 states and Canada.

During this same period, Ford also becameactive in building national educationalpartnerships. After the passage of the School-to-Work Opportunities Act in 1994, Ford joinedwith 17 other corporations to form the firstnational corporate partnership organizationdevoted solely to promoting work-basedlearning opportunities for all studentstheNational Employer Leadership Council(NELC). Alex Trotman, Ford Chairman andCEO, currently serves as the chair of thisorganization, which has grown to include morethan 100 corporate partners. Member CEO'shave pledged to sustain their own work-basedlearning programs and promote school-to-workissues within their own companies, thebusiness world and the general public. Theyalso have agreed to join forces to create anddisseminate useful tools that enable themember companies to share best practicesand encourage participation from additionalemployers around the country.

Finally, in 1996 Ford moved to the next level ofinvolvement in school-to-work and educationreform with the creation of the Henry FordAcademy of Manufacturing Arts and Sciences,

a publicly-chartered high school. TheAcademy is the nation's first partnership effortinvolving a major company, a nationally knowncultural organization, public K-12 educationand higher education. Chartered by theWayne County (MI) Regional EducationalService Agency and sponsored by Ford MotorCompany, the Henry Ford Museum andGreenfield Village, the Academy provides aunique opportunity for public education, theprivate sector, the non-profit community andhigher education to work together in a truepartnership to create new models of teachingand learning from the ground up. It is ourhope that the Academy will serve as a nationalmodel for education reform, and a resource foreducators across the country. The Academywill use a variety of methods--includingdistance learning and the Internet,conferences and symposia and site visits--toshare its experiences and new curriculummodels freely with educators from around thecountry and all over the world.

Systems Building andSustainability

As we move into the final phase of fundingunder the School-to-Work-Opportunities Act,there is a central question that is critical to itsultimate success or failure: How can weensure that the Act is not simply creating aweb of individual programs but building strongschool-to-work systems that will survive longafter the Act sunsets in 2001? While there areno easy answers to this question, severalsteps can be taken at the local, state andnational levels that would move in the rightdirection.

Local Action

On the local level, successful school-to-workgrant proposals should be required to meet thefollowing five criteria:

1. include the active participation of a widearray of partners, including schools,

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employers, community-based organizationsand higher education;

2.employers involved have a central role in theprogram that is well defined and hasmeasurable outcomes;

3.the program explicitly links and integratescore academic skills with the skills neededfor success in the workplace ("employabilityskills");

4.the partners in the proposal define how theprogram will be sustained after the school-to-work funding is gone; and

5.the proposal describes how lessons learnedwill be shared and successful models foraction can be transferred to othercommunities in the area (replicability).

By requiring school-to-work grantees to meetthese explicit criteria, communities can beginto force local programs to think beyond thelimited availability of federal school-to-workfunding and build sustainable workforcedevelopment activities that allow state andlocal officials to create viable systems ratherthan individual islands of excellence.

State and Regional Efforts

More attention needs to be paid to creatingclearinghouse dissemination activities at thestate, regional and national level. When theSchool-to-Work Act was first taking shape in1993, there was a strong movement to includefunding for a central technical assistancefunction that would have identified the mostpromising school-to-work models and workedto disseminate best practices. Unfortunately,this technical assistance piece was droppedfrom the final version of the Act. While the Acthas spurred the creation of a number ofinnovative school-to-work programs across thecountry, there is not nearly enough sharing ofinformation between local, state and regionalprogram delivery areas.

The National School-to-Work Learning andInformation Center an organization createdto provide information, technical assistanceand training to school-to-work partnerships

across the country is a step in the rightdirection, but much more must be done in thisarea. Local school-to-work partnerships oftenspend precious dollars and energy learningdifficult lessons that have already beenlearned by neighboring towns and states.Programs frequently created from the ground-up when similar models that are already upand running in other communities could havebeen easily imported and modified to suit localneeds. It is true that there are no "one-size-fits-all" programs that can meet everyparticular local need, but there are alwaysmodels and lessons that can make thecreation of any local school-to-work programsa much easier and often less expensiveendeavor. Information technology gives usthe ability to share vast amounts ofinformation about best practices, but todaythere are literally hundreds of websitesdescribing various school-to-work and othereducation reform efforts. Without centralizedstate-wide, regional and national mechanismsfor sifting through the thousands of school-to-work programs that currently exist andproviding relevant information in a format thatis meaningful and easy to access, data onbest practices will continue to be inaccessibleto most local programs and providers.

National Efforts

At the national level, the creation of truenational employability standards must belinked to and integrated with the academicstandards movement. Unfortunately, thestandards process has been politicized tosuch an extent that these two efforts havebeen separated, and the employability side ofthe standards movement has garnered littleattention. The core academic skills andknowledge that a student needs to succeed inthe classroom must be linked to the core skillsand knowledge needed for success in theworld of work. To separate them is illogicaland ultimately harmful to the overall successof any school reform effort. One of thegreatest challenges facing our schools todayis that students do not see any relevance in

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what they learn in the classroom. By separatingacademic standards from employment standards,that gap is only widened.

Finally, the current push toward block grantingworkforce development funding to the statesmust include all federal programs that affectyoung people, including second chance andvocational education programs. Any attempt tointegrate these programs into a new system offunding must provide a common rationale, orvision, for their integration. School-to-work canand should provide such a vision. It focuseson meeting the needs of all young people byproviding them with the academic andemployability skills that they will need tobecome productive, contributing citizens.Whether a young person is in school or out,college-bound or headed directly from schoolto the workplace, he or she can benefit fromexposure to the kinds of skills demanded intoday's highly competitive global economy.

Looking Ahead

Despite these concerns, there are manyreasons to celebrate the progress that theSchool-to-Work Opportunities Act has madeand to be optimistic about its future. The Actshifted the existing school-to-work movementinto the national spotlight, generating newlevels of interest and activity across the

country. Thousands of new linkages betweenthe classroom and the workplace have beencreated, and a framework has been put intoplace that will allow states to begin to bring asystemic focus to their school-to-work efforts.Perhaps most importantly, the Act hasprovided a new structure that allowsemployers and educators to break down long-standing barriers to communication and beginto form meaningful partnerships that can meetthe needs of both while providing studentswith the academic and the employability skillsthey need to succeed

These gains, however encouraging, are stillfragile. As the Act moves into its final twoyears of funding, it is critical that attention isgiven to the kinds of systems building andsustainability actions discussed in this article.If we can use the next two years to focus onthese sort of activities, school-to-work will bein a strong position to grow and prosper in thenext century.

Renee Lerche is the Director of Workforce Developmentfor Ford Motor Company, and is responsible fordeveloping an integrated workforce developmentstrategy for external education, supervisory andmanagement assessment and development systems.

Mike Schmidt is the External Education ProgramsManager at Ford, and oversees the company's majornational partnerships with public K-12 education,including the Henry Ford Academy of Manufacturing,Arts and Sciences.

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johnson & Johnson, with approximately89,500 employees, is the world'slargest and most comprehensive

manufacturer of health care products servingthe consumer, pharmaceutical, diagnosticsand professional markets. The Johnson &Johnson family consists of 170 operatingcompanies in more than 50 countries, sellingproducts in more than 175 countries.

The reform of the American education systemhas become a highly charged and highlypublicized issue in the last ten years. A daydoes not pass without an article, editorial oropinion on education reform appearing in thenews media. Since every American has astake in the future of American education, theissues surrounding reform are often complexand contentious. The proposed solutionscontinue to.grow exponentially in relation toperceived problems.

Historically, corporate America has played anactive role in improving education althoughprimarily in the form of philanthropic support. Infact, overall U.S. corporate giving to educationwas up from 35 percent of overall giving in 1991to 37 percent in 1992 and up again to around 40percent in 1996. Many argue that the businesscommunity has to move beyond philanthropy tomake a significant difference in the reform ofnational public education.

While this may be true for most businesses,Johnson & Johnson manages corporategiving in a strategic manner, closely tied to thebusiness and more akin to social investing.We invest in organizations and people thatcommit to measurable results. Throughprograms of its own design and direct grantsto leading nonprofit organizations, Johnson &

BUILDING NEW BRIDGES

by Michael BzdakJohnson & Johnson

Johnson seeks to improve the quality ofhealth care and education in the communitieswhere our employees live and work.

The Johnson & Johnson Bridge toEmployment Program (BTE) was developedby the Office of Corporate Contributions tohelp young people who are likely to drop outof school acquire skills that will make themjob ready. Our program focuses oncommunity programs that expose "at-risk"students to careers in health care. Since itsinception in 1992, BTE has evolved as anational school-to-work program.

BTE, through K-12 health care careerexposure, mentorship and co-op experiencecomponents, enables students to receiveproper education and training to prepare forcareers in health care, whether it is a two-year Allied Health program, more extensivetraining or a specialized and advancedcurriculum and/or medical school.Practitioners from our operating companieswork with educators to develop "real world"teaching modules. In this way, business ishelping to shape curricula and, in turn,facilitating the transition from school to work.The program seeks to avoid a commonproblem with some school-to-career programs

preparing students for low-skill service jobs.

BTE, with its school-to-work focus,complements the school-to-work legislationsigned by President Clinton. Johnson &Johnson's focus on health care careers,however, distinguishes our program frommost other employment training approaches.Our program currently operates in ninecommunities in the United States andPuerto Rico.

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Our nonprofit program partner, the NationalAlliance of Business (NAB), is at theforefront of education reform in the UnitedStates. Its membership includes keyrepresentatives from all sectors of corporateAmerica. NAB is a proactive force inAmerican education reform and remains intouch with relevant business-educationissues as they develop.

I argue that philanthropy, properly plannedand managed, can and will be a majorplayer in school-to-work and school-to-career efforts. By partnering effectively withchange agents in communities, strategiccorporate giving can act as a catalyst tomove education reform to a higher plane.For example, we have partnered withcommunity colleges to design or enhanceschool-to-career efforts in Miami, Florida;Trenton, New Jersey; and Albuquerque, NewMexico. These partners have proven to betrue change agents committed to systemiccommunity-wide education reform.

Our investment in these organizations andprograms goes well beyond writing a check.Johnson & Johnson employees, leaders fromNAB and community leaders design Bridgeprograms collaboratively to improve school-to-work efforts in communities across thecountry. These three-way partnerships arenot difficult to design or to manage, but ourgoal is systemic change and permanent,measurable improvement.

The Challenges

The key challenge to any corporateinvolvement in school-to-work, and ineducation reform in general, is evaluation.Before any commitments are made, thebusiness and school partners need to knowwhen, how and if they are making adifference. Evaluation is a difficult issue inbusiness-education partnerships. Questionsaround what and how to measure can crippleany efforts before they enter the classroom.

The design of our evaluations can range frommeasuring outcomes such as grades andattendance to attitudes toward and knowledgeabout health care careers before, after andduring the program intervention. Ideally, wewould like to see a combination of hard andsoft data and measurement over the threeyears of funding to determine processes,outcomes and impact. We offersupplementary financial support forevaluations to each of our sites and aredesigning an evaluation template in order toperform cross-site comparisons.

There has never been a more opportune timefor businesses to become more intenselyinvolved with schools. Many states haveconvened business-education summits whereleaders from the corporate communitydialogue with the education communityleaders. In New Jersey, Governor ChristineTodd Whitman and Prudential CEO Art Ryanled an effort in 1996 that will be followed byanother summit in November, 1997 to includeteachers and administrators.

Newly introduced content standards becamethe focal point of the Summit. The standardshave become a rallying point for leaders ineducation, business and government. Inaddition to the seven content area standards,New Jersey developed cross-content"workplace readiness" standards that cutacross all of the content standards. These"real world" standards offer the businesscommunity opportunities for involvement ineducation reform.

The value of these summits resides in thesharing of ideas, plans and resources. As aresult of the New Jersey summit, large andsmall businesses were briefed on thespectrum of business involvement ineducation. Companies in New Jerseyparticipate on many levels ranging fromadopt-a-school efforts to speakers bureaus toformal school-to-career programs. Not allcompanies, no matter what their size, are

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ready for school to work. Any properlynurtured and managed involvement, however,can evolve to a formal school-to-work system.

The majority of New Jersey-based businessesparticipated in the initial summit. We, atJohnson & Johnson, support this importanteffort for many reasons. To focus thebusiness community on tangible goals isperhaps the most important aspect of thismeeting. Most companies are approachedalmost daily to fund myriad education reforminitiatives ranging from New American Schools tolocal parent/teacher organizations. By getringbehind a state-wide initiative, businesses canchannel their human and financial resourcestoward common goals shared by school boards,board rooms and state government.

As a result of the New Jersey Business-Education Summit, leading companies withmodel programs are able to mentor other NewJersey companies on how to get started. Thestandards have helped to break down the wallsbetween business and education and betweenbusinesses themselves.

The Future

Ideally, the school-to-work movement willbecome an inherent attribute of schools andbusinesses. A case has to be made for moredirect benefits for business involvement ineducation. For some, it is not enough to knowthat we can impact tomorrow's workforce. Infact, companies throughout the United Stateshave very defined, and immediate, workforceneeds that may be met by partnerships with

local schools. Since business-educationpartnerships are two-way streets, schooladministrators and teachers have to beequally prepared to benefit from theserelationships. The education community mustdecide how business can help them achievetheir "business" goals.

Richard Murnane and Frank Levy, inTeaching the New Basic Skills, make aconvincing case for the need to change theway we perceive both school and work. Sincemost businesses manage for change, theyare valuable resources for schools seeking tochange. As the world of work changes beforeour eyes, public school teachers and studentshave the opportunity to take part in theseimportant changes as more than merelyspectators.

As corporate philanthropy moves toward amore focused alignment with business goals,school-to-work programs are poised to attractmore attention and support. Properlydesigned and managed, school-to-workefforts provide business with a cogent meansto become involved with education reform. AtJohnson & Johnson, we believe in the powerof philanthropic partnerships throughout theworld to help us design, manage and evaluateschool-to-work initiatives.

Michael Bzdak manages Johnson & Johnson'scorporate giving to. K-12 education, teen pregnancyprevention, volunteerism and art/cultural affairs. Heserves on the Conference Board's Business/EducationCouncil as well as New Jersey Governor ChristineTodd Whitman's Advisory Council on Volunteerism andCommunity Service. He is currently a doctoralcandidate at Rutgers University.

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TI

RUST IS THE ELIXIR OF COMMITMENT

byEx

Lisa Goldberg

empla Health/Lutheran Medical Center

The recently merged Exempla Healthand Lutheran Medical Centerrecognizes that two primary incentives

drive the development of corporate communityservice in the health care industry: (1) theneed to maintain tax-exempt status and (2)the need to respond to the growing influenceof managed care. Providing meaningfulcommunity service by partnering with publicschools to elicit systemic educational changeand improve wellness behaviors can satisfythese needs. Lutheran Medical Center'sYouth Education Alliance for Health (Y.E.A.H.)is a community partnership that works toenhance wellness behaviors, improveacademic performance and build health carecareer awareness and job-market readiness.

Y.E.A.H. brings health-care professionalstogether with educators to plan and enhanceexisting science curriculum for seventh, eighthand tenth grade students at Wheat RidgeMiddle School, Arvada Middle School,Jefferson High School and Arvada HighSchool in Jefferson County, Colorado.Lutheran Medical Center provides in-classspeakers, fact sheets, anatomical models,slides, overheads, x-ray images, generalconsultation and hospital visits designed tohighlight the workplace relevancy of existingscience curriculum.

In addition to this middle school and 10th-grade effort, representatives from Lutheran,Jefferson High School, Arvada High School,Red Rocks Community College and FrontRange Community College work together todevelop and deliver new courses for highschool juniors and seniors that link academicswith wellness behaviors, career awarenessand job-market readiness. HealthTechnologies I, Health Technologies II,

Business Health Communications, AcademyAlgebra and Early Childhood Professions arecourses offered as part of the Y.E.A.H. Med-Prep Career Academies at Jefferson andArvada High Schools.

It Takes Time

"No one cares how much you know until theyknow how much you care." This quote waswritten on the board in a classroom at one ofour partner schools. It is an eloquentdescription of the trust and respect Y.E.A.H.team members have for each other. As I satand listened at my first Y.E.A.H. meetingnearly three years ago, it seemed that theteachers and the medical center staff spokedifferent languages. Lutheran employeeswere enthusiastic and energetic, and this wastheir chance to stretch beyond the walls of thehospital and expand the parameters of theirjob to make a real difference in theircommunity. They were all college educated,had enjoyed academic success and wereconvinced that they knew how to improve thepublic school system one classroom at a time.They would demand academic rigor andinspire students to reach higher and tryharder, using their own professionalachievement as examples of the fruits ofdiscipline and challenge.

The teachers were all at least twenty-yearveterans. They had seen countlesseducational reform efforts and thousands ofstudents from every walk of life come and go.They listened to the enthusiasm of theirbusiness cohorts with cynicism andresignation. Each had been asked by his orher administrator to attend this meeting andseemed to believe that it was in their own bestcareer interest to listen politely to yet another

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group tell them what was wrong with theirteaching. Besides, they were scienceteachers, and hospitals are full of wonderfulgadgets and toys that can make science fun.Maybe at the very least they would come awaywith a few borrowed bells and whistles for theirstudents. The teachers felt that it was only amatter of time until the hospital tired of itsnewest cause and moved on to another.Meanwhile they would be politically correct andpolite until it was over. The hospital folk werefrustrated by what they saw as the teachers'lackadaisical attitude. Many of them believedthey had discovered the problem with the U.S.public education system disinterestedteachers.

Educators, however, have taken a beating inthe media, and as a result, many are bruisedand defensive. Everyone seems to know whatis wrong with education and exactly how to fixit. Many pundits and other analysts havepainted an impressive picture of the successfulsystem we would have if only the principlesthat run the marketplace were allowed to runour schools. The perception of the wisdom tobe gained from the private business sector hasgrown to mythic proportions. Of course, mostof these would-be reformers have not steppedinside a classroom since they graduated fromhigh school. Undergoing bypass surgerymakes one an expert in neither cardiology norsurgery. Yet there are many who believe thattheir experience as public school studentsrenders them experts in the field of pedagogy.

It is understandable that some teachers meettheir administrator's orders to bring in abusiness partner to implement the newestpanacea for our educational woes, school-to-work, with an audible sigh of cynicalresignation. Refusing to let inexperience andignorance get in the way, this new businesspartner will be yet another in the line of"experts" who will invade their classrooms andtell them how to fix what is wrong. Meanwhile,individuals working in the private sector areoften perplexed when teachers ask for morepay or complain about their working conditions.

After all, they only work six hours a day, ninemonths a year and enjoy what seems to benear definite job security. No one asks themfor justification of budget variances at the endof the month, regular business plans orprogress reports. Their classrooms will not bere-structured nor their positions eliminated dueto low productivity, substandard performance,or hostile corporate takeover.

Why Y.E.A.H. has SucceededWhere Other Efforts have Failed

Lutheran personnel and teachers worktogether to plan and deliver lessons throughoutthe school year. The time and energy investedin brainstorming outrageous ideas, debatingphilosophies and hashing out the goals,objectives and logistics of implementing eachlesson creates a sense of ownership andcommitment on both sides of this business-education partnership. It is a process thatfosters trust and respect. It becomes quicklyapparent that the primary question is neitherwho is to blame for what is reported as thepoor state of education in this country nor whois the more politically powerful half of thepartnership, but rather how can students beassisted in learning most effectively. This typeof collaboration and devotion would be unlikelyto develop after a once-a-year "Career Day" or"Health Fair." It is said that trust is the elixir ofcommitment, and it takes ongoing, personalinteraction to build trust. The flexibility,tolerance and desire to make a real differencein the community are essential to the successof this partnership. It will take a similarcommitment in the communities of each andevery public school to create and support asystem that provides the best educationpossible for our young people.

