Letters to the Editor

To the Editor:

W. Norton Grubb's Commentary this past summer on school-to-work programs ("True Reform or Tired Retread?: Seven Questions To Ask About School-to-Work Programs," Commentary, Aug. 3, 1994) raises several pertinent questions. It deserves careful study. However, it contains one serious error that should be corrected. That error can be found in Mr. Grubb's statement that "the efforts to install work-experience programs and career education just 20 years ago were utter failures. ... "

This description is both unfair and untrue. I expect that "work experience" advocates will raise equally strong objections to this insult, but I will confine my reply to career education, an area I have studied in some depth, having served as the first and only director of the U.S. Education Department's office of career education...