A new report on how we can better prepare our kids for the workforce and stop the costly churning in education is right up my alley. Experts at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education argue in “Pathways to Prosperity” [pdf] that the “college for all” mantra might be misplaced and we should be doing a better job of helping kids seen alternative paths into the workforce earlier in life. Sound familiar? See chapter 2 of Not Quite Adults. Or here and here, and here.
As the blog at Higher Ed summarizes the report:
By concentrating too much on classroom-based academics with four-year college as a goal, the nation’s education system has failed vast numbers of students, who instead need solid preparation for careers requiring less than a bachelor’s degree.
Leaders of the “Pathways to Prosperity” project at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education argue for an education system that clearly articulates students’ career options as early as middle school and defines the coursework and training required, so young people can chart an informed course toward work, whether as an electrician or a college professor.
Agreed! Yet several people are up in arms about this, suggesting that this call for tracking–which it is–will relegate too many minority kids into dead-end careers and paths. I realize that’s been a long-time worry, but it seems that young minority men are already being tracked–right into prison. Yes, we’ve been doing such a stellar job making educating relevant to young lives that a young black male with just a high school degree has a better chance of ending up in prison than college.
Ah, but before you check out at the mention of urban minority kids, this report is not about those “other kids” whom we as a country (shamefully) rarely think about. This report is about all of our kids. Two startling truths about our current system are that about 60% of the workforce does not have a BA, and this may be the first generation to get less education than their parents. Recognizing the problem, the nation’s colleges are aiming for a graduation rate of 55%. As commendable (and sadly telling) as that is, the Harvard report points out: what about the other 45%? Indeed. I’d say the worry over tracking is akin to putting out a brush fire while Rome burns.
The problem, the Harvard report says, is that “We fail these young people not because we are indifferent [to their needs and goals], but because we have focused too exclusively on a few narrow pathways to success.” Instead, they argue, we should develop other models that help kids make a more direct connection to work, while in high school. They especially like the model of Finland and Denmark:
Finland and Denmark… keep all students in a common, untracked comprehensive school up through grade 9 or 10, at which point students and their families, not the school, decide which kind of upper secondary education they will pursue. We believe this model makes much more sense for the U.S. to consider, but it would mean that we would have to be willing to abandon our reliance on the various forms of tracking, subtle as well as overt, that pervade much of our education system through the elementary and middle school years.
They also like the German apprenticeship model (with some adjustments) that typically combines classroom and workplace learning that culminates in a diploma or certificate, a “qualification” that “holds real currency with employers.” Thanks to high standards, those who complete the programs leave high school with qualifications roughly equivalent to a technical degree from a community college–at no cost to them, mind you. The government and employers split the cost. Employers are heavily invested in this training, aligning it carefully with their needs. As a result, employers know they’ll get a graduate ready to join the workforce–unlike many U.S. teens, whose opportunities for teen employment have eroded significantly over the last decade. No wonder American employers complain loudly that kids with just a high school degree lack the soft skills like being on time, integrity, and not standing slumped over a cash register with a look of utter boredom on their face.
The report offers many more great ideas for reforming our education system to better integrate careers, to bring “vocational training,” as it was once called, out of the basement, and to reform guidance systems. I like this suggestion especially:
In the U.S., our goal should be to assist every young
adult beginning at the end of middle school to develop an individualized pathway plan that would include career objectives; a program of study; degree and/or certificate objectives; and work-linked learning experiences. These pathway plans would be hardly be set in concrete, and young adults would not be forced into tracks. But the merits of this approach are obvious. Young adults simply can’t chart a course if they don’t have a goal.
We saw this inability to chart a course over and over in the young people we interviewed for “Not Quite Adults.” These were kids who couldn’t fathom four years of school, but were at a real loss for other alternatives. They ended up in $10 an hour jobs, dissatisfied and casting about for a lifeline, as they treaded water during one of the most important decades (the 20s) in their lives. If they’d had the lifeline of some concrete guidance that helped them see goals earlier in life, and the path to achieve those goals, I bet a lot of them would be much happier, and much more secure, than they are today.
The Georgetown Center on Education and the Workforce predicts that the U.S. economy will produce 47 million job openings by the end of 2018. Almost two-thirds of these openings will require some college education. But not necessarily a four-year degree. They predict that nearly half of the jobs that demand higher education will only require an A.A. degree
or less. “And virtually all of these sub-B.A. jobs will require the kinds of real-world skills students master in career and technical education.”
We have to do better. The Harvard report offers some excellent suggestions for how to get there, including many of the same things I’ve noted here and in the pages of Not Quite Adults.
They also point out programs that are already doing many of the things they suggest–and doing them successfully. Programs in high schools like Project Lead the Way, or Career Academies, or High Schools That Work, or Linked Learning Initiative in California, and the Florida state legislation that requires new career and technical education programs be developed that match real-world employer needs.
They also point to employer-based programs that are pretty amazing. Programs like U.S. First for future engineers, the Wisconsin Youth Apprenticeship Program, the National Academy Foundation, and Year Up. Dick Bonnet wrote in from W. Virginia about Energy Corporation of America’s program called College Summit that helps send students to college to train to work in the oil and gas industry. Now let’s build on the existing programs and bring them to scale, nationally–and for a much broader range of kids.