One of the keys to the success of Y.E.A.H.is the personal interaction between hospitalpersonnel and teachers.

In the spirit of true partnership, some planningmeetings are held at the school and some areheld at the hospital so both groups have the

25 4 4

chance to see into the other's world. Hospitalemployees are often amazed at the reality ofthe day-to-day in a public school classroom.They see teachers who spend six to sevenhours a day delivering back-to-back lessons tosome 150 students, with administrative dutiesand disciplinary actions peppered in between.Planning periods before school, during lunch,after school, on weekends and during schoolbreaks are used to develop lessons, improvecurriculum, align curriculum with districtstandards, contact parents, grade papers,coach athletic teams, sponsor student clubs,attend mandatory meetings and acquiresufficient continuing education hours to keeptheir teaching certificates current. In additionto these responsibilities, these teachers maketime to meet with their Lutheran partners on aregular basis to plan new lessons andcoordinate new opportunities both on- and off-campus for their students. Lutheran Y.E.A.H.team members usually end their first semesterwith a new respect for teachers and arecognition of their commitment to their students.

The teachers who work with Y.E.A.H. areequally amazed by the conditions andworkplace demands placed on theirbusiness partners.

Health care, like many industries in the 1990s,strives to stay competitive and efficient.Program development and restructuring inresponse to market driven data analysis isconstant, with job security often dependent onthe result of these efforts. Job satisfactiondepends on one's ability to cope with changeand a willingness to work as long and hard asneeded to do more with less. Toaccommodate school schedules and teacherrequests, these health care professionalsmake time to meet with teachers before orafter school and often spend their day off as aguest speaker, tour guide or curriculumconsultant for Y.E.A.H. Teachers usuallycome away with an appreciation for thepressures faced by their business partners anda clearer picture of the world for which they arepreparing their students.

As part of the world of education, studentscan also experience culture shock upontheir first interaction with the businessworld and its representatives.

Students are often strangers in a strange landin a professional setting. School-to-work musttake nothing for granted. Students will need tobe coached on appropriate dress and mannersbefore either coming to the partner facility orbefore a guest speaker is allowed in theirclassroom. The more one-on-one contactbetween students and business professionals,the better, but students must be equipped withthe etiquette required to make the connection.They need to know, for example, how to leavea clear, concise and informative voice mailmessage with a phone number and good timesfor a return call. They will need to understandthe importance of their body language, attitudeand the impression they make. For their part,business partners will need to be investedenough in the process to take the time to learnwhat they can expect from the young peoplethey work with by observing students andasking teachers questions. Some individualsmay need to be told or discover for themselvesthat parenting one child is quite different fromteaching thirty.

Once the cultural gap between the worlds ofbusiness and education has been bridged, andonce the team is united by its shared vision,then the work can truly begin. Business-education partnerships even passionatelydevoted ones like Y.E.A.H. can be thwartedby the rigidity of established systems andexpectations. From the outside, the task ofcreating and coordinating a school's scheduleseems daunting. Changing one piece affectsevery other and can raise the ire of variousfactions, such as the music teacher whojealously hordes his after-school priority spotfor tryouts and rehearsals, or the algebrateacher whose policy says that any studentwho does not spend fifty minutes, five days aweek in her classroom will suffer theconsequences no excuses or exceptions.These individuals have structured their delivery

26 4 5

to accommodate the existing system, and manyhave learned to be quite successful under thecurrent circumstances. They are comfortableand feel that the integrity of their classes wouldbe compromised if they bent their rules.Focused on their own classrooms, however, theymiss the larger picture.

At Lutheran, when there is a deficit in thebudget, every department works to cutwherever they can. It is in the best interest ofeach employee to make sure the organizationstays financially strong. If the goal of publiceducation is to provide the best possibleeducational opportunities for each student, itwould seem that division and territorialism arecontrary to the greater good. There have beena number of Y.E.A.H. students who have beenforced to choose between participating in anoff campus learning module at the hospital andmaintaining their grade point average inclasses where there is an indiscriminatepenalty for every absence.

Class organization and scheduling, howtime is spent in and out of school, thepurpose of homework and the way space isallocated and used all need to be re-evaluated if business- educationpartnerships are to grow and flourish.

Fifty minute classes, five days a week may besufficient for some courses some of the time,but there may be times when it is in a student'sbest interest to spend an entire day learningfirst-aid and CPR, participating in a cadaver labor improving team work and communicationskills on a high-ropes course. There must beenough flexibility in the system and in theexpectations of students, teachers and parentsto make the most of the opportunities availablethrough partnerships with businesses. Toomuch order stifles creativity, but too little ordercauses confusion. The balance betweenflexibility and established order will need to becontinually adjusted and re-adjusted. There iscomfort in the predictability of the status quo,even if the results it produces are less thanwhat we would like. Courage will be needed to

endure moments of confusion and even chaosas new approaches are applied to the oldproblems of logistics. We will need to havefaith that a natural sense of order will prevailand that a new, more vital system will be theresult.

Flexibility is needed not only in oursystems but also in our definition,understanding and communication of whatschool-to-work is all about. Misconceptionand controversy seem endemic toeducation reform.

The scope of school-to-work may need to bebroadened to transcend the specific vocationaltraining programs and internships designed forolder students. Young people gain valuableinformation from exploring new fields ofinterest through job shadows and internexperiences or simply interviewingprofessionals in these fields. School-to-work,however, can be much more than this if theemphasis is placed on weaving the mastery oftransferable workplace skills into a district'sacademic standards. These skills, such aseffective teamwork and communication,problem-solving and the ability to learn newtechniques and procedures are applicable tonot only every industry but also success inhigher education. Add to this the self-esteemand confidence students can gain byexpanding their understanding andinteractions with business professionals, andyou will see an increasing number of studentsgraduating from high school prepared tosucceed as adults.

The value of school-to-work is notapparent to all. It will be necessary toeducate public school administrators,teachers, parents, the business communityand postsecondary educators.

Teachers and administrators may beconcerned about losing their autonomy, someparents believe that school-to-work narrowsthe options available to their children andmany representatives from postsecondary

4r'27 0

education equate school-to-work with_

vocational education and compromisedacademic standards. Y.E.A.H.'s Med-PrepCareer Academy courses are veryacademically challenging much to thesurprise of some unsuspecting students.Mastery of this curriculum serves students wellwhether they are pursuing careers in healthcare or other occupations, college or directentry into the workplace. Challenges, however,remain. For example, Y.E.A.H.'s BusinessHealth Communications class is not recognizedby many postsecondary institutions as alegitimate English course, which hasdiscouraged many students from registering forand benefiting from this course. Perhaps thebest way to educate the public about courseslike this and school-to-work in general is toinvolve them in the process and to make surethey see and hear about the many successstories of students involved in these programs.

Like individual students, businesses,schools and communities vary in what theyneed and want.

Although some standardization of the systemcan help fortify school-to-work efforts, theindividuality of each community, school district,school, classroom and business must behonored. Employers will need helpunderstanding the many ways they canbecome involved in education, as well as helpin understanding why they should becomeinvolved. Educators will need time to see thedifference a community partnership can makein their classrooms. Everyone will need tomake a consistent and long-term commitment

to the process. A vision and a sweeping call toarms is a great place to start, but for true andlasting change to occur, it will take time andattention to the details and dynamics inherentin each business and education partnership.This will not produce quick and flashy results,but good solid programs that grow and improvewith time and programs that deepen andbecome more graceful and eloquent with age.It will take hand-holding, patience andperseverance. The plan must be long-term.Short-term grant money provided as seed willbe wasted if the resulting sprouts die from lackof water, air, sunlight and nurturing. School-to-work partnerships are like plants needingcontinued care and attention if they are to growand thrive.

Acknowledging and working to bridge thecultural gap between business and education,creating flexible structures, developing andimplementing creative and effective publicrelations strategies, honoring the diverseneeds and wants of different communities anddifferent partnerships and making a long-termcommitment to the process that will supportand nurture this reform effort to maturity arethe components of success for school-to-work.It will take us all working together with a sharedvision to make significant and lastingimprovements in the system for our children.

Lisa Goldberg is the Business-Education PartnershipCoordinator at Exempla Health/Lutheran Medical Center.As Exempla's liaison to the Jefferson County PublicSchools, Ms. Goldberg oversees the Youth EducationAlliance for Health (YE.A.H.) and represents Exempla innational, state and local community educationassociations.

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28

WOMP: GIVE THEM SOMETHING TO TALK ABOU

For many, if not most, middle andsecondary school students it is aTommy Hilfiger, Nike swoosh and Coke

swirl world. Ask them, or their parents.Young people love brands. In fact, they brandthemselves willingly. They are also greatambassadors. They easily sell friends andfamily on why owning one product or servicemakes the difference.

Teens also respond to powerful, pervasiveand persuasive advertising. The morecreative and compelling a brand name is, themore they talk about, imitate and spread itsmessages. Teens are masters of the WOMP

Word of Mouth Power. (The WOMPconcept was borrowed from Dale Dauden, asyndicated columnist and self-proclaimed"corporate curmudgeon"). According tomarketing experts, successful story telling byconsuming customers about a product orservice is key to visibility and viability.

At McDonald's one of the largest foodbusinesses in the world a major goal is to"walk and talk" opportunity for young peoplewho work for us. There are many chapters tothe story of the process we call the YouthApprenticeship in Consumer ServiceManagement. Here are the highlights andsome of the lessons learned.

McDonald's Youth Employment

The restaurants are the largest employer ofteens. For more than 40 years, McDonald'shas employed high school students, trainingthem on the "hard" and "soft" skills necessaryto develop and navigate job success. Youngemployees learn the fastest and the most

by Rogercarole RogersMcDonald's USA

about making a living and working. It is also atime when they begin to think on their ownterms about career opportunities. If an early jobexperience is positive or not they tell theirfriends and families. McDonald's restaurantmanagers encourage employee referrals. It iscommon for several family members or a circleof school friends to work together.

McDonald's U.S. System is a collaboration ofindependent franchisees and managers ofcompany-owned restaurants. More than 85percent are franchised. More than half of allfranchisees and managers started in theSystem when they were teens. WOMPincludes the stories of more than 2,700independent businessmen and women whoown and operate local businesses. Thesestories are about mentoring young people anddeveloping senior managers and a secondgeneration of owners.

Franchisees connect with their communities.They establish lasting relationships with theircustomers. The great majority reach out tolocal school educators and students. Mostrestaurants offer tours and support incentivesfor good grades, attendance or citizenship.Routinely, owners and managers appear atcareer days, hold mock interviews inclassrooms, contribute education resourcesand support school events. Each McDonald'sfranchisee builds an independent corporationand fosters their own culture. While eachworks to distinguish the brand in their ownway, all share the value of investing in theiryoung employees.

Talk to a McDonald's franchisee or one of themanagers like Art Checchian, an operations

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supervisor and career employee, who gladlyshares his story: "This job offers opportunities

not a guarantee for advancement. I'm afather, as well as a businessman. I tell myemployees what I tell my own kids. They havean opportunity for training and a focus that canput them on the fast track. All of theemployees in our five stores started as crew."

Youth Apprenticeship Evolves

With the advent of the School-to-WorkOpportunities Act, McDonald's started planningthe Youth Apprenticeship. It seemed a naturalextension of existing relationships with schoolsand student employees.

Our vision has always been an education-to-career collaboration with major scale andimpact. We planned for a nationaldemonstration in at least four states, with aChicago pilot. By Spring, 1996, the YouthApprenticeship had started in five Chicagohigh schools. In partnership with the U.S.Department of Labor and the MacArthurFoundation in Chicago, we soon surpassedour original plan. Today, more than 600students have enrolled in the YouthApprenticeship in 37 participating schools inBaltimore, Maryland; Muskegon, Michigan;Portland Oregon; Austin, Texas; andChicago, Illinois.

We designed the Youth Apprenticeship inConsumer Service Management to linkstructured classroom instruction in thesecondary school with training at therestaurants. Even before they start the job,our goal is to train student participants to thinklike the customers they will be serving. Afteran extensive search for learning materialsabout the consumer service sector, we calledon experts in management training andacademic assessment to help us produce acustomized curriculum.

Among these is the Center for Problem-BasedLearning (PBL) at the Mathematics and

4 9

Science Academy in Illinois. They use acontextual approach to classroom learningwhere students develop and practice criticaland creative thinking skills corecompetencies for consumer service managers.Levels one and two of Consumer ServiceManagement focus on work readiness,business math and communications, customerservice, employee relations, business systemsand career planning.

Teachers, with PBL tools, become coachesand cheerleaders. The educator's role is toencourage active real world problem-solvingwhere there may be many or no "right"answers. Teachers receive an average 40hours classroom training. They also spend atleast one or two days, and sometimes one ortwo weeks, working in the same business siteswhere the students work.

After two years, students and teachers in thenational demonstration and Chicago pilot haveembraced the new curriculum. Daya Locke,Assistant Principal at Calumet Senior HighSchool, offers an educator's perspective:"This is a rebirth for teachers and their students.It motivates teachers, who are used to staying intheir boxes, to learn from each other, theirstudents and their business partners."

Secondary school administrators mayintegrate the curriculum into existingbusiness classes or teach it as a separatecourse of study. Depending upon theadministration's plan, students enter asfreshmen, sophomores or juniors. Studentsmust be at least 16 when they qualify tointerview for paid positions as crew or salesassociates.

At each level, teachers assess students for skillsmastery. The Council on Hotel, Restaurant andInstitutional Education (CHRIE) and the NationalRetail Federation (NRF) helped establish thesestandards. In order to progress to entry-levelemployment, students must achieve the 80percent or higher level on all assessments.

30

What began as a joint venture betweenMcDonald's and Northern Illinois University(NIU), now includes The Lodge (Hyatt) inOak Brook and Wa !greens in Chicago andfour states. National business partners worktogether to broaden our collaboration tofederal, state and local governments,secondary and postsecondary schools,philanthropic organizations and otherbusiness partners. Local business partnersdo the same. Currently, franchisees in 15additional sites around the country arestarting up the Youth Apprenticeshipprocess.

In order to operate the program, prospectivesites meet ten major requirements:

1. a partnership with state approved secondaryschools that prepare students and providethem with written and oral communicationand math programs, consumer serviceemployment, structured learning and formaltraining agreements and transition intopostsecondary education;

2. recruitment of local business partners in thehospitality and retail trade industries;

3. agreements with business partners tomainstream students into regularmanagement development programs;

4. formal articulation agreements betweensecondary and postsecondary programs toensure curricular alignment and the transferof student credits and graduation;

5. student assessment and certification;6. student qualification for company interviews;7. student recruitment, enrollment and

preparation for company interviews;8. resources and release time for teacher

training;9. site administration and project transition

planning for schools, business partnertrainings and integrating the program intolocal and state school-to-work systems; and

10. project reporting and evaluation.

What We Have Learned

The school-to-work or education-to-careersmovement is in need of a strong injection ofWOMP. The movement would be morevisible and viable if it were better understoodby the "customers" it seeks to serve:students, their parents, educators andbusiness. School-to-work is often mistakenfor vocational, cooperative and distributiveeducation. These are old brands. So call it"school-to-work" or "education-to-career." Theconcept of employment opportunity for youngpeople needs more "wow power." Those whodo not see opportunity in an education-to-career process do not sign-on, support or sellit. There is a strong need for experienced,forward looking agents in the movement whocan help tell, sell and set expectations for howschool-to-work makes a difference.

There are six lessons that we have gleanedfrom our experience in the education-to-career movement:

Participants with even one year'sexperience in the Youth Apprenticeshipprocess make the best sales people forrecruiting purposes.

When students consider signing on for theApprenticeship process, they must envisiona program with high standards and long-term gratification. Educators have told usthat their student apprentices "walk tall."They seem more connected, confident andmature. Other students pay attention totheir WOMP.

A majority of the successful school sitesstarted the process with a communityoutreach program for a summer orseveral weeks.

Differentiating the Apprenticeship within theschool community educators, studentsand their parents is essential, especiallyin a school site where change and the "pilot

5 031

du jour" seem to be the only constants.The right introduction builds and sustainsenrollment, expectations and enthusiasm.Students benefit from early experiencesthat help them begin thinking about settingand achieving life goals.

Teachers tell us that integrating thecustom curriculum and students' workexperience in existing classroomsystems represents a challenge thatwe underestimate.

Both require strong knowledge of careerdevelopment and of the world of work in anever-changing education and employmentworld. The most successful teachers bringprior outside business and evenentrepreneurial experience, preferably inthe consumer service sector. Educatorsbenefit from continuous, in-depth training,recognition and sharing stories about howthey meet multiple challenges.

The PBL approach to customer servicecurriculum is a hot, new product thathelps tell the youth employment story.

Creating new curricular materials has takena greater investment of time, money andcommitment on everyone's part than weever anticipated, but the return is well worthit. There is constant demand for the "new"materials from educators, employers andfranchisees who have not developed aYouth Apprenticeship site. We arecommitted to developing process tools.They promote the process.

Business partners are comfortable withhigh school students in entry level jobs,even when the business is oriented toadults. Their regular training system isorganized to develop "first job" employees,

and they already offer in-house trainingand career ladders for employees.

Recruiting employers to provide jobs andfunding for program resources has been apriority since the beginning. It tends to be along-term process. Prospective businesspartners and their staff people must committime and know-how from the beginning.While it is usually an easy "sell" to getagreement, long-term commitment is thechallenge.

The strongest sites are the result of oneperson's aggressive efforts to encourageunderstanding and participation amongtheir own staff, educators, governmentand other local business partners.

Employer relationships occur most readilywhere a McDonald's franchisee already hasdeveloped relationships that lead to localcollaboration. Business people need anongoing forum where they can meet andlearn from each other's school-to-workparticipation.

In the end, the school-to-work story is aboutproviding a full circle of opportunity thatcustomers recognize, understand andchampion to others. In the best of all worlds,schools and employers would have the powerto involve parents and communities in choicesabout school and work programs that affectthe rest of their children's lives.

Rogercarole Rogers is the Director of EmploymentDevelopment at McDonald's Corporation. Ms. Rogersdirects the McDonald's Youth Apprenticeship Program,a school-to-work process that develops managers forthe consumer service industry beginning in high schooland ending at the second year of postsecondaryeducation.

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A SUSTAINED AND EVOLVING COMMITMEN

Motorola Semiconductor ProductsSector in Austin, Texas has been anadvocate for school and business

partnerships since its arrival in Austin in1975. The first Motorola manufacturingfacility on Ed Bluestein Boulevard oftenhosted student tours. The staffing officehired vocational education students for entry-level, part-time administrative positions andengineering departments hired high schoolsummer interns from the Texas Alliance forMinorities in Engineering (TAME) program.When the Greater Austin Chamber ofCommerce and Austin Independent SchoolDistrict, (AISD) formed Austin Adopt-A-School in 1983, Motorola was one of the firstcompanies to sign up, agreeing to sponsorfive schools. Although some studentsseemed to have performed real work tasks,the primary motivation for the company'searly program appears to have been toexhibit good corporate citizenship.

Motivated by a distinct decline in the qualityof its hiring pool, Motorola began establishingprograms designed to strengthen theconnection between school and theworkplace during the early I990s. Manyeducators participated in Teachers/Counselors in Industry, a six- to eight-weeksummer internship program, which allowedschool personnel to experience the modernworkplace first-hand. The Motorola Partnersfor Education in Austin program grantedevery employee two hours per month of paidtime off to volunteer in area schools. Thecompany began Pathways, a substanceprevention program for students, to helpdecrease the number of future applicants who

by Sharon Knotts GreenMotorola Semiconductor Products

might be denied employment because of failure topass the company's mandatory drug test.

In more recent years, three other high schoolstudent employment programs were piloted:Career Pathways, the Summer YouthEmployment Program (run in conjunction witha community group) and the ManagementInternship Program (a non-paid, explorationprogram run in conjunction with AISD).

