ED 255 643

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INSTITUTION

SPONS AGENCYPUB DATENOTEPUB TYPE

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Barton, Paul E.Critical Skill Needs and Vocational Education in the1980s. NIWL Critical Skills Program.National Inst. for Work and Learning, Washington,D.C.National Inst. of Education (ED), Washington, DC.8330p.Viewpoints (120)

MF01 Plus Postage. PC Not Available from EDRS.Adult Education; Adult Students; CooperativePlanning; Cooperative Programs; Coordination;Educational Cooperation; *Educational Needs;*Educational Policy; *Education Work Relationship;Entrepreneurship; Futures (of Society); GovernmentSchool Relationship; Job Training; Labor ForceDevelopment; Labor Needs; Needs Assessment;Occupational Information; Policy Formation; PositionPapers; Postsecondary Education; *Public Policy;Relevance (Education); *School Business Relationship;School Role; Secondary Education; Unions; *VocationalEducationPrivate Sector; Public Sector

ABSTRACTThe vocational education system was started in the

United States by a collaborative effort of employers, educators, andunions. If vocational education is to meet the critical skill needsof industry, Federal policies providing for broader governance and anincremental approach to the planning and delivery of vocationaleducation programs are necessary. Rather than relying on governmentcorrective action to adjust curricula after skill needs have alreadychanged, vocational education planners need to build adjustments tochanging technology and labor markets into the system. Federalvocational education policy must encourage States and local schooldistricts to deal with all elements of the school-to-work transition,including job placement, job search education, and employmentassistance services. When planning for the delivery of occupationaleducation to adult learners, Federal policymakers need to focus onefforts to assist adults in making occupational adjustments and toaid employers in upgrading their labor force. It is imperative thatFederal policymakers take steps to meet national skill shortages,promote entrepreneurship, and integrate the multitude of Federalhuman resource development efforts currently underway. (MN)

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US. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATIONNATIONAL INSTITUTE OF EDUCATION

ED CATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATIONCENTER (ERIC)

This document has been reproduced asreceived from the person or organizationoriginating itMinor changes have been made to improvereproduction qu?lity

Points of view or opinions stated in this document do not necessarily represent official NIE

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CRITICALSKILL

NEEDSAND

OCA' i ION ALEDUCATION

INTHE1980s

NIWLCritical

SkillsProgram

Paul E. Barton1983

PREFACE

The vocational education systemwas started in the United States by acollaborative effort of employers,educators, and unions. This paperargues that this collaboration hasdeclined and needs to be restored, ifvoi.4tintrril editewirm is to meet thecritical skill needs of industry.

The research behind this policyanalysis was funded by the NationalInstitute of Education, with Dr.Henry David as the project officer.The adaptation for this publication,and the expenses of editing andpublishing, were paid for by NIWL'sCritical Skills Program. This Pro-gram is supported by grants from theGeneral Electric Corporation, GTESylvania, Harvard University, andthe International Business MachinesCorporation (IBM). None of theseorganizations, however, bears anyresponsibility for the policy recom-mendations made herein. Nor dothese views necessarily representthose of NIWL's Trustees; they aresolely the responsibility of theauthor.

Paul BartonPresident

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. RESTORING COLLABORATIONBroader GovernanceAn Incremental Approach 2

II. AS A SYSTEM OF EDUCATION 5It 5

Quality Education 6

III. LEARNING AND WORKING: THEY GO TOGETHER WELL 9

IV. MEETING THE MARKET AND MAKING IT 13Coordinating Occupational Information at the Local Level 13

Getting Underneath Occupational Projections: Employer Hiring Practices 14Enlarging the Market 15

V. YOUTH TRANSITION TO WORK: THE WHOLE OF IT 17Joh Placement 17lob Search Education 18Employment Assistance Officers 19

VI. OCCUPATIONAL EDUCATION AND THE ADULT LEARNER 21

Occupational Adjustment Assistance 21

A Public-Private Sector Relationship 23

VII. SOME NATIONAL IMPERATIVES 25National Skill Shortages 25FIltreprencurship 26The Federal Partner in Human Resource Development 27

VIII. CONCLUSION: RESPONDING TO CHANGE 29

1.

