School-to-Work Movement Faces Test, Study Says

By Mary Ann Zehr

Washington

The school-to-work reform movement doesn't stand a strong chance of surviving after the federal money for it winds down in 2001, predicts an evaluation that will soon be released to Congress.

To survive, school-to-work programs need funding commitments for state and local partnerships, and they must be at the core of states' efforts to raise academic standards, according to the evaluation conducted by Mathematica Policy Research Inc. of Princeton, N.J.

So far, there is little evidence that either condition is occurring, the report says, concluding that "the overall vision of a [school-to-work] system may slip into the shadows of the many other competing demands...