Student and Teacher Issues

One of the most challenging aspects ofimplementing school-to-work programs wasovercoming the by-product of a lack ofemphasis on career preparation in publicschools. For example, students generally hadnot participated in career exploration activitiesor met with a career counselor.Consequently, students could not articulateduring an interview their reasons for interest ina particular job or how other life experiences(baby-sitting, school activities) related to thejob for which they were applying. Manystudents also did not seem to know theimportance of asking questions, having anattractive application and resume, exhibitinggood attendance, working well with others andself-directed learning.

Educators, too, sometimes seemed to lack anunderstanding of successful workplacebehaviors. Applicants to the Teachers inIndustry program submitted resumes thatwere handwritten or had spelling errors.Once on the job, they frequently complainedabout the low level of formal training theyreceived and were reluctant to seek out

33%.1

information from those they did not know.Often educators' inadequate knowledge ofthe workplace was revealed by the type ofstudents they recommended for the variousinternship programs, preferring well-behavedacademic types over average students witha genuine interest.

In short, summer student interns from thesame program seemed to network with eachother more readily than their teachercounterparts. Teachers were far more adeptthan students at understanding therelevancy of their summer experiences tothe subjects they taught at school. Bothgroups fell short in the area of taking chargeof one's own learning experience. Studentsas well as educators seemed to feel morecomfortable seeking assistance fromsomeone specifically assigned to addressparticipants' issues.

Over the years, Motorola made severalprogram improvements based on feedbackfrom program participants, their hiringmanagers, school coordinators and Motorolaprogram coordinators. More formal classes(and hence networking opportunities) wereadded to the curriculum. Every newemployee already received training inquality, safety and total customersatisfaction.

In addition, student and teacher internsbegan receiving training in the SCANScompetencies and foundation skills, effectivepresentations and Motorola's culture.Program leaders developed a moreextensive orientation for supervisors. Topicsincluded how to develop a training plan forinterns, evaluating participants against theSCANS criteria, giving feedback and settingexpectations. The most significant featureof the supervisor orientation was clarifyingthe company's goals for the program,emphasizing that supervisors are expectedto help holistically develop the studentsknowledge, behaviors and attitudes.

System Building Issues

Two years before the School-to-WorkOpportunities Act of 1994 (STWOA) wasenacted, Motorola hired its first ExternalEducation Manager, thus providing a focalpoint for the company's collaboration withother entities interested in workforcedevelopment. Over the next few years, theExternal Education Manager served as chairof the Chamber of Commerce's School-to-Work Transition Committee, a member of theHigh Tech Steering Committee and chair ofthe Mayor's Task Force on YouthApprenticeships and Career Pathways. Thevalue of these memberships existed throughopportunities for networking, learning aboutSTWOA as it progressed through Congress,reviewing new programs and providing mutualmotivation. Because Motorola is the largestprivate employer in the Austin area and wasexperienced in student employment programs,the company's involvement in some waysseemed to legitimize school-to-work.

While the aforementioned organizationsbrought together those who shared an interestin school-to-work, they also brought togetherthose who claimed the same turf. Progresswas sometimes slowed because of politicalundercurrents that were not necessarilyknown to all committee members. The closera group came to receiving funds for school-to-work endeavors, the greater the team'sturmoil.

Nearly all groups shared the belief thatactivities should not be put off until everythingwas perfect, but in hindsight it might havebeen better to have spent more time comingup with clear philosophical and goalstatements. Everyone would have betterunderstood when the entire committee couldwork together and when an individual groupshould conduct its own activities. Forexample, a proposed school-to-work programmay not have had all the features needed tocure the student drop out problem, but an

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organization focused on drop-out preventioncould help set criteria for programs with thelarger committee so that at least some of itsstudents would be eligible. The drop-outprevention organization could then focus itsprogram on filling in the gaps.

Another challenge of school-to-work at thesystems level was getting the right peoplearound the table at the right time. Schools andbusinesses have different people for variouslevels of decisionmaking within a given area ofresponsibility. The complexity of those on thefront lines informing those higher up withenough detail for a decision to be made andsent back down was incredible. WithinMotorola alone, implementation of theprograms required working with uppermanagement (overall permission), the staffingoffice (hiring process, payroll, and generalorientation), the training department (specialclasses), the legal department (eligibility andtypes of tasks allowed), security (badges),department manager (permission to hire),immediate supervisors (define job andsupervise), facilities (telephones), informationsystems (computers and pagers), the healthcenter (drug test) and seemingly countlessothers. When a city or region is attempting tobuild a program with common features for allcompanies involved, the number of meetingsrequired can be mind boggling. Unfortunately,businesses often tired of the meetings or thechief players changed before significantaccomplishments were realized.

Changing CorporatePractices Issues

Local employers, especially those in thesemiconductor industry, are far more open tochanging practices and collaboration now thatworkforce development issues have reachedthe point of crisis. Returning to Motorola as anexample, high level managers represent thecompany on a number of newly formed taskforces. It is anticipated that the next ExternalEducation Manager, formerly a lone-knighter

with occasional help from interns, will have a full-time assistant to help coordinate educationactivities. The vice-president in charge ofworldwide manufacturing has approvedfunding a technology lab for high schoolstudents and is willing to pay for personnel tocarry out the request. A former vice-presidentformed the Executive Community CollegeRelations Committee which has alreadyrecognized the need for increasedinvolvement with high school students andsupporting adjunct professorships.

In order for school-to-work programs to fulfilltheir potential to be effective workforcedevelopment strategies, companies must bewilling to invest in these programs for the longhaul. Proof of long-term investment would be:

1. the development of formal policystatements in support of school-to-work;

2. funding for program administration staff,program operation, and adjunctprofessorships;

3. internal recognition or rewards formeaningful contributions by employees tostudent or teacher programs;

4. hiring processes linked to school-to-workactivities;

5. reporting of program outcomes to uppermanagement;

6. general funding protection during economicdownturns; and

7. collaborations with school systems to makethe effort systemic.

Sharon Knotts Green is the Manager of TexasEducation Alliances at Motorola Semiconductor Product.Ms. Green began her career at Motorola as a deviceengineer in the Advanced Products Research andDevelopment Laboratory studying the application ofspecific integrated circuits. Currently, she is responsiblefor the development and implementation of thecompany's K-12 workforce development strategies. In1994, Austin Adopt-A-School inducted Motorola into theHall of Fame and recognized the company's In Industryprogram as an exemplary teacher internship program.

5 4'35

INKS IN THE EDUCATION CHAIN

by Jere Hess

eavey Electronics Corporation

peavey Electronics Corporation wasfounded in 1965 Meridian, Mississippi,hometown of the founder and current

CEO and Chairman Hartley D. Peavey. Hemanages the company with his wife, Melia,who is president of the company. With 2,400employees, Peavey Electronics ranks as thelargest manufacturer of musical instrumentsand portable sound equipment in the UnitedStates. Peavey is the only U.S. manufacturerof musical instrumentation and amplificationwhere the founder still owns and activelymanages the company. With 32 facilitiestotaling more than 2.5 million square feet ofmanufacturing space, it is the only U.S.company that produces every "link in theaudio chain." The more than 3,000 productsmanufactured include guitars, poweramplifiers, microphones, drums, loudspeakersand public address systems, and aredistributed throughout the U.S. and some 103other countries around the world.

Peavey Electronics is long-recognized for itsproducts, manufacturing processes andprograms established for the education andgrowth of our most important resource--ouremployees. We know that increasing the skilllevels of our employees is the best way toensure the company's future growth andprosperity. The training and education effortsoutlined here reflect Peavey's commitment toour employees and our future a futuremade brighter through lifelong learning andthe vitality and spirit of our company. PeaveyElectronics not only focuses on its employeesbut also recognizes that for continued successin the future, there must be an "active"involvement in the education of our youth.Throughout the following pages, evidence ofPeavey's collaboration with school teachers,administrators and officials at all levels will be

demonstrated to the extent that this type ofinvolvement has and will continue to be ofparamount importance at Peavey.

The ultimate objective of Peavey's internaland external education programs is theempowerment of people who work for thecompany. To be truly empowered requiresone to be truly educated and truly trained. Tothat end, Peavey Electronics has committedits resources.

Education Programs

Peavey is committed to the betterment of itsemployees. Each cog of the gear representsa beneficial program established to help"Peavey Empowered People" grow within thecompany. When each cog is utilized, the gearis set into motion, allowing Peavey and itsemployees to move forward into the future.

Peavey Tuition Refund Program (PTR)

PTR began in the mid-1970s with apartnership between Peavey and a localcommunity college. In 1996, 12 percent of thetotal work force participated in the program atseven community colleges, three seniorcolleges and three high school vocational/technical centers.

Peavey In-House Training (PIT)

PIT began out of necessity early in Peavey'shistory due to the lack of skills in theelectronics technology area. Peaveyengineers teach in-house courses on AC/DC,Op Amp, Basic Computer and similar non-job-specific (but necessary) skills for ElectronicTechnicians, Computer Technicians andNumerical Control Maintenance Technicians.

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Job Skills Education Program (JSEP)

Peavey was the first commercial user of thiscomputer-based basic skills program and wasselected by the U.S. Departments ofEducation, Commerce and Defense as a "betasite" to test the civilian version of the JSEP. Inpartnership with Meridian Community College,this program began in 1989 and has providedtraining for hundreds of employees to furnishthem with the skills needed to keep up withthe changing job environment. The successof the program was recognized in 1992 bythen-President and Mrs. George Bush in anationally televised ceremony at the WhiteHouse. At the time, Hartley and Melia Peaveywere one of five recipients presented with theNational Literacy Honors Award.

General Education Diploma (GED)

One of the results of our programs such asJSEP and PIT has been the GED programwhich allows employees the opportunity toearn the equivalency of a high school diploma.Currently, grandmothers are the largest groupof individuals taking advantage of thisprogram. Peavey takes special pride in that,knowing that we are providing avenues toobtain a GED for those who would notordinarily have this opportunity.

Peavey Cooperative Program (PCP)

As Peavey has grown, so too has the demandfor engineering and technical services talent.Because it is located in a small Southern citywith a largely agricultural and retail salesoriented labor base, Peavey has had, to alarge extent, to "grow its own" talent. Utilizingstudents during their two-year communitycollege program or four-year senior collegeprogram, the PCP has served the Companywell in using "co-op students" to developPeavey's future highly skilled employees.

Peavey Adult Continuing Education (PACE)

Because the "college environment," where

young students are mixed with adult learners,was not conducive to a large number ofPeavey's experienced employees, Peaveyformed the Peavey Adult ContinuingEducation program to free employees from"in-class" intimidation. In just two years, thisprogram has had more than 300 participantsand continues to expand at a rapid rate.Classes are held in a college or high schoolvocational setting, and consist only of Peaveyemployeesthere are no "outsiders" enrolled.This has produced a demand for classes thathas outstripped the supply. Each year a"graduation" ceremony is held in thecompany's modern 225 seat auditorium andeach participating employee is presented aPACE pin by Hartley and Melia Peavey.

Peavey Statistical Process Control (PSPC)

As part of a program dedicated to continuousimprovement in processes and production atPeavey, an in-house PSPC training serieswas implemented. lt, along with blueprintreading, dimensioning and similar courses,were "Peaveyized" to apply to our needs.

Peavey Pre-Hire Training Program (PPHT)

Beginning in 1988, a new program was added totrain and prepare candidates for employment inthe various generic and specific skills or tasksthat would be necessary for a job with Peavey.PPHT is conducted on the campus of acommunity college or in a portable classroomon-site at one of the manufacturing locations.Along with training in the JSEP lab, hands-on-training is offered in powered tools, soldering,blueprint reading, mathematics, partsidentification, dimensioning and woodworking.Abilities, as well as attitudes, are measuredduring this two- to ten-week program, and thedecision to hire is based on the results.

Peavey Computer IntegratedManufacturing (PCIM)

Peavey Electronics could not operate withoute-mail or other similar features both on the

37 5 6

mainframe and networked PCS. To givethese important tools to the employees of thecompany, PCIM was developed. Training inLotus 1-2-3, e-mail and calendering areamong the many programs offered to thosewho man the company's 800 terminals and400 networked personal computers.

Peavey School-to-Work Program (PST14)

As part of the national movement to includebusinesses in the development and delivery ofeducation, PSTW began in the company'sDecatur, Mississippi plant. Beginning with theeleventh grade in the Newton County HighSchool (whose grade seven through twelveclassrooms are adjacent to the plant), twostudents are selected to work in the generalmaintenance program at the plant during thesummer, after school and at other times, basedon their interest in the Numerical ControlMaintenance and/or Surface Mount Technologyin Circuit Board Manufacturing. This programinvolves mentoring and job shadowing, andleads to a work-based learning program thatprepares the students to enter the PES programdescribed below.

Peavey Employee Scholarship Program(PES)

PES provides two scholarships annually, the"Hartley Peavey Scholarship" and the "MeliaPeavey Scholarship," to be used toward an AAdegree in Numerical Control MaintenanceTechnology or Electronics Technology. This is acontinuation of our providing growthopportunities to the children of existingemployees so that a high-skill, high wage job willbe available in the future. Peavey takes intoconsideration the applications of the children ofits employees before others are considered.

Peavey/Newton County Cooperative(PNCC)

In January, 1994, the Company initiated anafter work training program at one of its plants

that employs approximately 400 people in arural area of Mississippi. The trainingprogram began as a partnership with thecounty K-12 system and the local communitycollege. The training, which includes basicand advanced computers, has a parentingsegment in which employees are taughtfinancial management, healthy lifestyles andhow to raise children in today's environment.Children of the employees are encouraged toaccompany their parents to the center. Whilethe employees are receiving their training, thechildren are given the opportunity to sharpentheir developmental skills, via "Kidware 2"software, and can complete their homeworkunder a tutor's supervision. The childrenattend a classroom used during the day totrain child caregivers, so the surroundings arewarm and friendly. With the help of theDepartment of Public Health and the LPNprogram at the community college, thechildren are given eye/ear exams andinoculations on-site. Head Start, TheMississippi Forum on Children and Families,East Central Community College, MississippiCooperative Extension Service, NewtonCounty Schools, the Public Health Agencyand Peavey combined forces to form thePNCC, which provides a community-basededucation and training system to meet theneeds of Peavey employees. AmeriDataCorporation and Center Corporationparticipated by supplying the computers andsoftware respectively for the kids.

Peavey Dealer Education Program (PDE)

In 1970, Peavey began a "first" in the music andsound business by offering free training to itsdistribution network of music dealers. Eachmonth, up to forty music store owners and/oremployees visit the Peavey Center in Meridian,Mississippi for a week of day and night sessionsregarding the latest products, features, sellingtips, company philosophy and other information.With PDE, Peavey has set yet anotherstandard, as this program idea has since beenadopted by others in the music industry.

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Peavey Worship Leader Conference(PWLC)

In 1994, the Company initiated the PWLC totarget the rapidly growing Church andReligious Music Market. These week-longseminars are designed to answer the worshipleaders' basic questions on soundreinforcement, recording and contemporarykeyboards and are held at the Peavey Centerin Meridian. Peavey representatives, as wellas nationally acclaimed Christian keyboardand vocal artists, conduct the hands-onseminars held in conjunction with one of theleading Christian worship music publishers.

Peavey Teachei Interns (PT1)

Realizing that the education a potential Peaveyemployee receives in his/her formative years isvital to that prospective employee in theworkplace, Peavey Electronics instituted PTI tointroduce elementary, secondary andpostsecondary teachers to the world of work.During the summer, teachers are placed in avariety of jobs at different plant and officelocations. Because Peavey manufactures morethan 90 percent of all of the materials utilized inits production process, this offers a uniqueopportunity to enhance the teachers' knowledgeand experiences in a practical sense in almostevery known occupational category. Since theinternational headquarters is located in the samecity as 75 percent of the manufacturing capacityand all of the research and development groups,Peavey exposes teachers to a wide variety ofsituations that require them to think just as aworker does and how a student should.

The components of "lifelong learning" as well as"work-based learning" are reinforced in practicalways so that the teachers see and experiencethe relative skill requirements that should betaught in schools.

Learn to Work (LTW)

In 1995, Peavey's commitment to thebetterment of high school education

throughout the nation took a giant stepforward when Peavey Director of EducationJere Hess and Mississippi State UniversityPhysics Professor, Dr. Sandra Harpoleteamed up as CoPrincipal Investigators toobtain a $1.3 million National ScienceFoundation grant entitled "Transition to theWorkplace Through ManufacturingExperiences." This national school-to-workmodel was for a five-yearperiod and entailed bringing teachers intoindustrial settings in order for them to learnapplications that would benefit their students.Spending time in the different work settingsfrom engineering to quality assurance atPeavey Electronics, teachers from all over theUnited States are able to utilize practicalapplications of some of the lessons they teachin the school room. Dubbed LTW, thisinitiative is exactly that: learning to work. Inyears past, that factor was one of thefoundations of the most productiveindustrialized nations in the world.Regrettably, learning how to work became alessor priority in recent times.

Each summer during the five-year period, atotal of 48 teachers spend two weeks on theUniversity's campus learning theory and oneweek in some of the thirty-three locations ofPeavey Electronics learning how to apply thattheory in practical ways that students canrelate to and understand. Teachers from allover the United States can take advantage ofthis unique three week experience.

Promise

For purposes of this paper, this section will dealwith the results of some of the above programsand on issues that need to be handled in thefuture. Three significant areas show promiseand at the same time show some extremechallenges.

The first area is that of our experience with theNational Science Foundation grant-fundedLearn to Work program So far, some 60 highschool teachers have participated in the

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program over the last two years. We havelearned that the complete lack of knowledge,understanding and exposure of teachers to the"insides" of business and industry is morewidespread than we originally thought. Therewere few exceptions, and those teachers weregenerally associated with vocational schools ordepartments. Even these teachers, however,were limited in their understanding ofoccupations outside of traditional "blue collar"jobs. They were amazed to see and talk withdesign engineers, purchasing agents,automated test equipment engineers, printingpress operators, art directors, machinedesigners and workers that actually buildproduction machines.

A typical example of what they said are thesequotes from John Thyren, teacher at PrincetonHigh School in Princeton, Minnesota: "I am aphysics teacher and have been so for threeyears. I'll be teaching at Wabasha HighSchool next year, but I will teach Physics,Biology, Physical Science, and Electronics."

Question: Did you know what theprogram hoped to achieve when youapplied and got accepted?

Thyren: "Not really. The way I saw it wasthey were trying to figure out how to getindustry involved in education. What I'mfinding out now is that it has been verybroad-based. The stuff here at Peavey hasbeen very interesting. As a teacher, you'rein your own little world and it is kind ofhectic. Every day is a new day, and I makepreparations for four different classes. Butwe tend to lose track of what it is like in thereal world, and kids are asking us what do Ineed to know this for? We usually givethem a general answer like, 'Well, it's not somuch what you'll be using this for, it's justthat we're trying to teach you to be goodlearners.' Now, by the end of this next year,they're going to be sick of me mentioningthe Peavey Electronics, but I'll be able tosay, 'At Peavey, we did this and that andsaw how they applied it. These people have

to be proficient in measuring very precisevalues and these people use computers forthis and that. I can now come back with aspecific example of a specific application."

Question: What went on at MississippiState the week before you came toPeavey? Did they prepare you forthis week?

Thyren: There was some of that. We havemany different backgrounds. There wereteachers from all areas so they had to giveus some basic fundamentals. We builtsome circuit boards, an amplifier and aspeaker, just out of ordinary householditems. They didn't sound high fidelity by anymeans, but it was interesting, and I plan onusing it in my classroom as an activity.Another big thing we have been doing isworking with the Internet. Back homepeople would say things about the Internetand I would always say, 'Yeah, I've browsedthe Internet, I've surfed the web,' but I havebeen learning more about that how it works.I spoke with the Webmaster at Peavey andhe answered a lot of questions I hadheexplained it so well. We have developedour own web pages and they're on theMississippi State server. Now we are goingto go back and do some graphical thingsand a lot of it will be directly related to ourexperience here at Peavey. For me thishas been an exciting week. I am a guitarplayer and I own a Peavey amplifier. So tobe here for this, it is amazing."