RestoringCollaboration

A policy of making vocationaleducation a collaborative effortamong education, employer,anti orgamzea iaoor institu-tion.

The following excerpts provide, inshort compass, a description of thedegree to which vocational educationstarted as a collaborative enterprise:

the whole country is awakening tothe imperative need of industrial education."

National Association ofManufacturers; March 1912.

in support of aid to vocationaleducation.

"The American Federation of Laboris taking up the bill laid to vocationaleducation) in a vigorous way. Their leg-islative agent here in Washington ... ispushing the matter along."

Letter %ritten by the AssistantSecretary of Agriculture.

January 1909.

" I he It-Kummer of the presentAmerican Vocational A ssocial ionOVA). the National Society for thePromotion of Industrial EducationiNSPIli), founded in 1906, ... broughtImo its membership a wide array ofpeisons arum agriculture. business, in.dusirv, gmernment. and the public attinge, . . ."

Mel\ in I.. Barlow. riteUnconquerable Senator Page,

1976,

Out of this broad coalition of in-terests. a piece of legislation wasfashioned to create a vocational edu-cation system in the high schools ofthe Halted States. It is ironic that few

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seem to remember that this legislationwas not a product of an education es-tablishment pushing the Congress foraid to an education bureaucracy, buta broad-based movement with the fullparticipation of those sectors thatcontrolled preparation for, and accessto, employment for young people.The principal actors in this 1917drama asettibleti iotncause they had a common interest. In-dustry had skill needs. Enough edu-cators believed the education systemscould supply them. Unions thoughtprospective workers should receiveuseful educations. All thought atten-tion should be given to youth goingdirectly into the job market after highschool.

These views are as relevant now asthey were in 1917. Now, however,business people talk more about voca-tional educators than to. them. Fewhave bothered to get to know the topvocational education executives intheir communities, explain their needsto them, and offer their assistance andcooperation.

Vocational educators, once theyhave met statutory requirements forhaving the prescribed number ofmeetings of advisory committees, fre-quently go their own wayadjustingcurricula less frequently than adjust-ments occur in the market.

Unions slip into a protective stance,often understandably worried aboutprograms that might cause adult em-ployment problems. But this is oftencarried to a point of non-involvementin positive efforts to help vocationaleducation.

The result is that critical skill needsgo unmet, while too many youth gettraining for jobs that are not there.

Broader Governance

If the idea of vocational educationas part of the public school system isgoing to work, the kind of collabora-tion that invented it in the first place isgoing to have to be restored. Skill de-velopment must take place within the

in v..hizh :lac ouiuse. They cannot be developed in iso-lation froin that system. That systemincludes the classroom (whether pub-lic or employer), the work station set-tings in which skills are developed orrefined, the industry personnel whoset and carry out hiring policy, andthe unions (where they exist) thatcarry out apprenticeship programs,jointly with employers, and becomeinvolved in the day-to-day applicationof bargaining agreements. While vo-cational education systems vary con-siderably in the degree to which theyare a part of this system, rather thanoutside of it, the general situation isone of less integration than is desir-able, both from the standpoint ofyouth and from the standpoint of em-ployers. Leading vocational educatorsare often the first to admit that tieswith industry need to be closer.

There have been, from time totime, a number of laws and regula-tions, emanating from the Federalgovernment, as well as from statecapitols, designed to require par-ticipation in planning vocationaleducation. Since the laws and regula-tions can only prescribe forms, andnot substance, they have been limitedin their reach. It is usually possible tocomply with forms, without achievingthe substance of involvement in plan-ning and decision making.

1

The general perception of vocation-al education advisory committees isthat they have generally achievedmore of the form of participationthan they have the substance of it.While there are many such advisorycommittees that have contributed im-mensely to exemplary vocational edu-cation systems and schools, there are

r.r;,,to It. .1 r01,1,InfT nn /of:a/

requirements that employers andunions be listened to in the formula-tion of plans.

