True Reform or Tired Retread?

By W. Norton Grubb

School-to-work programs are the most recent reforms to hit the education system, and, with the appeal of novelty, they have entered the lists of changes to be implemented over the next few years. The big question is whether the changes will make much difference to schools and students, or whether in 10 years' time they will have vanished, swept aside by different priorities.

To these programs' partisans, including me, "school to work'' offers a better chance for improving high schools than any other area of reform. The school-based component requires the integration of academic and vocational education and creates bridges between secondary and postsecondary education. A work-based component provides opportunities for learning different capacities (including motivation and discipline) than schools can teach. And linkages or "connecting activities'' insure that both components are consistent.

But to others, the noise around school-to-work programs may seem baffling. None of the elements is particularly new. Efforts to integrate academic and vocational education and tech-prep programs are already taking place in vocational education; and the work-based components seem like a re-labeling of work-experience and co-op programs. The last wave of occupationally related innovation just 20 years ago--with career education and work-experience programs--resulted in very little. What's to prevent school-to-work programs from following the same cycle of...