Question: What did you think when youheard Peavey was involved in thisprogram?

Thyren: "I thought, wow this is right up myalley. I do this kind of thing in theclassroom. I write silly little science songsand I talk about guitars and speakers, andthe kids like that a lot. So this will just addto my knowledge of all of that. I've neverhad guts enough to open up themicrophones. I have to check them out, so

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to actually have the opportunity to go on theline and build one myself and see how the[assembly] line works and how it isdesigned it was very exciting! I've seenso many things, that I don't really know howI'll be able to use them yet, but I'll be in theclassroom, and someone will asks me aquestion about why learn this and it willcome to me like a light."

Challenge

There is great promise in engaging students inexciting and pertinent learning, but there is somuch to be done as evidenced by the lack ofbusiness knowledge by teachers. The LTWprogram will be over in two years and we willhave directly impacted only 156 teachers. Ifthese teachers do as we plan and secure abusiness partner in their communities and ifthey participate in an in-service training with allof the teachers in the high school in theircommunity, then we will have made someimpact on 32,000 teachers, still hardly enoughto really make a difference. A similar programmust be adopted at the national level andcontinued in every school district in America.

Promise & Challenge

Peavey is involved with a community-wide effortdubbed Math Matters, the result of a joint effort ofemployers and community college leaders. Toomany potential employees, especially those rightout of high school, fail to meet entry level jobrequirements. The predominant reason forfailure is lack of mathematical ability even at abasic level. This is also true in the workplacewhere the number one reason for someonefailing to be promoted is math. A classicexample at Peavey is that whenever we begin anin-house class on blueprint reading, invariably wemust scrap the first lesson and go back to basicmathematics to prepare the class for the ability toread the dimensions on the blueprints.

Math Matters has embarked on establishing acertification process such that if passed, the

individual could be hired by communitybusinesses. If the person does not pass, hecannot be certified and therefore would beineligible for these jobs. Obviously, the outcomeof this venture will have national ramifications, asthe problem encountered is no different in anyother region of the USA. Models of this type willneed to be funded from a national perspective.

Peavey, like most other businesses, has had totake the talent available and train it throughprograms described in the first part of this essay.We, like most other businesses, are seekingbetter alternatives. The current methods areexpensive and take a lot of time, both of whichlimit our ability to compete in the global market.

It would seem that what makes sense and isfinancially beneficial in the long run is forbusinesses and federal and state governmentsto join together to make the issue of earlychildhood training and development the missionfor all. The amount of money wasted inretraining and rehabilitating adults can be betterused for the long-term betterment of all.

This challenge is a big one that needs study andimplementation at the federal, state and locallevel. Head Start and Title I need to bereinvented with the idea that public educationshould start at age three and not age five or six.Businesses like Peavey desperately needemployable graduates from the public schoolsthey help finance. School-to-work must begin atan earlier age than present programs providefor. Time is running out, since the employees of12 to 14 years from now, and all those betweennow and then, have already missed out on manyopportunities. Action must be taken now.

Jere Hess is the Director of Public Relations, Education& Training at Peavey Electronics. Mr. Hess serves as amember on several Boards, including the MeridianSchool District, the Public Education Forum inMississippi, Meridian Workforce Council and the PublicRelations Association of Mississippi.

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ERGING THE EUROPEAN AND AMERICAN SYSTEMSJohn P. Tobin

emens CorporationbySi

Siemens is the world's sixth largestelectrical/electronics manufacturer. Itwas established in 1847 and is

headquartered in Germany; it has 382,000employees in 190 countries. In the UnitedStates it has 47,000 employees at 82manufacturing and assembly sites with $8billion in sales. Siemens Stromberg-Carlson,which is headquartered in Boca Raton, Floridaand is an operating company of SiemensCorporation in New York City, is atechnological and marketing leader in thetelecommunications industry. It is the thirdlargest public network supplier in the UnitedStates, with approximately 3,100 employeesinvolved in designing, manufacturing andmarketing digital central office switchingsystems, cell switching systems, packetswitching systems and fiber-optic transmissionproducts.

In 1991, the Lake Mary, Florida, plant ofSiemens Stromberg-Carlson needed technicalworkers but could not find enough skilledpeople to fill the jobs. For example, Siemenstraditionally hired graduates from a vocationaltechnical school or a community college to fillinstallation technician positions in demand, butit took up to one year until new employeeswere able to perform the job well. Theseemployees lacked both theoretical knowledgeof telecommunications and practicalproficiency in cabling, fastening,troubleshooting, schematics reading andnomenclatures.

Combining the Best ofGermany and America

To meet this problem, Siemens has built aneducation-business partnership that integrates

the German "dual system" of apprenticeshiptraining and the American educational systemto produce some of the best-trainedtelecommunications technicians in thecountry. It combines academics andelectronics theory and lab experiences, taughtin Seminole County high schools and atSeminole Community College (SCC), withhands-on training at the specially constructedSiemens Apprenticeship Training Center andin the highly technical Siemens factory. Highschool and college instructors provideeducation in the schools while a Germanmeister brought from one of the company'sGerman locations provides the training at theSiemens factory and the SiemensApprenticeship Training Center.

The Siemens-SCC partnership is a combinedTech Prep and youth apprenticeship model.High school seniors do an unpaid internship(five hours a week) at the Siemensapprenticeship lab. Those who complete theinternship and are accepted into SCC receivea $1,000 scholarship from Siemens, and thecompany provides each student with a yearlystipend of about $4,500 for his or her on-the-job training. Students are exempt from payingtuition and lab fees because the program is aregistered apprenticeship program, and thestate of Florida exempts apprentices fromsuch fees. Siemens estimates it will investbetween $18,000 and $20,000 per graduatingstudent over the course of the tech prepprogram. This investment is less than the on-the-job training costs for a full-time employee.

Students apply for the program through theirhigh school counselors. They are picked onthe basis of grades and completion of certaincourses. Approximately 20 students are

42;1.

admitted to the postsecondary program eachyear. All students of the first three graduatingclasses have qualified for a full-time job at oneof Siemens' 14 U.S. operating companies, inthe positions of test technician, manufacturingtechnician, installation technician, installationspecialist, engineer aid, customer engineerand system engineer.

The first three classes of students haveoutscored their German counterparts in theSiemens exit skills examination. This is thesame highly technical performance-basedexamination administered in Germany by thecountry's Chamber of Industry and Commerce.The exam (there is a new one each year)covers such areas as measuring digital andanalog signals, troubleshooting and repair ofan exam unit in accordance with industrystandards and producing a project accordingto blueprints.

Siemens Corporation's Youth ApprenticeshipProgram has grown to involve 25 sitesnationally in 18 cities with 115 high schoolstudents and 209 adults. It uses the LakeMary project model at its five Centers ofExcellence, in California, Florida, Georgia,Kentucky and North Carolina.

Program Development

Developing an electronics andtelecommunications apprenticeship programthat provides a seamless curriculum from highschool through job placement has been achallenging yet exciting effort. Even theoriginal electronics apprenticeship curriculumthat was brought over from Germany provideda challenge--it was written in German and hadto be translated into English. It had, howeverbeen "benchmarked" to rigorous internationalhigh performance standards.

Preliminary Evaluation

It was easier to work out a youthapprenticeship program agreement in Lake

Mary because SCC and the county public highschools already were involved in a Tech Prepprogram that articulated a student's movementinto the community college segment of hiseducation. To "merge" the curriculum for theyouth apprenticeship initiative, faculty andadministrators from SCC and StrombergCarlson Public Schools (SCPS) metextensively with Siemens representatives.Each course had to be evaluated not only foreach competency but also by level ofachievement for each competency. Siemensevaluated the schools' technical courses andits courses in math, science andcommunications.

After Siemens evaluated the SCC and SCPSelectronics/telecommunications facilities, itrenovated part of its existing training centerinto a corresponding lab that would be used toteach specific hands-on skills. Siemens laterdecided to move the lab to SCC and renovatefour classrooms and labs to provide a corporatelook that would attract both students and otherindustry partners. Competitors, customers,vendors and other Siemens companies wouldprefer to participate in a program that is locatedat a neutral college site rather than in acorporate-identified Siemens site.

Staff Development

Before the program started, Siemenssponsored and financed a trip to Germany forthe SCC and SCPS electronics programmanagers, who reviewed the Germanapprenticeship model of training with an eyetoward incorporating parts of it into theprogram. Locally, participating instructors tookadvantage of staff development workshops inareas such as applied academics andintegrating academic and vocational training.

Overcoming Obstacles

Perhaps one of the greatest challenges indeveloping the system was overcoming the"bureaucratic" restraints of the public

46 2

education system to appropriately integrate theneeds of business. For instance, the schoolsystem had to shorten its timelines to meet thetimelines of Siemens. Here are just a few ofthe issues that had to be addressed:

Traditional public school schedules had tobe modified from 50-minute periods tolonger blocks of time to allow for the requiredon-the-job training at the Siemens factory.SCC had to circumvent the normalpurchasing procedures so it could outfit itsnew labs more quickly.Typical registration procedures had to bemodified to enable program participants toregister in groups. There were times whenpersonnel from counseling, admissions andregistration went to the Siemens plant toperform these functions with students.At the postsecondary level, special classesfor math, science and communications werecreated especially for the Siemens programparticipants and not listed on the generalprinted schedule.The curriculum outcomes had to meetinternationally benchmarked standardsnomenclature had to be changed as did thedelivery of training to fit a project/productorientation.

All these tasks were accomplished, but onlymuch planning and communication among allof the partners. Most important, all of thepartners had to develop a genuine trust of oneanother, and their communication had to betotally honest. Working together closely hasbeen and continues to be an essentialcomponent of the partnership. Everyone mustbe willing to keep an open mind and continuallysearch for ways to improve the system.

Working together to hire instructors who wereacceptable to both parties has beenchallenging. Admission criteria requested bySiemens had to be carefully examined toensure that it was "valid and fair." Some of thestudents had considerable trouble with thehigher-level math courses, and both partieshad to arrange for tutors. Through their

efforts, the partners were able to develop andimplement a seamless school-to-careerselectronics and telecommunications program.

Systemic Reform

Systemic reform has been and continues to bea major thrust throughout SCPS and SCC.These institutions already had made manysystemic changes to create one of Florida'sexemplary Tech Prep systems, and theyincorporated even more during thedevelopment of the partnership with Siemens.SCPS and SCC have set high academicstandards as well as high skill standards forthis program.

High school students must complete at leastAlgebra II and Principles of Technology II.Postsecondary students must have the mathskills required to enter college algebra. Toobtain a degree they must complete collegealgebra, trigonometry and general physics.

The educational institutions also are reachingbeyond students in the apprenticeship programto enable all students to be successful in somephase of today's highly technologicalworkforce. For instance, SCPS and SCCprovide alternative opportunities for students tomaster math and science skills. Consequently,every high school in Seminole County offersapplied math and science courses as analternative to the traditional "academic" mathand science courses. School-to-careersopportunities are made available to every highschool student, and every high school programthat is part of the Tech Prep system has adefined curriculum with an articulationagreement linking it to a corresponding SCCprogram.

Siemens fully supports this concept and theseefforts because it realizes that a bettereducation system benefits not only studentsbut also employers and the economy ingeneral. Siemens itself will benefit from theseefforts because the highly technological field oftelecommunications requires all its employees,

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not just engineers and technicians, to have ahigher level of math and science skills.

John P. Tobin has served as Director of SiemensApplied Technology Training for the past five years. Inthis capacity, he supports CEO Albert Hoser and theSiemens Presidents' Council in developing youthapprenticeship (school-to-worWschool-to-career) typeactivities, incumbent worker upgrade apprenticeships,community college adult apprenticeships and standardsdevelopment for these programs.

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IVING STUDENTS A SOLID STARTKevin Healey

NUM Corporation

UNUM Corporation is the nation'sleading provider of disability insuranceproducts and services, and a provider

of employee benefits and long-term careinsurance. UNUM believes every graduatingstudent should have the skills, knowledge andexperience to pass smoothly from high schoolto the workplace or postsecondary education.As a member of a statewide coalition foreducation reform, we have committed to areform agenda calling upon schools to ensurethat every student leaves school with cleargoals for their career or continued education aswell as the skills and preparation to take thenext step. For the past five years, UNUM hashelped non-college-bound .students prepare forlife in the workplace with programs servingyoung people of different ages in a variety ofsettings. In the process, we have learned a lotabout the challenges these programs presentto schools, businesses and students.

In most schools today, students who plan tocontinue their education at a two- or four-yearcollege can get the support and preparationthey need to make the transition. For otherstudents, schools fall short. Many who dropout of school have few plans and littlepreparation to enter the workplace. Evenstudents who stay in school through graduationfrequently leave with no clear plans or solidskills to find and keep a job. UNUM's supportfor school-to-work programs has helpedschools begin to give those students the samesolid start offered to college-bound students.

UNUM has taken part in the Maine CareerAdvantage program since it began in 1992.Each year, we provide four positions forinterns, who generally stay with the companythrough the two-year program. Since many of

our jobs involve customer service and claimsprocessing, our interns work along side ourregular employees in those areas. In someinstances, students have worked inaccounting, events planning and other areasof the company. UNUM managers work withthe interns' teachers to make sure theworkplace experience meets the company'slabor needs and the students' academicrequirements for grade advancement andgraduation. About half of the interns havetaken full-time jobs with UNUM at the end ofthe program.

Through grants from its charitable foundation,UNUM has also supported Jobs for Maine'sGraduates (JMG). JMG offers three programsin local schools to serve students from gradessix through twelve. UNUM's first grant to JMGhelped establish the school-to-work programat Portland High School. This programprovides career planning and job competencyclasses for high school seniors followed bynine months of post-graduation counseling tohelp young graduates find and keep a job.Another JMG project, the OpportunityAwareness Program, helps keep at-riskfreshmen, sophomores and juniors in school.It aims at keeping them engaged in school lifewhile preparing them for graduation withclasses in career planning and job-related skilldevelopment.

This year a new grant from UNUM helpedJMG introduce an early intervention programin one of Portland's middle schools. ProjectReach encourages at-risk seventh graders tostay in school. The program steers youngstudents away from risky behavior by helpingthem understand how the choices anddecisions they make can shape their future. It

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also provides remedial courses in academicsubjects to help students catch up or keep upwith their peers. Project Reach specialistsprovide counseling and even advocacy fortheir young students to help them cope withparticularly stressful and chaotic times.

Lessons Learned

Our involvement with these programs hastaught us six valuable lessons about what ittakes to start a program, keep it going andmeasure its success:

From the start, everyone involved mustbelieve in the value of the program andtake responsibility for its success.

It requires a real partnership amongbusiness people, students, policy leadersand local educators. They must believeequally in the goals of the program and thesincerity of their partners. Getting programslike these off the ground takes a lot of workand obstacles will crop up. Without a strongteam in place, those obstacles becomebarriers to success.

Every partner should commit resourcesto the program.

No single organization or segment of thepartnership should carry the whole financialburden. Sharing costs means that allpartners have a measurable stake in theprogram, and it shows that they haveinstitutionalized their commitment.

Having the commitment of corporateleaders does not mean that the rest of thebusiness organization will execute.

For example, if a program includes bringingstudents into the workplace as interns orapprentices within the business, one personmust have responsibility for selling the ideato company managers, human resourcepersonnel and employees. This shouldinclude a thoughfful explanation of why the

program matters to the company andassistance for managers and employeesincorporating interns into their operation. Italso requires recognition that the programmay impose an added burden formanagement training and communication.

Make sure you put an evaluation systemin place from the start.

Having a clear agreement to measure andrecord the results for students and thebusiness will help sustain a successfulprogram.

Make sure you keep the programavailable to all students.

Any program that focuses too narrowly onone group of students can quicklystigmatize participants and discourage otherstudents who could benefit fromgetting involved.

Not all students will stay in the program,but that does not make it a failure.

In our experience, some students began thetwo-year internship program but withdrew tobegin a college preparation program. Theworkplace experience gave them a chanceto explore one career path. We see it as asuccess if the experience prompted somestudents to think about the future and makeanother choice that seems better suited totheir needs and interests.

Kevin Healey is currently the Director of CorporatePublic Involvement for UNUM Corooration,headquartered in Portland, Maine. His currentresponsibilities include the operation of the UNUMFoundation and management of community relationsprograms in Greater Portland and UNUM subsidiarybusinesses in the United States, Canada and the UnitedKingdom.

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BUILDING A SUPPORT STRUCTURE TAKES TIM

The Capital Area Training Foundation(CATF) was created in April, 1994 bybusiness and community leaders who

wanted to build paths to high-wage, high skillcareers for young people in the Austin, Texasarea. The by-laws of this nonprofit 501(c)3organization require that at least 67 percent ofthe Board of Directors be representatives ofindustry. The Board is chaired by GlennWest, President and CEO of the GreaterAustin Chamber of Commerce.

The idea to create a new, employer-ledorganization to assist in the development of aschool-to-work transition system came afterfive years of study and research by thebusiness community. This interest evolvedfrom a concern for education reform into arealization that the business community mustjoin with educators to co-create a system ofeducation and training that prepares youngpeople for the constantly changing world ofwork.

The Lyndon B. Johnson School of PublicAffairs at the University of Texas (LBJ) wasinstrumental in bringing to the attention ofarea business leaders the latest informationfrom around the world regarding school-to-work transitions. LBJ's Dr. Bob Glover andKenneth Todd developed a research reportentitled "Bridging the Gap: ImplementingSchool-to-Work Transition in Austin, Texas,"under contract with the Greater AustinChamber of Commerce, Austin AreaResearch Organization, the City of Austin andthe Austin Independent School District. Thisreport laid the framework for what became theCapital Area Training Foundation. Efforts tocreate this new organization were greatly

by Mary DoCapital Area Training Foundati

enhanced by the enthusiastic support of MayorBruce Todd, who called for the establishmentof a school-to-work system in Austin after a1993 visit to the Handwerkskammer, theChamber of Small-and-Medium-Sized Trades,in Austin's German sister city, Koblenz.

CATF applied for School-to-Work Opportunitygrants in the summer of 1994. From October,1994 through August, 1997, the CATFreceived just over $1.4 million in LocalPartnership grants from the National School-to-Work Office as "venture capital" to build aschool-to-work system. CATF also received$40,000 in Urban/Rural Opportunities Grantsfrom the National School-to-Work Office forefforts to ensure that students in the highpoverty area attending Johnston High Schooland its feeder middle and elementary schoolsare assured access to emerging opportunities.Additional CATF funding is provided by theCity of Austin, Travis County and investmentsfrom local business.

Student and Teacher Issues

Internships have been the most successfulforms of work-based learning to date, perhapsbecause this is where we have put most of ourfocus. There is also some interest in exploringweek-long job shadowing exercises that arestructured to introduce students to real worldwork environments and case studies.

Internship recruitment is focused on studentsenrolled in career pathways related to theindustry. For instance, students enrolled in thecriminal justice academy have opportunities forpaid internships with law enforcementagencies and law firms. Students in

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electronics programs have opportunities forinternships with high-tech manufacturers.Students in marketing co-op, culinary arts andhospitality classes have opportunities forinternships with hotels, travel companies andretail stores. This arrangement works foremployers because the student interns haveestablished an interest in their industry and aremore likely to view the internship as a learningexperience, not just a summer job. Thisarrangement works for students because itgives them practical, real world experiencesthey can take with them to the classroom inthe fall and provides them with workexperience and professional contacts that maybe useful in the future.