Another problem with exclusivereliance on the advisory committeeapproach is that it is, in fact, only alladvisory committee. This approachimplies that vocational education issolely the responsibility of the publicschool system and that all decisionswill be made by the public school sys-tem. Industry representatives arethere only to provide "advice" andhave little role or responsibility be-yond that. In point of law, that is infact the case. .

A system of skill development op-erated in isolation, when the skills areto he applied in a market system, willnot he successful in getting employersto support it and reiarly use theskills that are produced. It will hap-pen in some places, and at sometimes. But we want much more thanthat. There are employers to be foundwho will testify for vocational educa-tion. But a great many hold the viewthat vocational education is not keep-ing up with the needs of industry. Ifvocational education is developingskills for the employment system, thewhole system has to he involved if thismode of imparting skills is to becomea leading actor, rather than just a s!tpporting player. What is needed is a

system in which the public (meaningpublic education), the employers, andthe unions (v.here they are a signifi-cant factor in an industry) collaborateto provide (i) occupational training,(ii) on-the-job work experience set-tings, and (iii) access to relevant jobsafter skills are acquired. All of thisshould be done in a system in which

in the prep of brick ednrationare also met.

It is hard to come up. with a pre-scription for doing this, particularlyfrom the vantage point of writinglaws. Such a system needs to emergefrom a collaborative process, ratherthan by edict from a legislature, sinceemployers are not subject to suchedicts as are public agencies. The bestapproach would be the creation of aworking party composed of educa-lion, employer, and union representa-tive 10 work Out a model whereby vo-cational education becomes a jointundertaking available for adoption oradaptation at the .state and local level.

An Incremental ApproachThere are collaborative approaches

short of comprehensive changes in thesystem of governance that could be re-lied upon in the present, approachesthat would establish a base of exper-ience. The National Associationof Industry-Education Cooperation(NAIEC) is one such effort to bring in-dustry and education together at thelocal level. Statewide efforts such asthe Industry Education Councils ofCalifornia arc also success stories hem.The National Manpower Institute(now the National Institute for Workand Learning) began working on amodel or local collaboration in 1973,

In 1975, the Institute published itsrecommendations for piloting localCommunity Education Work Coun-cils.* A recent inventory of local col-laborative efforts of employers,educators, and unions disclosed thatthere are now about 150 across thecountry.** Thew are not councils thatserve only in an advisory capacity to apublic program. They share responsi-bility for easing the transition fromschool to work or improving educa-tion in the schools.

There are also Private IndustryCouncils (PICs), created under CETAand mandated by the Job TrainingPartnership Act, that have broadenedenough that educators and unions arewell represented, although most arealmost wholly dominated by employ-er representation. Many of these PICscould assist with the vocational educa-tion enterprise, although such actionwould often be broader than the cur-rent charter of providing employmentfor the disadvantaged and retrainingfor displaced workers.

These collaborative approachescannot be legislated. But perhaps theycan be encouraged by providing mod-est amounts of start-up funding, atleast for secretariat services, until theparticipants organize enough to pro-vide the funding. Funding, of course,is a minor matter compared to achiev-ing real and lasting collaboration

*See The lloundless Resource: A ProspectusJor an Education/Work Policy, by WillardWirt/ and the National Manpower Institute,New Republic Book Company, 1975.

Sce bulustry-Education.l. ahorC'ollabora.A Directory of !mild Collaborative

Councils, National Institute for Work and(.earning, 1981.

among these sectors in the vocationaleducation enterprise.

This could be done in a number ofways, including matching Federalfunds to be used in localities for thispurpose. The experience of the Na-tional Institute for Work and Learn-ing was that such a collaborativecouncil can be sustained with $25,000-$40,000 per year for secretariat ser-vices. ui course, many nave startedup without public funding at all, andthe leadership involved in creatingsuch collaborative councils can comefrom any sector of the communityExisting Private Industry Councilscould be used to take on such an as-signment.

83

II.As a System ofEducation

.,1 policy of recvgnizing the edu-cational oNectives of the voca-tional education approach, rath-er than the present fixed focusOn immediate placement out-comes., and striving for a systeinopen to all who want it.