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), a semi-conductor manufacturer in Austin, haspartnered with CATF and two local schooldistricts for the past three years to developAccelerated Careers in Electronics (ACE).ACE combines an Electronics Tech Prepcourse sequence with opportunities for paidsummer internships and college scholarships.The company has provided more than 70internships over the past three summers. TheInterns participate in three half-day seminarson work-readiness skills before they begintheir internships. Once on-site, they attend afull day AMD orientation session. Studentsand their mentors develop a work plan andstudents are periodically evaluated on theirprogress. Mentors receive special training toprepare them for the experience of workingwith a young student learner. Students andmentors complete separate evaluations of theprogram so it can be continuously improved.Monthly meetings between all partners keepcommunication lines open and provide anopportunity to deal with problems as theyarise.

CATF and AMD are working together to putthe ACE program and all training materials,work plans and other internship informationinto a format that can be easily adapted foruse by other corporations. The goal is that

CATF will assume some of the administrativeresponsibilities of the ACE program andexpand it to other schools and high-techemployers. (See pp. 1-2 for additionalinformation on AMD's involvement in school-to-work.)

Lessons Learned AboutWorking With Students

Some of the lessons we have learned aboutdeveloping successful internship programs are:

Medium to large size companies shoulddevelop a specific process for interviewing,hiring and assimilating interns that isseparate from their usual employmentprocess.Students gain more from the experiencewhen they have a preparatory seminar that:acclimates them to the corporate culturethey are about to enter; surveys some ofthe work readiness skills they will need tosucceed; and encourages them to view theinternship as a learning experience, not justa summer job.Employer mentor training is very helpful inpreparing the supervisors of young people.Work plans and periodic reviews of theintern by their supervisor help studentsknow what is expected of them and givethem useful feedback.A third party, neutral contact is helpful forboth the student and employer, interveningwhen there are problems and offeringsupport and encouragement when needed.

Employers are usually surprised with thestudents' level of maturity and the extent towhich the interns are able to contribute tothe company. Employers who follow thesuggestions above are much more likely tobe interested in continuing or expandingtheir internship program in future years thanare those who attempted to fit interns inthrough the regular hiring process.

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System Building Issues

The industries that have been most active inschool-to-work are those that are having themost difficulty finding qualified workers.CATF has organized industry steeringcommittees in the following sectors:construction, criminal justice, high-tech andconsumer services (which includes the areasof hospitality, food service, tourism and retail).Employers in these industries have viewedschool-to-work as an opportunity to introducethe workforce of tomorrow to the careeropportunities and options in their industry.Our best partners see school-to-work as anecessary part of their workforcedevelopment strategy rather than acommunity service. Industry sectors thathave been less responsive to school-to-workovertures are those that have undergonesignificant restructuring, merging anddownsizing, such as the health care and thefinancial services industries.

Building a successful school-to-work systemrequires a new level of awareness amongschool personnel and employers. We arevery pleased that six individuals whopreviously worked for CATF as CareerSpecialists have been hired by various schooldistricts to help implement school-to-work inthose districts. When CATF was formed in1994, we planted the seeds of CareerCenters and Career Specialists with schools.These seeds have now taken root in thesystem. We see this as a success. While wewill no longer place CATF staff persons inschools, we will continue to work with schoolsto support their school-to-work initiatives.

CATF will now focus on building an EmployerSupport System. We are convinced that thesignificant changes in attitude andreceptiveness to school-to-work on the part ofschool board members, schooladministrators, teachers, parents and thecommunity-at-large are due in great part tothe unified voice of industry that CATF has

helped to foster. Industry sectors can nowcommunicate their common interests toeducators, parents and students. Industrysteering committees provide employers anopportunity to pool their efforts and target theircorporate actions to make changes that willhave a lasting impact on their industry.

The Construction Industry Steering Committeecreated and oversees an adult trainingprogram that has resulted in hundreds of newworkers for the construction industry and hasworked with a high school to develop aconstruction academy. The High TechSteering Committee has overseen theestablishment of ten new electronics programsas well as new programs in local areanetworking and engineering design graphics.The Consumer Services Committee hostsCareer Fairs for co-op students and studentsinterested in summer internships and is alsodeveloping a training program for adults.

The opportunities for communication providedby industry steering committees go both ways.Educators in related areas are included on theIndustry Steering Committee rosters and areinvited to most meetings. Teachers meet withemployers as professional peers who can learnfrom each other and work together to build abetter system.

Employer engagement is critical to ensure thatthe school-to-work system continuouslyevolves and changes so that it remainsrelevant to the real world. If we lose this activeemployer involvement, school programs arelikely to become frozen to the status quo andtwenty years from now we will once again findourselves with an education system that is outof date and out of touch with the economy.

Mary Dodd is an Industry Liaison with the Capital AreaTraining Foundation, and works with industry groups andschools to develop school-to-work partnerships. Ms.Dodd worked with Advanced Micro Devices to createAccelerated Careers in Electronics program in 1995.

53

THE CONNECTION FOR ALL STUDENTSby William Diehl

The Corporation for Business, Work and Learning

The Corporation for Business, Work, andLearning (CBWL) was recently formedthrough the merger of Bay State Skills

Corporation and the Industrial ServicesProgram, two quasi-public agenciesestablished in the 1980s to assist with theeconomic revitalization of Massachusetts.CBWL is a development, demonstration andtechnical assistance organization thatprovides services to promote businessmodernization, economic growth andopportunities for gainful and fulfillingemployment. To this end, CBWL:

educates, trains and motivates individualsto maximize their productive potential in theworkplace;assists companies, entrepreneurs andindustry groups to be more competitive andto benefit the workforce; anddesigns, tests, and disseminates newapproaches to business operations,program delivery, teaching and learning toinform and influence the practices ofindustry, education and government.

Among other responsibilities, CBWL managesthe Massachusetts ManufacturingPartnerships, the New England SuppliersInstitute, a number of incumbent and newworker training programs, the JTPA Title lland III programs and the EconomicStabilization Trust. CBWL works withhundreds of manufacturers, service providers,businesses and educational institutionsthroughout the Commonwealth.

CBWL's Center for Youth Development andEducation (CYDE) oversees a number ofinitiatives in youth development and school-to-work. Since 1992, CYDE has worked withschools and school departments, community

organizations, postsecondary institutions,employers and state agencies to promoteeducation reform, build effective school-to-work transition programs and systems anddevelop models and strategies that serve at-risk and out-of-school youth. Two majorefforts in the school-to-work area areCommunities and SChools for Career Success(CS2) and Diploma Plus.

CS2 is a multi-community initiative, begun in1992, with funding from private foundationsprincipally from the DeWitt Wallace-Reader'sDigest Fund; the Noyce, Hearst, Aetna and TheNew England Foundations; and local schooldistricts and state grants. Its mission is toestablish enduring connections between middleand high schools and community resources tocreate a coherent sequence of services andexperiences that will help young people makesuccessful transitions to their adultresponsibilities of further education, training andemployment. The key innovation of CS2 is thedeployment in each community of a small teamof intermediaries and change agents, known as"school-community entrepreneurs," to organize,facilitate and support important reform initiativesat the school and school district levels.Consisting of two or three entrepreneurs at themiddle and high school levels and one at theschool district and community level, the CS2teams work closely with broad-based communitypartnerships, made up of representatives fromall the major stakeholding groups in thecommunity students, parents, teachers,school administrators, businesses, institutions ofhigher education, cultural institutions,government agencies and community-basedorganizations.

CYDE supports them through: ongoingtraining and technical assistance, workshops,

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task forces and other opportunities to meetand share ideas, cross-site projects,information about best practice, usefulpublications, grant opportunities and otherresources around the state and country.

CS2 is currently being implemented by sixpartnerships involving eight Massachusettscities. In these six sites, 30 middle and highschools, 127 private companies, 14institutions of higher education, 43community-based organizations and anumber of other stakeholders areparticipating partners in CS2. In the last sixmonths of 1996, more than 600 businesses,community-based organizations, culturalinstitutions and colleges provided new orexpanded learning experiences for close to25,000 students in CS2-initiated activities. In

these six sites, CS2 is closely connected tothe school-to-work efforts, in some casesserving as demonstration sites for theschool-to-work partnership and in othercases serving as the convener and staff ofthe school-to-work partnership.

Diploma Plus, launched in 1996, is targetedspecifically at out-of-school and at-risk youth.Currently being implemented in four sites inBoston and under development in severalother Massachusetts cities, Diploma Plus is atwo-year program that provides anaccelerated route to a high school diplomaand a bridge to postsecondary education andcareers. In the first year, participants mastercore academic competencies and life skills.In the second (or "plus") year, studentsconcentrate on acquiring the academic,personal and career-related skills necessaryfor transition after high school. The plusyear activities include community collegecoursework and work-based learninginternships or community serviceplacements. Hence, through Diploma Plusand CS2, CBWL has been directly involvedwith the design and implementation ofschool-to-work efforts.

Student and Teacher Issues

Work-Based Experiences

In the sites in which CBWL has beeninvolved with school-to-work, an array ofwork-based experiences have beeninstituted. The easiest to plan andimplement have been the activities identifiedby National Employer Leadership Council as"career exploration." Career talks, careerfairs, job shadowing and other short-termactivities have generally been the easiest toplan and manage from both the employerand school perspective, and the sites haveincreased student participation in suchactivities by 75 percent over the last twoyears (to a participation level of 22,362).While these activities are easiest to plan andimplement, they also are short-term and notparticularly rich academic or SCANS-basedlearning experiences.

At the other end of the continuum, work-based experiences lasting for a period oftime are rich in experiential learning and aretied directly to school-based academiclearning and SCANS skills. They are alsothe hardest to plan and implement. Our CS2sites have substantially increased thenumber of students (from 380 to 1,966 overa two-year period) involved in ongoing,workplace-related experiences such asinternships, mentoring, apprenticeships andclasses in which business partners havehelped to shape the curriculum, but thoseexperiences are still only available to arelatively small percentage of students.

The major issue in providing work-basedexperiences is that of scale: given theavailable resources and employer partners,it is possible to provide short-term careerexposure experiences to most students, butit is not possible to provide longer-term, richwork-based learning experiences to morethan 15 to 25 percent of students.

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Selection, Recruitment, Retention Issues

Massachusetts recently enacted an EducationReform Act that includes rigorous academicstandards and a time-and-learningrequirement. Schools throughout the statehave restructured in order to provide therequired time in each of the core disciplines.While the School-to-Work Opportunities Actpermits work-based and community-basedlearning to be counted towards time-and-learning, these experiences must be directlylinked to core curriculum areas. Theserequirements have, in many cases, made itmore difficult to recruit students, especially forlong-term and intensive work-basedexperiences. At the same time, many schoolshave moved to long-block scheduling, and thishas allowed greater use of project-basedlearning and infusion of work-based examplesinto the curriculum.

In addition, the typical problems of all school-to-work efforts transportation, liability issues,child labor laws have presented challenges.In rural areas, lack of transportation and thepaucity of available worksites have been majorchallenges. In several of our partnerships,especially where manufacturing firms aremajor employers, liability issues posedproblems for extensive work-based learning forstudents. Generally, however, we found thatwhere there was a strong local school-to-workpartnership and a commitment from the schooldistrict, these problems were surmountable.

The students themselves have rarelypresented a challenge in terms of selection,recruitment and retention. In our experience,well-designed work-based learningexperiences are of great interest to students,selection can be competitive and students tendto stay in the placement out of their owninterest.

In terms of out-of-school and at-risk students,Diploma Plus is aimed directly at linkingschool-to-work with programs for out-of-schoolyouth. The CS2 communities have also been

leaders in involving community-basedorganizations, community education agencies,parents and other community stakeholders inthe school-to-work efforts. Springfield's"Provider Network" of CBOs serving at-risk andout-of-school youth, for example, has becomea model in the state for how to integrateschool-based and community-based effortsaround career development activities. Thisnetwork, which includes such organizations ascommunity centers, rehabilitation agencies, theYWCA and Junior Achievement of WesternMassachusetts, as well as programs atSpringfield Technical Community College andthe Gender Equity Center of WesternMassachusetts, provides a range of services

mentoring, information and referrals aboutcareer development and health and humanservices, counseling, tutoring and other extra"connecting activities" for the most at-riskyoung people in Springfield. Generally, wehave found that quality work-based learningexperiences are good motivators for at-riskstudents and can be a means to re-engagethem in academic learning. Additional supportservices are often needed, however, for thesestudents. Employers also often needadditional preparation and coaching in order towork most effectively with these students.

Staff Development

Professional development for educators andcurriculum enhancement are two strategiesthat all CS2 and Diploma Plus teams are usingto affect major and long-lasting improvementsin academic and career outcomes for students.Because of the recently enactedMassachusetts Education Reform Act, andbecause of significant constraints inestablishing a large number of work-basedlearning experiences, our partnerships havetended to focus on the strategy of integratingcareer development, SCANS and school-to-work principles into the middle school and highschool curriculum. CS2 has initiated, or helpedto initiate, more than 65 workshops, studygroups and curriculum writing groups forteachers. More than 1,100 teachers

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participated in these and other CS2-sponsoredactivities in just the six month period of July,1996 to January, 1997.

The most important lesson here has been thatthese efforts need to be closely integrated withthe professional and curriculum developmentefforts already underway in school districts.Staff development in school-to-work has beenmost successful when school-to-work partnershave added value to staff and curriculumdevelopment by: (1) the infusion of careerdevelopment strategies and activities, (2) thepromulgation of active learning techniques thatare rich in SCANS skills (such as project-basedlearning), (3) holistic approaches promotingrigorous academic learning and careerdevelopment at the same time, (4) integratingand enhancing the efforts of what had beenseparate initiatives (e.g. MassachusettsEducation Reform, school-to-work, thestatewide math and science reform effort,service-learning) and (5) involving employersand community partners in the process.

System Building Issues

Employer Activity

Across the CS2 sites, the employers who havetended to be the most active in systemdevelopment have been in the health care andfinancial services industries. Large retail firmsand large manufacturers (those with more than50 employees) have also been active. Theseare employers who have sufficient resources todevote personnel time to partnership meetings,systemic planning, oversight and time-intensiveactivities such as curriculum development.Other employment sectors and smaller firmshave been active in providing career exposureand workplace learning opportunities. Theseemployers have almost uniformly been willingto participate if the request was specific andtailored to the constraints faced by theemployer in doing business. Hence, it oftentakes more work to involve small employersand results in fewer student placements thanwith large employers.

In some of our partnership areas, most of theemployment is with small manufacturers, retailshops and other small employers. One of thechallenges of school-to-work is that these smallemployers need to be involved to achieve anykind of scale. We find that existing networks ofsmall employers may be the most fruitful way tobuild involvement. Hence, we are working withnetworks of small manufacturers, the regionalMassachusetts Manufactuhng Partnerships,Chambers of Commerce and other existingnetworks. The challenge here is to get thesenetworkswhich were formed to meet importantemployer goalsto adopt school-to-work as amajor strategy to meet some of their workforcedevelopment goals.

School-Based Organizational Structures

Many of the CS2 high schools have movedtowards adopting a career-pathway model asthe means to promote participation by allstudents. This model appears to be the mostuseful because it can fit with the restructuringoccurring at the high schools as part ofeducation reform. None of the schools hasfully implemented this model yet, butpreliminary work has resulted in many moreteachers infusing career development,SCANS and authentic work-based examplesinto the existing curriculum.

Use of Signaling Standards

Using grades and attendance as standards forparticipation in work-based learning has beena useful practice in some of our schools. InSpringfield, for example, students have foundwork-based learning placements to beappealing, and there is evidence that studentshave worked to improve grades andattendance in order to qualify for suchplacements. At the same time, students insuch placements show improvements inattendance at school. The other advantage tousing signaling standards is that it providesemployers with some assurance that thestudents who are placed with them will attend,will be on time and will complete assignments.

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Issues and Barriers Within theSchool System

Integrating school-to-work into the schools isa very major issue and one that wouldrequire a separate essay to answeradequately. A few of the issues include: (1)teachers do not have enough time,knowledge and/or resources to be activepartners in school-to-work development andtherefore need release time andprofessional development opportunities; (2)to address the many competing demands onthe school systems and individual teachers,school-to-work needs to be planned andarticulated so it is seen as value-added andas an assistance to other efforts, not as "onemore demand" on time and resources; and(3) there tends to be the perception on thepart of school personnel and some parentsthat school-to-work is a glorified vocationaleducation program or is an effort aimed onlyon students not going on to college. Toaddress these issues, school-to-work effortsneed to demonstrate value for all studentsthrough professional development, supportfor work-based learning and links topostsecondary institutions.

Improvement in Planning andImplementation

In Massachusetts, a fairly comprehensive andinclusive process has been used for planningand implementing school-to-work at the stateand local levels. A great deal of time andeffort has been spent building localpartnerships, developing awareness and buy-in at all levels, involving other state and localagencies and developing the infrastructure andcapacity to design and implement school-to-work systems. More time (and hence, funding)is needed for this infrastructure to startdelivering school-to-work programs on a largescale. The state received a five-year grantand local partnerships received three-yeargrants but more time is needed for thepartnerships to become self-sufficient and toachieve wider implementation.

Second, the integration and coordinationbetween school-to-work and other educationreform efforts is a critical issue.Massachusetts has taken many steps towardsthis integration at the state level, but muchremains to be done, especially at thecommunity and classroom levels. Increasedcoordination would help improve many aspectsof the planning and implementation processes,such as scheduling, curriculum development,assessment and professional development.

Support Systems Needed by the EmployerCommunity

In addition to school-to-work, the employercommunity is increasingly being asked to takeon new responsibilities, such as welfare-to-work placements and workforce and workplaceenhancements, which are necessary foreconomic survival. If it is to be increasinglyinvolved, the employer community needs thehelp of intermediary organizations that takeresponsibility for building and sustainingpartnerships with schools, marshalingresources, developing connections betweenacademic and work-based learning, trackingstudents and student progress, working withemployers on mentoring and supervision skillsand developing other strategies to carry outthe goals and objectives of the school-to-workeffort. At the local level, the CS2entrepreneurs serve this function.

The employer community also needsintermediary organizations at the regional andstate levels that can take the experiencegained from building school-to-work systems atthe local level to help guide the design andimplementation of policies and systems at thestate level. The regional and stateintermediary can also provide support,technical assistance, training anddissemination of best-practices to the localpartners. CS2 incorporates this creativemerging of "bottom-up" and "top-down"approaches through the state-level work ofCYDE.

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In our experience, organizations andindividuals who fill this "intermediary" role atthe local and state levels are critical tosuccessful employer involvement and, indeed,to the entire school-to-work effort.

William Diehl, Ed.D., is a Program Manager for theCenter for Youth Development and Education (CYDE) ofthe Corporation for Business, Work and Learning. Mr.Diehl has researched and written articles about bestpractices in school-to-work and education reform. Inaddition to his Program Manager role, he also serves asthe Western Massachusetts Coordinator for CBWL.

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PANNING A REVOLUAT1ON: CAN IT HAPPEN?

by Robert Gordon

County College of Morris

orris/Sussex/Warren School-to-Work Consortium

There has not been a nationwide mediablitz, at least not yet. But even in theabsence of a far-reaching media

campaign, many educators have heard of thenew initiative called school-to-work.

Unfortunately, the majority of professionals inschools and colleges have little or no ideaabout the concept, which is supposed to leadto "systemic change" in how young peoplelearn across the grades. When it comes toparents, employers and all the others whosedaily lives are not spent teaching or supportinginstruction in some way, the level of knowledgeabout school-to-work approaches theinfinitesimal.

Is there any hope, then, that a revolutionaryidea which will enjoy a federal financial boostfor a scant five years can succeed in radicallyaltering how (and even where) children learnand how they eventually make the transition tothe world of work that will occupy much of theiradult lives?

Partnerships operating at the local level havethe potential to bring about the desired changeand develop models that can be replicated byothers. One such partnership, the Morris/Sussex/Warren Consortium in New Jersey, isattempting to turn the dream into reality. Itspans three northern counties and numbers 38high schools and three community collegesamong its nearly 100 members. Theeducational institutions, with community-basedagencies and employers, have all agreed tosupport the goals of school-to-work.

The tri-county region has more than 30,000public high school students who live incommunities ranging from the rural to urban

and suburban, and the area is characterizedby economic and ethnic diversity.

The consortium has a professional staff ofthree (two are part-time On the project) and asecretary, and annual budgets have rangedfrom $175,000 to $298,000. Consequently,delivering on the systemic change envisionedin the legislation has not been easy. Afternearly two years of existence, however, thereis mounting evidence of success and severalspecific ventures have the potential to serveas good examples to emulate.

Much of the energy of the small staff has beendevoted to curriculum development and stafftraining. Both endeavors emphasizeintegrating "real world" activities into theclassroom so that students can see how whatthey have learned is put to use in solvingproblems and completing tasks which oftenoccur in the work setting. Keeping SCANSskills at the forefront, the training programs forteachers, administrators and counselors depicta world in which all contributors need tocollaborate, organize and allocate resources,acquire and use information, employ a varietyof systems and be adept at working withtechnology.

Initially, some teachers and administratorswere reluctant to get on board. Some werelegitimately concerned about an increase inalready heavy workloads. Others said, "It'sjust the old career education modelreintroduced with new packaging--old wine innew bottles." Still others feared that theemphasis on workplace readiness and careerplanning would impede the primary mission of(some) schools: getting seniors into the mostcompetitive four-year colleges and

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Despite the hurdles, each month moremember schools seek help and get moreimmersed in implementing the essentialcomponents of school-to-work: school-basedlearning, work-based learning and connectingactivities. Through training and support, theyare learning to do so without sacrificing highacademic standards. Participating teachersare acknowledging what the researchers aretelling them: applied academics enhancelearning and improve retention.

The consortium staff is working to facilitateincreased work-based opportunities such asapprenticeships, internships, cooperativeeducation, job shadowing and mentoring. Butit is the teachers in the individual schoolswho are reaching out to nearby employers todevelop relationships and establish thelinkages which will benefit the businesses aswell as the students.

Getting employers to come to the table is noeasy task. New Jersey's emergingpartnerships were told the new initiativewould be "employer driven" since, throughthe SCANS report and other studies, thenation's business leaders were saying theywanted a voice in what students learn andhow they are prepared for entry intoemployment. In an era of downsizing andbelt-tightening, however, employers oftenfind it difficult to offer work-basedopportunities for students along with thecommitment to provide trained workplacementors to teach and guide the neophytes.Even freeing up a representative to attend ameeting for half a day can be a burden,especially for a small business.

Nonetheless, school-to work is makingstrides because some employers are eagerto join with schools to provide valuableexperiences for interested students. Thefollowing section describes successfulcollaborations between schools andemployers within the consortium.

Dover/Warner-LambertShadow Program

Warner-Lambert, located in Morris Plains,New Jersey, is one of the world's largestproducers of pharmaceuticals and consumerproducts. In a shadowing program involvingstudents from nearby Dover High School,what began as a "pilot" activity has grown tothe point where adolescent learners and adultemployees are benefiting from a sharedexperience.

Over a six-week period, participating studentsare matched with individuals in variousdivisions of the company for one day eachweek. Based on interest, the youngsters maybe engaged in consumer affairs, productdevelopment, legal support or any of anumber of other corporate functions. Workingin teams, each with a Warner-Lambert mentoras a guide, students learn about the corporateenvironment and begin to focus on possiblecareer choices. At a culminating "graduation"ceremony, students impress attendees withwhat they have learned by displaying productsand packaging they have created, backed upby their own marketing and financial plans.

The teenagers' enthusiasm and excitementare evident and their corporate mentors beamwith pride, knowing they have provided alearning experience which cannot beduplicated in the classroom.

Understanding AmericanBusiness

An important facet of school-to-work isentrepreneurship. How business functions isoften a mystery to adolescents and mostacquire few insights during the course offormal education. To offer at least someyoung people an intensive experience inunderstanding business, the consortiumpartners with the Morris County Chamber ofCommerce and several key businesses, mostprominently ATT Capital Corporation of

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Morristown, to offer a three-day compre-hensive summer conference for high schooljuniors and seniors. The purpose is toenlighten the students about the "real world" ofbusiness.

Volunteers from area employers began the1997 summer session by teaching the 60student attendees about team building,marketing and advertising, business/financialplanning and customer relations. Working inteams, participants were charged withdeveloping a product or service from beginningto end by applying the knowledge and skillslearned earlier in the session. They thenpresented their work to a panel ofdistinguished community business leaders whojudged their efforts on the basis of product,strategy, financial solvency, teamwork andoverall understanding of the Americanbusiness system. Students worked for threedays in a corporate environment where theyalso observed entrepreneurship in actionthrough the courtesy of ATT Capital.

Warren County ShadowingProgram

Job shadowing, in which a student follows anemployee at a firm for one or more days tolearn about a particular occupation or industry,helps young people explore a range of careeropportunities.

In Warren County, a business and educationalliance was formed to link employers and highschools with the primary objective of offeringshadowing opportunities. Joining all sevenhigh schools in the county were employersranging from a candy maker, M&M/Mars, to alocally- based insurance agent, Bowers,Schumann and Welch. More than 25 businesssites have been made available for the dailysix hour experiences that interested studentsselect.

Overcoming the inevitable obstacles oftransportation and extensive commitments,

many area students opt to "sample" careers byobserving plant managers, engineers, systemsspecialists and a host of others who work forthe county's large, medium and smallemployers.

The program continues to grow in largemeasure because students recommend it totheir friends!

Latino Mentoring Program

National guidelines make it clear that school-to-work is for all students. Consequently,outreach to minorities and other "specialpopulations" is essential. To reach Latinostudents in partner schools, the consortiumenlisted the help of the United LatinoOrganization of students based at the CountyCollege of Morris. CCM is one of threeparticipating community colleges. Alsocontacted was the Morris County Office ofHispanic Affairs, one of more than a dozencommunity-based agencies supporting thepartnership.

Many of the targeted students had little or noaccess to computers beyond some limitedclassroom applications. The consortiumagreed to purchase five PCs with a printer,software and network connections, but neededa location accessible to teenagers after schooland in the evening. Summit Bank, with a largebranch office on Dover's main street, offeredan adjacent "storefront" room of more than1,000 square feet. Since the town has asignificant Hispanic population, many of theinterested students could walk to their newcomputer center.

To augment the project, Xerox Corporation(with a facility in Morris Plains) suppliedvolunteer instructors to go to the Dover Centerand hosted field trips and mentoring servicesat its site. Another business has offered tofund Internet access so that all stations in thelab can facilitate web searches, e-mail andother functions.

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Now that they have learned some skills,students are contracting with small businessesin the area to develop advertising material--inEnglish and Spanish. Soon they hope tocreate web pages as well.

Conclusion

While the aforementioned activities havebenefited area students and are made possibleby significant contributions from localemployers, more is needed. Success breedssuccess, however, and as business leadersread and learn about what is already occurring,others will seek to join the effort.

To keep the ball rolling, school-to-work andschool-to-career advocates must make contactwith and convince employers that they have astake in this comprehensive approach toimproved workforce readiness.

All concerned must realize that this initiativepromises to create the competent and skilledindividuals needed to sustain the Americaneconomy.

Plans For The Future

Participants are well aware that the federalfunds earmarked for school-to-work will declineeach year and then evaporate completely atthe conclusion of the fifth year. They alsoknow that the concepts, especially careerawareness and career exploration, must reachstudents before they enter high school. Toexpand the delivery of school-to-work andschool-to-careers, and to compensate for theloss of grant funds, the following plans are indevelopment:

implementation of school-to-careers courseson an elective or required basis in memberhigh schools;development of comprehensive careerawareness and career exploration curriculafor the primary and middle school grades,respectively;expansion of applied academics across thegrades;additional outreach to secure the "buy-in" ofsuperintendents and boards of education incomprehensive academic high schools;enlistment of PTAs and other parent groupsthrough training and information programs;involvement of students in planning futuredirection of school-to-work;consideration of cost sharing amongmember schools for services previouslyfunded by the federal grant, such as:printing, training and staff development,curriculum development, consultation andsupport.Exploration of other funding sources such aswelfare-to-work, block grants and privatelyfunded grant programs; andestablishment of a foundation usingcontributions from businesses and others tosustain the effort.

Since all of the funded partnerships areconfronting similar problems in the face oftemporary financial support, continuedexchange of ideas is essential. The real testwill be to demonstrate to the American publicthat high academic standards are beingnurtured and maintained as an integralcomponent of career preparedness andworkplace readiness.

Robed L. Gordon is an Assistant Project Director at theMorris/SussexANarren School-to-Work Consortium,through the County College of Morris.

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EVELOP1NG A SEQUENCE OF ACTIONS

by Jeffrey M. Vegaew Brunswick Tomorrow

In 1994, New Brunswick Tomorrow (NBT),in collaboration with the National Alliance ofBusiness, Johnson and Johnson, the New

Brunswick Public Schools, the City of NewBrunswick and a variety of communitydevelopment partners, prepared andsubmitted a collective response to the requestfor proposals by the New Jersey Departmentof Education describing our approach tobuilding a successful school-to-work initiativein New Brunswick. The following year theproposal was accepted and funded. Now onlyin its second year of implementation, the NewBrunswick school-to-work initiative is widelyconsidered to be a successful and modelprogram.

Background

Established in 1975, NBT has evolved from apredominately physical planning and economicdevelopment agency to one that focusesspecifically on meeting the social and humanneeds that exist within our small, urbancommunity of approximately 44,000 people.NBT is currently governed by a 30 memberboard of directors, stratified into seven smaller,more manageable task forces. Each taskforce is organized around a component of thehuman life cycle, allowing for a truly "holistic"approach to the identification, analysis andimplementation of programs that seek toaddress the most pressing problems affectingthe most vulnerable members of ourcommunity. Each of our task forces, alongwith a finance and executive committee,convene each month to prioritize the issuesspecific to their individual mission and topresent their collective recommendations toour full board of directors.

While this is a fairly typical governancestructure, it is the uniqueness of the taskforces and the impressive array of individualsthat comprise these groups that trulydistinguishes our organization. At present,NBT attracts more than 200 volunteers to ourprocess in support of our overall mission.These individuals and their collectivecontribution to our holistic process has helpedto produce a compassionate andcomprehensive vehicle for the efficientassessment, evaluation and implementation ofour social and community service programs.The community collaboration process enabledrelationships among private, governmentaland public institutions. It is the strength andsuccess of the task force structure, incombination this collaboration, that has helpedto establish NBT as the model for an effectiveand proactive community-based organization.

New Brunswick School-to-WorkInitiative

The first step in the process of developing aspecific and comprehensive school-to-workstrategy began with an extensive analysis ofall existing educational and job trainingprograms within our community. Conductedcollectively by our local partnership, thisexercise revealed an impressive and existingfoundation on which to both build andimplement our school-to-work initiative. Eachcomponent of the model, from school-based towork-based learning and all associatedconnecting activities, was carefully conceivedand integrated into the New Brunswick system.Today, through the continued guidance andsupport of the local community partnership,the New Brunswick school-to-work initiative

continues its constant monitoring andrefinement in search of continual programmaticimprovement.

School-Based Component

Initial partnership meetings revealed animmediate need for reform, as representativesfrom New Brunswick Public Schools clearlyarticulated the need to change the processutilized to prepare students for the world ofwork. Guidance counselors and teacherseagerly identified two immediate andsimultaneous priorities: the creation of a stateof the art career center and the engagement ofa career development specialist.

Reacting to the challenge, the partnership setout to design a career center that would bothinspire and instruct, supplying up-to-datecareer and employment information throughcutting edge technology and support.Capturing a large space just off the entrance ofthe high school and directly across from thelibrary, the new career center features 14computers equipped with pentium processors,internal modems, CD-ROM drives and a fullcomplement of career development software.A television monitor hooked up to a VCRfacilitates the broadcast of an extensive libraryof career oriented videos and a variety of visualreference materials. The room is also inspiringin its design, decorated with an assortment ofencouraging education and employmentposters. The entire career center environmentis supported by a full-time career counselorwho works directly with individual subjectteachers who schedule group or privatelessons for their students. Freshman studentsreceive their career development lessonswithin their structured English classes.Sophomores are enrolled in a half-year careerdevelopment course taught directly at thecareer center. Juniors receive their instructionthrough their Health course and seniors workmore independently, and are required to satisfya variety of responsibilities on their own time.In addition to full time curriculum support, allstudents are encouraged to visit the center

independently, either during lunch or afterschool.

Emphasis on the concurrent school-to-workobjective to impact every student in thesystem and not just the high school populationwas strongly supported by the localpartnership. To achieve this goal, anexperienced Curriculum Coordinator was hiredto develop an appropriate and age specificschool-based curriculum. Fueled by theenthusiastic assistance provided by ourteachers, department supervisors andadministrators, a comprehensive,developmental career curriculum wasdesigned, placed and tested initially on a smallpercentage of kindergarten through eighthgrade students. The results of this study wereevaluated after the first year and refined overthe course of the summer. By the start of thesecond year of the program, each of NewBrunswick's 3,700 public school studentsenrolled in the eight elementary schoolsbegan their formal introduction to the conceptand importance of work and career objectives.

To consistently monitor and chart individualprogress, a career portfolio is established andmade part of each student's official record. Inthis way, a more comprehensive andlongitudinal evaluation of personal successcan be determined. Close supervision of thestudent's career development progressionfrom elementary to high school will greatlyassist guidance and career counselors in theirultimate goals of achieving workplace successfor all of our students.

Work-Based Component

The fundamental tenet of the work-basedcomponent of school-to-work is to link on-the-job experience with each student'seducational plan. In this way, the correlationbetween education and work becomes muchmore obvious and self motivating. Relevantworksite experience, however, is often difficultto achieve, given the spatial mismatchbetween suburban employment opportunities

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and our urban-based population. Fortunately,New Brunswick is experiencing an economicrenaissance on the strength of its uniqueposition in the New Jersey economy, facilitatinga wealth of opportunity for our students.

Earning a national reputation as a "Health CareCity," New Brunswick is home to two of theworld's largest multi-national pharmaceuticalcompanies, Johnson & Johnson and Bristol-Myers Squibb. In addition, two major andprogressive medical institutions, St. Peter'sMedical Center and Robert Wood Johnson(RWJ) University Hospital, attract more than amillion visitors a year to our small urbancommunity. Each of these institutions are inturn serviced by the largest medical school inthe country, the University of Medicine andDentistry of New Jersey-Robert Wood JohnsonMedical School. Equally important and criticalto the provision of health care in the city arethree community-based health clinics, the EricB. Chandler Health Center, St. Peter's FamilyHealth Center and St. John's Family HealthCenter. It was, therefore, both obvious andlogical to designate the allied health field as thefirst career cluster to pursue.

This decision was reinforced by the success ofthe Health Professions Scholars model, anaward-winning employment and academicpartnership between the RWJ UniversityHospital and the New Brunswick PublicSchools. RWJ University Hospital not onlyprovides the paid worksite experience for thestudents but also worksite mentors as well.Invaluable assistance in curriculumdevelopment and coordination is also providedby the hospital. This program engages 70students from grades eight through twelve in avariety of health related activities both duringthe academic year and the summer. Juniorand Senior Health Scholars participate in paidwork-based experiences and seminars, whilestudents who are younger and not yet eligibleto work attend workshops. The diversity oftopics, ranging from Respiratory Education,Laboratory Education and CardiacRehabilitation, in combination with the fast

paced environment of the hospital, provideseach of the scholars with a broad exposure tothe dynamics and opportunities of the healthcare industry.

Now in our second year of implementation, thelocal partnership has added two additionalcareer clusters to our work-based program.An analysis of regional labor demands asdetermined by our local Workforce InvestmentBoard (formerly the Private Industry Council)has led to the selection and inclusion of boththe FIRE (Finance, Insurance and RealEstate) and the Retail & Hospitality sectorsinto the program. Utilizing the HealthProfessions Scholars program as our model, afull-time job developer was hired in eachsector to begin the process of cultivatingpotential business relationships with areaemployers. For example, in the FIRE industry,a series of focus groups and roundtablediscussions were conducted to determine theissues central to potential employerparticipation. Once determined, a concertedeffort to recruit local and area banks, realestate brokers and insurance agencies waslaunched. An immediate commitment ofparticipation by one local financial institution,Core States Bank, helped inaugurate thissegment of the program through theestablishment of the Core States ScholarsInstitute. This innovative program is designedto provide multiple employment opportunitieswithin the bank's two central city branches,while rewarding two participating students whoexhibit both their academic and bankingproficiency with a college scholarship.

Connecting Activities

Since the program's inception, the priority ofthe partnership has been to encouragecommunity activities that foster and strengthenthe connection between school and work. Thefollowing are a few of the many examples ofthat commitment:

A-STEP, The Alliance for Successful TeenEmployment Program, which was

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highlighted at the 1996 Statewide school-to-work Conference and successfully placed258 youth in jobs in 1996-97;providing child care and transportation forteen mothers to support their participation inthe work-based learning component;creating a "re-engagement program" toencourage student dropouts to return toschool or enter a job training program;working with the Greater Raritan WorkforceInvestment Board's industry focus groups todetermine labor demands in this area;assisting the Greater Raritan WorkforceInvestment Board in implementing aninteractive "Forum for Educators andEmployers," held in 1997;promoting school-to-work successes at theNew Brunswick Board of Educationmeetings;introducing parents to the school-to-workinitiative by inviting them to sample theservices of the career center;developing a brochure designed to recruitemployers for the initiative;participating in a taping of the state's school-to-work promotional video;presenting the comprehensive careerdevelopment curriculum at the state school-to-work conference;organizing an employer breakfast; andtaking students to the Middlesex CountyCollege Job Fair to meet employers.

To determine true effectiveness, NBT isdeveloping an evaluation model to measure theimpact of this program. In collaboration withthe Center for Urban Policy Research at

Rutgers University, data on the servicesprovided under school-to-work will be collectedand analyzed. A full report will be available inAugust, 1998.

Conclusion

NBT, through the local community partnership,has achieved remarkable success in itscollective ability to facilitate real systemicchange in our public schools. As describedearlier, the career center and thecomprehensive K-12 career developmentcurriculum has now been institutionalizedwithin the Board of Education's annual budget,with paid staff directly responsible for thedelivery of career development services to allstudents. Support for the initiative is universal,as teachers and administrators who played acritical role in the formation of the curriculumpossess a real sense of ownership of both theinitiative and process. As a result, the systemis now ready to meet the lone remainingchallenge of integrating the work-basedcomponent into the school's curriculum. Toachieve success in this effort, a plan to fullyengage the cooperation of the entire businesscommunity is currently underway.

Jeffrey M. Vega is Vice President of New BrunswickTomorrow, a non-profit organization in the City of NewBrunswick, New Jersey. He is msponsible for the city'ssocial and human services revitalization process andworks with more than 200 community volunteers indeveloping social services and educational programswhich allow all residents to achieve economic self-sufficiency.

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EW SERVICE INNOVATIONS ARE REQUIRED

Mimi Bushmanregon Business Council

0 regon's business leaders are workingto transform public education. TheOregon Business Council (OBC) is a

statewide nonprofit, nonpartisan andindependent organization of 43 top Oregonbusiness leaders. Modeled after the nationalBusiness Roundtable and similar groups inother states, OBC's mission is to contribute toOregon's long-term social and economic wellbeing. Toward this end, OBC directors committheir time, knowledge and leadership, as wellas the resources of their companies, tostudying and acting upon the seriouschallenges facing Oregon.