While it is essential to involve in-dustry in the vocational education en-terprise, it is also essential to recog7nice that vocational education is a sys-tem of education, not a job trainingsystem. To he sure, the distinctionssometimes get to be a bit fine, butthey are nonetheless real and impor-tant. Skills critical to industry includethe basics: computer and technologi-cal literacy as well as reading, writing,and arithmetic.

The first priority is that vocationaleducation be good education . . . inreading, in writing, in computing, inlistening, in problem solving. A singleevaluation yardstick of the percent ofgraduates immediately placed in"jobs for w hich they are trained," touse the common expression, is muchloo short a measure to apply. Wemust also ask how well they are edu-cated. For one reason, employersneed people with good basic educa-tions. For another reason, we want, inthe United States, to keep all optionsopen for young people as long as pos-sible, and this means keeping optionsopen to pursue postsecondary educa-non as well as immediate employ-

ment. You can't get into college it' youcan't read.

For All Who Want ItMany of the criticisms of vocational

education spring from some underly-ing belief that because it preparesyoung people for jobs it is by defini-tion second class education . . andthat the more it att,:citpt. to be it;:iputi-sive to what industry needs, the more itis departing from sound educationalpractice. It is not sufficiently recog-nized that most of American educa-tion is vocational, including abouttwo-thirds of higher education. Doc-tors, lawyers, and teachers go through"trade" schools, and making the dis-tinction that these are "professions"only underscores the class distinctionson which some of the disdain for voca-tional education is based.

Young people who do not pursueeducation beyond 12 years should notbe deprived of the option of learningan occupation they can qualify for inthat 12-year period of preparation.There are different learning styles,different interests, and different ob-jectives among high school age youth.We should offer variety in education-al approaches and not force all youthinto the same mold.

As for the question of the respon-siveness of vocational education to in-dustry needs, the consideration is oneof balance. To serve students, voca-tional education has to equip them inlight of what works in the marketplace. But education is responsible formaking independent judgments aboutwhat constitutes an education and inno way should it become subservientto narrowly defined needs, Educa-

9

tion's aim is vocational preparation tolaunch a lifetime of work and living,not to shape a worker for a narrow setof skills good for only one employer.There should be some tension betweeneducators and industry, but in a cli-mate where both recognize that theirlarger objectives are complementary.

The head and hand debate in edu-cation will continue and should. AsIrving ha;; ". . , thehistoric split between head work andhand work characterizes the teachingand learning processes since antiqui-

As the debate continues, adjust-ments are made from time to time inhow vocational education is placed inthe total system of high school educa-tion. Evans and Herr describe whathappens:

A cycle can be observed which is rep-resented approximately once every gen-eration: (1) establishment of a reason-ably comprehensive high school, (2)gradual decreased emphasis on voca-tional education, (3) establishment ofseparate vocational schools, and (4) thereestablishment of comprehensive highschools which emphasize vocational ed-ucation.**

The recommendations in this paperwould result in very substantialchanges in the Federal role in voca-tional education and stem from thebelief that considerable change is re-quired in structure and practice. Butthese recommendations are made in acontext of complete agreement thatvocational education has a legitimate

*Irving t.. Horowitz, "Head and Hand inEducation: Vocation:distil versus Professional-ism," School Revien% May 1975.

**Rupert N. Evans and Edwin I.. Herr,tinouktions of Vocationa/ Education, 1978.

5

and important role to play in the pub-lic education system, one that is im-portant enough to receive a Federal fi-nancial contribution as a system ofeducation.

To be effective as a system of educa-tion, vocational education needs toserve all who want this particular formof education, not close off furthereducational options for those who take

no!narrow segment of the youth popula-tion, whether at the bottom or the topof the socio-economic scale. At thesame lime we know that, on the aver-age, socio-economic backgrourvi is 3.'strong prediction of youth occupa-tional paths and levels of educationalachievement. While we maintain openoptions, we know that those who startwith the greatest advantage are gen-erally the ones who exercise the op-tions that lead the farthest. Yet, thereare also significant numbers of youthin this open system who go wellbeyond where family backgroundsmight have indicated.