Because of the linkage between education,workforce quality, economic competitivenessand social cohesion, improving Oregon's K-12and higher education systems are highpriorities for OBC. In particular, OBC hasbeen a leader in supporting implementation ofthe Oregon Educational Act for the 21stCentury, a revolutionary restructuring of publicK-12 education in Oregon. The Act calls forvery high standards of student achievementand a new assessment system. A keystrategy to achieve these high standards andimprove the relevance of education is school-to-work, which begins with career awarenessactivities and special projects in grade schooland escalates to work experiences linked torelated curriculum in high school andpostsecondary institutions.

The commitment of Oregon's business leadersto education has made a significant differencein preserving and implementing Oregon'sreform legislation. Without business supportin the 1995 and 1997 legislative sessions, theAct probably would have succumbed to threatsof repeal from small but vocal factions

opposed to standards-based reform. Today,business has turned its attention to leading theimplementation effort. Keith Thomson,Oregon's site manager for Intel, the world'slargest manufacturer of microprocessors,chairs OBC's education task force and a thirty-member statewide school transformationadvisory council, which includes fouradditional business leaders as members. Thecouncil oversees the efforts of a cross-institutional team charged with developing adetailed plan for reform. This team, whichwas formed based on recommendations froma business-led task force, is chaired by thegovernor's education reform team leader andincludes representatives of the Department ofEducation, the State System of HigherEducation, the Office of Community CollegeServices and business.

Employers Care aboutEducation because WorkforceSkills are Critical to theirSuccess

Educational transformation tougher, morerelevant academic content and work readinessskills like teamwork, communications andproblem solving is critical to creating aworkforce responsive to the needs of today'sglobal economy. In a 1996 OBC study, firmsacross Oregon stated that workers are the keyto competitiveness and the number one factorfor business success. Employers said that itis time to rewrite the book on careerpreparation, blending separate volumes onschool years and work years into a seamlesswhole called lifelong learning. They agreedthat employee skill levels, attitudes,adaptability and access to training are directly

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related to productivity, profits and increasedwages. Nearly all also believe thatweaknesses in the traditional system of K-12and higher education are holding them back.Statements from the 33 focus groups, whichrepresented a diverse cross-section of theOregon economy across business sectors,were powerful and surprisingly consistent, withmany echoing the sentiment expressed by onemanufacturer: "We'll fail if the workforce is notflexible, adaptable and able to change on acontinuous basis. The jobs we have today arelikely to change every few weeks or months."Another employer captured the importance ofthe school-to-work model in meeting theseneeds: "Kids need more exposure to what theopportunities and choices are out in the jobmarket. There should be more partnerships withbusiness and more apprenticeships. Kids needmore early hands-on experiences with work."

Employers recognize that they are half of theequation in successful school-to-workexperiences, and OBC-member companieswant to reach out to education. To date, 30companies have appointed an internal school-to-work coordinator to help create andimplement school-to-work strategies withintheir firms and work with schools oncurriculum, industry-related standards,professional development of educators andother elements of school reform.

Worksite 21 is HelpingEmployers Build Capacity toSupport School-to-Work Acrossthe State

Refining and enhancing the role of employersin education is one of the most essentialelements in the development of a strongerworkforce. OBC organized a 501(c)3organization, capable of receiving grant fundsas well as giving focus to this critical issue,called Worksite 21. Given the tremendousscope of educational change in Oregon, theaggressive timeline for implementation and theobjective of school-to-work experiences being

provided for all students college- and non-college-bound, high achievers, at-risk youth,urban and rural students and those withspecial needs it is imperative thatemployers put their school-to-work supportsystems in place immediately and effectively,learning from each other and sharing bestpractices along the way. Worksite 21 isproviding consulting assistance, networkingopportunities and support materials to helpOBC companies reach four goals:

1.educate their employees about schooltransformation and school-to-work,

2. participate with educators to redesignschool systems,

3. value standards and assessments inhiring and

4. open doors to teachers and students for avariety of school-to-work opportunities.

The following describes the accomplishmentsof Worksite 21 during its first year.

The Barometer of Education Reform andSchool-To-Work Activity

This quantifies employer involvement inactivities ranging from classroom speakers andjob shadows to teacher internships. Thebarometer shows that OBC companiesprovided 13,000 opportunities statewidebetween January 1, 1996 and June 30, 1996.An update of the barometer, reflecting activityduring the 1996-97 school year, is currentlyunderway. The barometer, which captures 12data points at each company, also measuressupport for statewide education policy reform.This helpful reporting tool allows OBC toassess its progress in meeting school-to-workgoals and understand the challenges thatremain to Oregon employers in providingschool-to-work opportunities in adequatenumbers for all students.

Briefing Packets for Employees

Packets include 18 fact sheets explainingOregon's education reform goals; answering

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frequently asked questions about liability, childlabor laws and other issues connected withhaving students in the workplace; andprinciples for setting up successful school-to-work experiences in eight categories. Thesefact sheets are particularly helpful in enablingschool-to-work coordinators to recruit newmanagers and staff to host students andteachers in the workplace.

A Modular Presentation Package

The Package helps explain school-to-work,Worksite 21 and the importance of workforcepreparation to management, employees, boardmembers and others associated with school-to-work within OBC companies. The package,which is partially customized for eachemployer, includes color slides or overheads, ascript and technical assistance to allow school-to-work coordinators to further customize oradd to the presentation materials for theircompanies.

Quality Teams

Students and teachers work with employers inintensive seven-day experiences designed tosolve real business problems using qualityimprovement principles. In an ongoingprogram, 11 teams met this summer, withseven tackling school-to-work issues withintheir host companies. Team training providesproblem solving, critical thinking andcommunication tools, then places the teams atworksites to apply these tools in authenticbusiness environments. Teams present theirfindings to employers using learnedpresentation skills, providing them with valuableexperience.

A Scale Analysis

The Scale Analysis examines the number ofjob shadows and internships needed to serveOregon students and teachers. Using existingdemographic and employer participationinformation, it looks at school-to-workparticipation by size and type of employer to

create a model for setting more detailedemployer participation targets and predictsparticipation by non-OBC member companies.

In addition, Worksite 21 is providing valuableconsulting assistance to help individualemployers make the connection betweenparticipation in school-to-work and their owncompetitive business needs at all levels withinan organization. Assistance includesassessing employer readiness to participate inschool-to-work, helping establish or strengthenrelationships between employers and schoolsin local communities, recommendingorganizational adjustments employers need tomake to accommodate students and teachersand creating plans to increase school-to-workinvolvement.

Employers have made it clear thatopportunities to share information, includingcase studies of successful school-to-workpartnerships between employers and schools,is valuable and necessary to building capacity.Therefore, Worksite 21 provides regularopportunities for school-to-work coordinators tocome together to brainstorm and gain newinformation. The strength of the program liesin the credibility and peer influence that abusiness-led effort has with employers and theleverage that employers have to insist thatschools link school-to-work programs with thehigh standards embodied in Oregon schoolreform. It is a unique model of leadership inthat the employer community is takingresponsibility for supporting Oregon schoolreform, higher standards, school-to-work andpartnerships with schools.

Deep-Rooted BusinessInvolvement in School-to-Workis Critical to Meaningful Change

OBC and Worksite 21 have the advantage ofseveral years of intensive experience inschool-to-work and have gleaned manylessons from the experiences of Oregon's topemployers. In 1993, OBC "adopted" an entire

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school district to help pilot high standards, newcurriculum and work-based learningopportunities. Since then, many more schooland employer partnerships have developed atthe elementary, middle and high school levels.The collective wisdom of employers,educators, government and community leadersworking together to institutionalize school-to-work demonstrates the necessity of strongemployer commitment and participation. Theirexperiences have taught them a number oflessons, described below.

An employer's school-to-work plan mustbe compatible with the firm's overallmission.

One of OBC's health system members oftenstates that school-to-work is "the right thingto do" because it contributes to the health ofthe community in ways which are compatiblewith their values. In addition, companiesneed to find school-to-work strategies thathelp them meet their own bottom line goals.For example, several high-tech membercompanies particularly value school-to-workprojects that relate to their immediateworkforce needs.

School-to-work support systems likeWorksite 21 should first addressemployer understanding of the benefits ofschool-to-work to the organization'scompetitiveness.

Once the why of school-to-work is clearlyunderstood, then support systems canaddress the what and how of school-to-workprograms and projects. Communicationtools designed to address each of thesequestions are currently being tested withinOBC companies.

Employer support for school-to-workshould be broad and deep.

It is imperative that top management supportthe involvement of middle managers andtheir staffs in the day-to-day activities of

school-to-work. Those actually hostingstudents in job shadows, mentorships andinternships say that they receive tremendouspersonal satisfaction from working withyoung people, but they want to know that thetime they spend is considered a valuableand legitimate part of their job.

If employers are to value newassessments (such as the CIM and CAM),it is important that business get involvedand stay involved with the creation ofacademic content and career-relatedstandards, proficiency standards andassessment instruments.

Employers must also determine how theywill value and use the new assessments intheir hiring processes. A group of sevenhuman resource professionals are crafting aposition statement for promulgation withinOBC companies, and eventually, forconsideration by employers and schoolsstatewide.

Effective Partnerships willProvide the Foundation forEducation Transformation

Worksite 21 acts as a catalyst to bring schoolsand employers together in a new kind ofpartnership. The following lessons outlinestrategies utilized to obtain the support ofthese two key partners.

The key to successful relationshipsbetween employers and schools ispersonal commitment and trust.

OBC and Worksite 21 experiences withschool partnerships and quality teams showthat it takes time to strike the right matchbetween employer and school. There aredefinite cultures within both kinds oforganizations, and true partnership meanscompatibility between cultures. Achievingthis level of partnership is one of the biggestbarriers to school-to-work. Too often,

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educators view the employer's role in thetraditional sense as a contributor ofequipment or a sponsor of athletic teams.Few educators are accustomed to workingwith employers as partners, not merelyadvisors, and some are reluctant to acceptemployers in this role. Employer partners,however, expect their input to be valued.School-to-work means that communitiesbecome classrooms. Indeed, Oregon'seducation transformation plan calls for theentire community to become responsible foryouth. Every school is now overseen by asite council which, in addition to educators,includes parents and others concerned withthe welfare of children.

Career clusters serve as an organizingmechanism for industry/schoolpartnerships.

Oregon's CAM allows for the integration ofacademic and career-related learning in sixendorsement areas: (1) Arts andCommunication, (2) Business Management,(3) Health Services, (4) Human Resources,(5) Industrial and Engineering Systems and(6) Natural Resource Systems. High schoolsare developing curriculum and school-to-work activities in one or more of theseclusters, leading to natural partnerships withemployers based in these industries. Thesepartnerships, in turn, are driving thecurriculum redesign necessary to meetOregon's new academic and career-relatedstandards.

Many Oregon businesses have alreadybecome converts to the benefits of qualitymanagement and other proven tools ofcorporate restructuring.

Employer partners bring valuable knowledgeand support to schools needing torestructure themselves. OBC hopes tofacilitate the adoption of more schoolclusters (high schools and their feederschools) by key corporate partners, who willcommit their resources such as quality

consultants and trainers to help the schoolclusters evolve and reorganize to bettermeet the key elements of the OregonEducational Act for the 21st Century.

Change happens at the schoolbuilding level.

Charismatic champions of school-to-workand curriculum redesign are absolutelycentral to building sustainable programs.These champions need tools in changemanagement, contextual learning and allelements of reform to build support andcreate a critical mass of educators withineach school teacher by teacher. Animportant professional development strategyin the Portland area has been school-basedteams of educators called leadership teams.In May, 1977, 29 leadership teams (totaling149 members) spent a full day with businessand community partners addressing how touse school-to-work strategies to meet thenew CIM and CAM standards.

Bringing students into the workplace isobviously necessary and valuable, butteachers must also experience the worldof work.

Teacher site visits, job shadows, andinternships ultimately affect studentsachievement and performance. As oneOBC member likes to say: "Spend a daywith a student, and you may change a kid.Spend a day with a teacher, and you maychange a hundred kids." Worksiteexperiences for teachers are perceived to behighly valuable if they occur at theemployer's location, allow exposure to avariety of professions and skill levels, andensure time for teachers to apply theirlearning to curriculum redesign preferablyin a team structure.

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OBC and Worksite 21 haveHelped Set the Stage for Goingto Scale

OBC companies and other employers havebeen particularly active in providing school-to-work opportunities for students in the Portlandmetropolitan area of Washington, Multnomahand Clackamas Counties. During the 1996-97school year, more than 25,600 high schoolstudents alone participated in community-based learning in this region. Currently, moreworksite opportunities exist than can be filled.The following lessons have been identifiedthrough Oregon's efforts to expand school-to-work across the state.

Schools have to continue to gear up thepreparation of students for school-to-work.

Teachers are requiring very high standardsof behavior and preparation before a studentis sent to a job site. For example, DavidDouglas High School students must have a"perfect" resume before they are released forjob shadows. High expectations arecurrently limiting student eligibility toparticipate, but as teachers in lower gradesbecome more aware of the higher standardsand start to prepare students to meet them,the number of eligible youth is expected torise. Another barrier to full participation forstudents is school structure, such as 40minute periods and difficulties with studentsmissing classes for time spent learningoutside the classroom. But success breedssuccess, and schools which have the mostexperience in community-based learning arethe schools which have worked up to thehighest levels of participation. There areseveral high schools in the Portland areawhere 90 percent or more of the studentpopulation is participating in school-to-work.

As schools gear up the demand side ofwork-based learning (better structuresand more prepared students), employers

will need to increase the supply side (jobshadows, tours, internships and otheropportunities).

A recently completed employer scaleanalysis confirmed assumptions that firmsize is a critical factor in predicting school-to-work participation. In Oregon, large firmsare more likely to participate, althoughcapacity for school-to-work is not linearlyrelated to size. As time goes on, it willbecome important to develop strategies toengage more small firms. The capacity ofsmaller firms, once they are involved, hasbeen underestimated.

Brief and relatively undemandingexperiences such as job shadows havebeen promoted successfully in Oregon.

The scale analysis showed that it will beimportant to increase the intensity of firmparticipation, such as helping employersoffer some of the more demanding activitieslike internships. A working assumption isthat employers who have positiveexperiences in less intense activities canthen be recruited to provide lengthier, morein-depth experiences.

It will be important to help employersexpand the volume of work experiencesthey offer.

Ninety percent of employers that offerinternships (both large and smaller firms)work with only one student at a time.Lengthier activities such as quality teams arewell received by employers if they arestructured and organized on the school sideand if the work being done addresses skillsgaps identified by employers.

Final Thoughts

Oregon's K-12 education transformation is partof the state's vision for a seamless trainingsystem to support lifelong learning. Employers

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are playing a critical role in the transformationprocess, helping Oregon blur the linesbetween school years and career years tocreate a smoother transition from school towork and successful adulthood. Worksite 21'stechnical assistance for employers is a vitaltool to bring these transformation efforts toscale, where the goal is school-to-work for allof Oregon's students.

A 1996 report to the governor on Oregon'sprogress in implementing CIM and CAMachievement standards stated that the workthat needs to be done and the leadershipneeded to do it cannot be provided by theOregon Department of Education or the K-12system alone. System-wide schoolimprovement requires a shared vision andunprecedented cooperation that transcendsindividual organizations and institutions.

The role of employers as major stakeholders ineducation is absolutely critical to maintainingmomentum in school-to-work and enactingsystemic change. Individual employers havebeen great champions of reform and theircontributions are noteworthy, but Oregon willneed a much larger share of its employers iftransformation is to reach all students.Smaller employers will need technical

assistance to get started and all employers,large and small, will benefit from cooperativeefforts that help them develop successfulstrategies and learn from one another. JimHarper, chair of Worksite 21's advisorycommittee and director of human resourcesfor Wacker Siltronic Corporation, a leadingmanufacturer of high technology siliconwafers, explains:

"Wacker recognizes educationand training as a lifetimeexperience. Our work witheducation is a key part of ourlong-term strategy to maintainour competitive edge. Worksite21 has shown employers thetremendous potential of a servicefocused on helping businessmaximize its involvement inschool-to-work and with strongpartnerships, everyone wins:employers, schools, studentsand communities."

Mimi Bushman is the Director of K-12 Education Policyfor the Oregon Business Council. She is responsible formanaging all of the Council's K-12 education initiatives,including work on standards, school-to-work andsystemic change.

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BLOCK BY BLOCK BUILDS SUCCES

The Boston Private Industry Council (PIC)is the intermediary organizationresponsible for convening Boston's

emerging school-to-career system andincreasing its impact in terms of studentacademic progress and work-basedcompetencies as well as college and careersuccess. To do this, the PIC maintains arelatively large staff dedicated exclusively tothe placement of students at worksites andconnecting experiences back to the classroom.The productivity of this staff is now measuredby the "worksite learning hours" it creates.Initially expanded through School-to-WorkOpportunities Act of 1994 (STVVOA), the"connecting activities" staff is now fundedlargely by the Massachusetts state legislaturethrough a new mechanism that provides nearly$3 million statewide to those communities ableto document substantial employer participationas indicated by private sector wagecommitments.

Founded in 1979, the Boston PIC predates thecreation of PICs in federal law as a business-led public-private partnership overseeing thespending of federal job training money.Today, the Boston PIC plays an expanded rolein workforce development as one of fifteenRegional Employment Boards established bythe Massachusetts state legislature to guidethe full range of workforce developmentefforts.

In this capacity, the PIC has chartered three'one stop' career centers on a competitivemodel. The PIC's involvement in welfare-to-work will increase substantially as the localentity responsible for Boston's share of thenew $3 billion allocation legislated by 92

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by Neil SullivanBoston Private Industry Coun

Congress this past summer. We are strivingto apply the lessons learned as a school-to-career intermediary to both the career centerand the welfare-to-work system.

In Boston, in contrast to the rest of thecountry, the PIC is best known as anorganization dedicated to public schoolreformas organizer of the Boston Compact,the city's collaborative school improvementagreement, as broker for school-businesspartnerships and, most recently, as convenerof the city's emerging school-to-careersystem.

The PIC convened the first Boston Compactsigning in 1982. Through the Compact, thebusiness community committed summer jobsfor public school students and priority hiringfor high school graduates. The universitycommunity committed priority admissions andscholarships. Finally, the school systempledged to improve its performance asmeasured by better test scores, betterattendance and a lower drop-out rate.

The private sector summer jobs campaignsoared from a modest start of approximately500 summer jobs to a 1990 high of 3,500,through a precipitous drop to just over 2,200 in1991 and back up to the a high water mark of3,915 in 1997. The key to the sheer size ofthis effort is the position of PIC careerspecialist, the person who prepares andplaces students with employers and remainsavailable for problem solving once the studentis on the job. The PIC career specialist doesconnecting activities with the explicit objectiveof securing jobs and other worksiteexperiences for students.

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In 1991, the PIC, in collaboration with its policypartner, Jobs for the Future, took on what wenow call school-to-career programs by winninga federal grant to launch a youthapprenticeship model called Pro Tech and bysponsoring three new National Academyprograms. The signing of the third BostonCompact in early 1994, the first under MayorThomas Menino, committed the businesscommunity and the public schools to a largescale school-to-career system. Passage ofSTWOA enabled Boston to expandsubstantially the number of career specialists,and the PIC committed federal dollars to fundfederal lead faculty positions at various highschools to promote school-to-career teachingmethodologies in each school.

Due largely to its Boston Compact history,Boston had developed the worksite side ofschool-to-career before the approach becameimportant to the education reform discussionwithin high schools. The funding of leadfaculty positions created teacher ownership ofan initiative that had been seen by many as a"PIC program." Just as importantly, theseleadership roles remained union positions,rather than falling into the usual pattern ofcreating a new administrator title. Then andnow the active support of teachers unionpresident of Ed Doherty has been key.

In December of 1994, the Boston SchoolCommittee, at the urging of school committeemember Bill Spring, voted to make school-to-career the lead strategy for restructuring thecity's high schools. Soon thereafter, thecommittee voted to roll the federally-fundedlead faculty positions into the next year's coreschool budget. This sent a strong signal thatschool-to-career would not be a passing fad.With the subsequent appointment of ThomasPayzant, then-Assistant Secretary of the U.S.Department of Education, as Boston's newschool superintendent, school-to-career movedto the top of the Boston's education reformagenda. As one of his first acts, Payzantappointed a strong school-to-career director tolead the school side of the initiative on his behalf.

Refining the PlCfs Role

Now that the Boston Public Schools haveembraced school-to-career as fundamental tothe school reform strategy, the challenge forthe PIC as the intermediary organization canshift to cranking up the employer side of theinitiative. For the first time, the demand forworksite experiences to complement newclassroom practice is greater than what thePIC is currently generating. The PIC'semphasis must shift to the productivity of ourcareer specialists and employer recruiters. Wehave chosen a relatively simple measure ofstaff productivity worksite learning hours.This measure also serves as a way to assessemployer participation on a company-by-company basis, replicating the dynamic of thesummer jobs campaign with a new emphasison structured learning experiences on the job.

As each high school restructures intointerdisciplinary career pathways, schoolsneed a more flexible approach to worksiteexperiences than our leading school-to-careerprograms offer. In fact, the intermediary roleof the PIC is now understood as somethingother than "running programs." This is a keyconcept. The intermediary organization doesnot run programs; it provides connectingactivities to the various career pathways andschool-to-career programs.

We give our career specialists and employerscredit for three different levels of worksitelearning. An after school job or a job shadow isa good thing, even if it does not have astructured learning plan or an explicit connectionback to the classroom. We are willing to giveour staff and companies greater credit, however,when the supervisor on the job is pursuing astructured learning plan and evaluating studentprogress in one or more of the elevencompetencies we developed with Pro Techemployers. We will grant even more credit ifthat structured learning experience is integratedwith the curriculum in at least two of the coreacademic subjects back at the high school.These are the three levels of worksite learning.

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We are convinced that school-to-career effortsmust add distinct and measurable value if thismovement is to be understood as more thanexcellent school reform. By measuringworksite learning hours, we are able todocument for the public, the legislature andother constituencies that the investment inconnecting activities can provide more learninghours during the school week and morelearning days during the school year--at afraction of the cost of extending either theschool day or the school years. For example,the worksite experience adds at least ten hoursof learning time per week for Pro Tech studentsand an additional 35 learning days during thesummer, bringing the effective school year to215 days.

Just as importantly, the worksite learningexperience engages more adults in theteaching process in a formal way. Worksitesupervisors invest time to provide the one-on-one support that students do not obtain in theschool setting. Finally, the worksite experienceadds new relevance to the teaching andlearning process in the classroom as well as onthe job. It is our belief that while appliedlearning is valuable for all students, it isessential for those who are not succeeding inthe traditional classroom.

Even if we are convinced that the workplaceholds potential as a learning place, it may behard for some to imagine that employers will bewilling to offer the number of experiences andthe number of hours necessary. In order toachieve anything resembling scale, we need tobe part of the company's operating budget, notjust the community affairs operation. Thismeans that we need to provide immediatevalue to the employer higher productivity onthe job today, not just the promise of a betterworkforce in the future.

In Boston, we are discovering that a structuredlearning plan on the job increases theproductivity of both the student and thesupervisor. It makes the supervision of thestudents more purposeful and thus more

productive. Good supervisors appreciate theopportunity to make a difference in a youngperson's life during work hours. The worksitelearning protocol is consistent with theformative performance evaluation strategiesused by many companies. These factorscombine to make for a highly motivated workenvironment.

All of this depends on good staff work. Thecareer specialist is the glue that holds thesystem together, student by student. For thismodel to succeed in the long run, it must alsohave a dedicated revenue stream that lastsbeyond the involvement of the school-to-career partners. Convening the partnershipand measuring results, however, are notenough. Someone must do the daily work ofconnecting the worksite to the classroom andensuring that students are productive on thejob.

The Massachusetts connecting activitiesmechanism holds real potential for replicationin other states and at the federal level. Forinstance, a dollar for dollar match from thefederal government would leverage both statefunds and private sector wages at anextraordinary level. This is one option forsustaining the venture capital investmentCongress has made in building a nationalsystem through STWOA.

The language of the connecting activitiesmechanism line items 7003-0603 in theMassachusetts state budget codifies thebasic Boston Compact concept. Business willcommit resources to pay salaries and providementoring and instruction on the job to helpemployees work closely with teachers. Inexchange, public funds are used to helpschools and businesses work together to ensurethat students serve productively on the job.

Qualifying for connecting activities fundsrequires "regional employment boards or otherlocal public-private partnerships involving jobcommitments and worksite learningopportunities for students," and they must

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document "at least a two hundred percentmatch in wages for students from privatesector participants."

Paired with a commitment to workforcedevelopment boards, this kind of fundingmechanism could make intermediaryorganizations a reality in communities acrossthe country. This will determine the fate of theschool-to-career initiative. Will it be thefoundation of a new workforce developmentsystem and a strong national economy in thecoming century? This is America's choice.

Neil Sullivan is the Executive Director of the BostonPrivate Industry Council. The P/C is responsible formaking connections between schools and employers inorder to provide integrated school- and work-basedlearning opportunities for Boston's young people.

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WHY SCHOOL INTERMEDIARIES ARE NEEDE

Is there a role for intermediary organizationsin school-to-work? What a silly question.Of course there is...but what is appropriate?

At School & Main, we have a couple of ideas.

School & Main is a national nonprofitorganization that designs, tests and managescommunity-based, business-led and schoolreform initiatives that improve education andcareer opportunities for children and youth--making it possible for young people tosuccessfully transition into adulthood. Since1985, we have worked with corporations,philanthropies, school districts, governmentand local community developmentorganizations to create national school-to-career models in more than 30 states; helpedcommunities build effective partnerships; andused results oriented professionaldevelopment to train thousands ofprofessionals, doctors, youth workers,employers and nonprofit managers. School &Main began as an applied research center atBrandeis University's Heller Graduate Schooland for the past four years has been acommunity education department of the NewEngland Medical Center, the teaching hospitalfor Tufts University's Medical School.

School & Main has developed and managedthree national capacity building initiatives:Career Beginnings, Futures 2000 and HigherGround, each of which have undergonerigorous third-party evaluations. Together theyhave enabled more than 30,000 middle grade,high school and college students tosuccessfully complete their education andtransition to further education and careers. Inaddition to the measurable youth outcomes,over the past 30 years more than 20,000 adultvolunteer mentors have helped disadvantaged

by William BloomfieCivic Strategies/School & Ma

students gain the confidence to decide theirown futures. Through our national andregional institutes, practitioners have taken ourcutting-edge courses on partnershipdevelopment, workforce preparation, school-to-career strategies, education reform andcommunity collaboration. Presently, we serveas a national technical assistance provider forschool-to-work, focusing on partnershipdevelopment, community leadership andbusiness involvement.

The Role of Intermediaries inSchool-to-Work

The School-to-Work Opportunities Act of 1994is a powerful vehicle with which to mobilize"partnerships which are dedicated to linkingthe worlds of school and work amongsecondary and postsecondary educationalinstitutions, private and public employers,organized labor, government, community-based organizations, parents, students andlocal education, training and human serviceagencies."

Sound familiar? For the past 20 years, thepolicy community has talked about the needfor community partnerships to lead localsystemic change efforts. A great deal ofenergy and resources has been spent toencourage business to take more directresponsibility for improving their community'seducation and school-to-career results as akey partner along with schools, highereducation, community agencies andgovernment. A few years ago The Council forAid to Education reported what many peopleknew, but were too polite to say out-loud: "fewbusiness and education communitypartnerships have delivered substantially

Idin

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better and measurable results, and there islittle understanding of the process necessaryto do so."

Communities know what they'd like to seehappen but they do not know how to get theircollective act together to get school-to-worksystems up and running. It is more than aquestion of community awareness orwillingness, although we have enough evidenceto know that declarations of support in publicmeetings are not enough to get key people towork together. The deeper issue is not whatprivate and public sector community leaderssay (and probably believe) about collaborationand change, but whether they are geared toengage large numbers of employers, publiceducators, colleges, governments, nonprofits,parents and students in this massiveeducational restructuring effort called school-to-work. By and large, the answer is no.

In community after community, even the mosttrusting individuals know that the road fromhere to there is full of potholes and land mines,and because of discomfiting experiences in thepast most of the time people never get past thefirst roadblock. They run into a wall and do notask the right people for help. From a personalperspective, would you sign an importantcontract without legal advice? Withoutprofessional advice it is very hard to createcommunity-wide partnerships, yet manycommunities and school-to-work efforts still tryto start on their own without a map or withoutsomeone who knows how to drive. Maybe weneed super-glue to keep the bureaucraticeducators and hierarchial public officials at thetable with business leaders long enough torecognize that school-to-work can work if theirinstitutions will be accountable and responsibleto each other and the community. Mostcommunities need help in this regard.

Is there an important role for intermediaries?You bet there is. In fact, there are two thingsthat national and local intermediaryorganizations can and should do withcommunities early on. The first and maybe

fundamental role is figuring out how to helpdisparate organizations transform theiridealized school-to-work vision into everydayreality for young people, teachers, employersand families, which is where the "rubber hitsthe road." To make the vision real, localpartners must join with one another toconsider, define and agree on the community'seducation and workforce development priorities(which may conflict with institutional selfinterest), make joint decisions as colleagues,hold each other accountable for the results oftheir decisions and follow-through on theagreements they made to each other and thecommunity-at-large. Most community leadersbelieve they have already done this (as if it is aone-time event or a grant program), but theyare kidding themselves. Putting the time in towork through the issues to create a neweducation and training delivery system takesmore than a one-hour breakfast meeting and itrequires that the collective leadership, not theirstaff, make informed decisions. To build alegitimate system, all community leaders needto put institutional interests aside and craft aset of relationships with people they haveprobably never (1) been in a room with before,(2) seriously talked with, (3) negotiated withover turf and resources, (4) respected ortreated as peers and (5) resolved issues withand planned next steps together as partners. Ifthat is not enough, the really tough part isgetting top leaders to realize that they needhelp "walking the walk" before they getfrustrated by the slow planning andimplementation processes. Of course, if themeeting agendas cover topics that promoteauthentic dialogue versus staff reports andminutes, then it is more likely that communityleaders will look forward to this work because itis real and they will be accomplishingsomething. One caution: this will be a verydifferent interaction for everyone they willprobably find it threatening and odd, at firstso it requires careful preparation before anyonesits down together. Outside intermediaries willhave a better chance of getting this processstarted than local staff or the partners.

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The second task is more concrete. Mostschool-to-work partnerships need serioustechnical assistance to revise and "re-engineer" curriculum, change teacher/employerpreparation and improve classroom instructionand work-based learning sites in thecommunity. Most partnerships also need helpnegotiating school and industry responsibilitiesso that when the partners realign theirrespective organizations they are ready andable to operate a new delivery system that iscoherent and provides comprehensiveservices. This in turn operationalizes theschool-to-work vision and, in theory, createssystemic change.

So how tough is this to do? Think about it.How many people do you know who run orwork in organization who would look forward toaltering internal and external lines of authority,sharing power with others, blurring the politicaland geographic boundaries between differentinstitutions and changing the way they get theirwork done? At a minimum it is heresy to staffand executives in most organizations.Machiavelli taught us to avoid this behavior atall costs or, if it is unavoidable, manipulate thesituation as best we can. We all know leadersand managers who learned those lessons well.Looking at it more optimistically, John Gardnerwrote that most people do not break habits bysetting out to do so. Instead, they changewhen something better comes along.Intermediaries can play a critical role in gettingdiverse organizations and strong leaders pastthe early clashes over power and turf,decisionmaking, management theory,organizing procedures and the like. As neutraloutsiders, intermediaries are better able toprime the collaborative pump and provide themotivation and support that communitiesserious about change will need to succeed.

As the process unfolds the question becomes:how much should the intermediary do to lowerinstitutional resistance and remove theinevitable political, organizational and personalbarriers that develop? Is it up to theintermediary to keep everyone happy and save

the day? In our enthusiasm for ideas and ouroptimism about human behavior, we frequentlymake the mistake of forgetting that localchange is up to the people who live there. Inthe short-term, a skillful intermediary may beable to convince the people to break with thehabits of the past and behave differently. Butwhen it is all said and done, no matter howskillful and clever the intermediary, they cannot make people do something they do notwant to do. Economist Herbert Stein oncesaid, "if something is unsustainable, it tends tostop." Intermediaries only add value whenthey assist school-to-work collaborations inbecoming sustainable and producing betterresults for kids. The nation does not need anymore one- or two-year fads.

Another critical role intermediaries should play(but most do not) is that of truth-telling.Because intermediaries have a perspectivethat the participants can never have, it is theirresponsibility to point out to the partners whenthe community is not ready or able to take ona system-change agenda, or if leaders or staffdo not have the attitude or capacity to get thejob done. At the risk of losing a client, it is thetask of the intermediary to know "what time itis," when to hold people's feet to the fire, whento let the "pot simmer" for a while and, in thewords of country singer Kenny Rogers, "whento fold 'em and walk away."

Choosing National or LocalIntermediaries

Do communities gain any advantage byworking with national intermediaries versuslocal ones? It depends on the community'sneeds. The selection criteria should not bewhere the intermediaries live or what theycharge but whether they have the range ofexperience necessary and a successful trackrecord.

The seriousness of the task should driveselection. Advising community leaders aboutbuilding a new school-to-career system is, ineffect, a permission to raid the candy jar.

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Intermediaries get to invite newdecisionmakers into the circle to dismantleexisting programs and turn institutionalrelationships upside-down. It is not trifling.Lest we forget, school-to-work is supposed tochange the way resources are allotted ("whogets what") alter the job responsibilities ofteachers and administrators, convincebusiness to keep the faith in the public schools,suggest to parents that their son or daughterdoes not necessarily need a college educationand try out new curricula and assessments onkids without knowing whether any of it willwork. Folks have lost their jobs suggestingchanges that were much more innocent. A lotis at stake for the community and theprofessionals whose lives will be effected bythis legislation.

The intermediary role requires precise, time-sensitive and tactful craftsmanship so as not tocreate dependence, fear, suspicion or hostilityamong the partners and other keystakeholders as reality sinks in. Eachcommunity has unique needs and differentplayers which make feel-good facilitation and"shrink wrapped" programs fairly ineffective.The challenge is to support key leaders as theydevelop the collective trust and confidenceneeded to make long-term decisions together,not delay action with "safe" discussions that donot address central issues. A parallelchallenge is to build the capacity of the groupso that they do not default to their traditionalways of doing business when the going getstough, which is a constant problem.Local school-to-work partnerships needexperienced professionals with an unusualassortment of communication, process andcontent skills, whether they live locally or 2.000miles away. Therefore, it is crucial that theintermediary role not be filled by a newlyminted graduate, goofy facilitators, researchersor policy wonks. No one wants to work withAttila the Hun, but it is less important that theintermediary is warm and cuddly than that itunderstands how to manage groups in conflictand move an agenda forward. Getting beyondbusiness as usual can not be accomplished by

putting people in a room to "bond" by writingmission statements or going through content-free facilitated exercises. It takes a tough-minded exchange of views with the rightpeople in the room. Communities can notafford a misstep when these discussions aretaking place. The good intermediaries knowhow to position the process and create anenvironment in which change is possible. Therest is up to the folks who live there.

Ingredients for Success

Intermediaries have terrific opportunities tohelp employers, educators, agency staff andcommunity activists stick their necks out, learnnew ways to work together and gain themotivation and trust needed to act on theirconvictions and plans. The following pointsguide the work of the best intermediaries:

they are not seduced by theory or their ownpropaganda, they are not pompous oracademic and they are not indecisive touchy-feely types;they are willing to pitch in and get their handsdirty when necessary, they will not getdiscouraged at resistance and politicalgamesmanship and they will not walk awaywhen the heat gets turned up;they have the savvy to separate rhetoric fromreality and convincingly say so out loud;they have the credibility to suggest andimplement benchmarks, feedbackmechanisms and early warning systems thatwork for the community;they are willing to take responsibility for badresults and avoid the "blame game" whileholding everyone to their own commitments

they do not need to take credit when goodthings happen;they have the patience and capacity to serveseveral "masters" at the same time withoutcompromising the process or losing sight ofthe goal;they know when to bring the process toclosure by asking the right question when itlooks like success is in sight or wheneveryone's best effort is failing; and

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they know when to increase or decreasetheir own activity to get the desired outcomes

and they know when to withdraw and letthe community run with the ball on their own.

Some communities will have an easier timewith this than others, with or without anintermediary. It is not all going to go assmoothly as one wishes, but it probably will nottake as long or be as nearly as painful as somepeople imagine. Most importantly, if we focuson the intent of the legislation to changethe educational pipeline status quo andimprove the school-to-work transition forchildren and youth then perhaps all themaddening hurdles and continuing dilemmasfaced by communities across the country asthey learn how to build a new system will beeasier to endure.

William Bloomfield is the Executive Director of CivicStrategies/School & Main. School & Main is a nationalintermediary organization which has helped communitiesin more than 30 states develop and implement school-to-work.

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Eleven authors offer a wide spectrum of opinion on improving efforts to promote support for children and families.(Co-published with The Finance Project and the Institute for Educational Leadership)

Contract With America's Youth: Toward a National Youth Development Agenda 64 pages. $5 prepaid.Twenty-five authors ask what must be done to promote youth development, supportive communities and youth services.(Co-published with Center for Youth Development and the National Assembly)

Improving the Transition from School to Work in the United States 40 pages. $5 prepaid.by Richard Kazis, with a memorandum on the Youth Transition by Paul BartonA detailed analysis of the transition of American youth from school to employment. Offers strategies for improving careerpreparation and recommendations for federal policy.(Co-published with Jobs for the Future)

Youth Apprenticeship in America: Guidelines for Building an Effective System 90 pages. $5 prepaid.Discussion of educational theory and practical application by six experts at the forefront of research and on the front linesin implementing youth apprenticeship. Outlines approaches and lessons learned from experience in the U.S. and abroad.

Children, Families and Communities: 48 pages. $5 prepaid.Early Lessons From a New Approach to Social Services

by Joan Wynn, Sheila M. Merry and Patricia G. BergOffers both a big-picture analysis of comprehensive, community-based initiatives and a more focused look through thelens of one such initiative in eight Chicago neighborhoods.

What It Takes: Structuring Interagency Partnerships 56 pages. $3 prepaid.to Connect Children and Families with Comprehensive Services

by Atelia Melaville with Martin BlankGuidance for schools, social welfare agencies and CBOs on how to advance the well-being of children and families.

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QUANTITY PRICE AMOUNTThe Forgotten Half Revisited (softcover) $15.00Youth Employment Preparation in Europe $6.00A Young Person's Guide to Earning and Learning $2.00A Young Person's Guide to Managing Money $3.00Some Things DO Make a Difference for Youth $10.00MORE Things That DO Make a Difference for Youth $10.00

Set of both Make a Difference Volumes $17.50Youth Work, Youth Development in England $5.00Preparing Youth for the Information Age $5.00Revitalizing High Schools $5.00Opening Career Paths for Youth $2.00Prevention or Pork? Youth-Oriented Anti-Crime Programs $5.00American School-to-Career Movement $5.00Dollars and Sense $5.00Contract with Americats Youth $5.00Improving the Transition from School to Work $5.00Youth Apprenticeship in America $5.00Children, Families and Communities $5.00What It Takes $3.00

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