It is more difficult to give this prin-ciple of an open system operationalmeaning than it is simply to announceit.

The emphasis on equal access topublic education over the last tenyears or so has eroded policies of ex-clusiveness in sonic vocational schoolsthat established high admissions stan-dards. At the other end of the spec-trum, earlier images of vocational ed-ucation as a "dumping ground" foryoung people not making it anywhereelse Race also become dimmer. Acrossthe I inked Stales, there is a wide spec-trum of situations in vocational edu-cation, ranging from highly respectedarea technical institutions to schools

6

well known as drawing "From thebottom of the barrel." But the centerhas greatly enlarged, and vocationaleducation has emerged as a systemmore and more serving a larger seg-ment of the youth population, to thepoint where it represents about two-fifths of the entire budget for second-ary education.

Quality EducationWe do not want a segment of the

education system to be reserved for aparticular part of the population, nor

....do we want a population that is chan-nded to a particular segment of theeducation system. To keep all seg-ments of the system open to all is botha matter of substance and a matter ofperception.

One matter of substance is that inorder for options to be kept open togo to college, the basic education ele-ment in programs where youth arelearning occupational skills needs tobe of high quality. Otherwise, the op-tion becomes foreclosed.

Also, high quality basic educationis necessary for succeeding in the em-ployment world. An occupationalskill may be a useful add-on to a goodbasic education, but a primary pre-requisite for employment is still theability to read, write, and compute,and computer and technological liter-acy are becoming more important. Sohow well youth enrolled in vocationaleducation programs are doing in thesesubjects becomes very important,both for keeping education optionsopen, and for preparing youth whodo not go on to college for employ-ment. The problem is that the prin-cipal standard for judging vocational

1u

education has become the percent im-mediately placed in the occupation forwhich they were "trained."*

But youth are not just to be trainedfor a job, they are to be educated. The

first question should be how well theyare educated . . . how well they per-form in reading, math, writing, litera-ture, etc. Federally inspired evalua-tions should focus on these skills aswen u.s unmeoune octpanonat out-omes. Twelve years of education are

for more than just finding a first jobin the skill that was studied last inhigh school.

And if the basic education is of highquality, there is no reason why voca-tional education graduates should nothave a wide range of choices forpostsecondary education. For it to beany other way would mean that track-ing begins after junior high school andthat vocational education is knownand expected to be a track that doesnot go past high school, but goes onlyto lower level entry jobs. And if thesehigh school graduates don't have highschool level basic educations, theywon't go to decent entry level jobseither.

There are two avenues that couldbe pursued in the application of Fed-eral policy to remove this exclusivefocus on immediate labor market out-comes. One goes to a basic principleof education itself, the other to track-ing the results.

Any teaching of direct occupationalskills in the public classroom creates

I.or an excellent analysis of all possible ele-ments ()I' vocational education, see Harry F. Sit-bernum, " I he Intrinsic Benefits: Non-Econom-ic Returns of Vocational Education," I int.V.September I980.

an educational practice that differsfrom general education in the human-ities and in the sciences. There is noquarrel with this degree of "separate"%ocational education instruction.There are arguments made that thereshould be no direct vocational instruc-tion in the high school, that this is noteducation, and that offering such in-struction inevitably detracts From thetime available to provide an "educa-tion." While agreeing that maximumeffort needs to go into providing abasic education, the more extremearguments against vocational instruc-tion are rejected.

But w Idle a case exists for providingocational skills in the high school,that case does not support either thedivorcing of vocational educationfrom general education, or the neglectof the basics because of some pre-sumption either that students in voca-tional education do not need it or thatthey will not he going on to postsec-ondary education.

It has been Federal policy, since1917, to encourage the establishmentof a separate vocational educationsystem.* The 1917 law created a Fed-eral Board on Vocational Education,and it affected school organizationand curricula through RegionalAgents reporting to an ExecutiveDirector and through the review ofstate plans. The Board was abolishedin 1933. Charles Prosser was the first

\tannal training" in public schools, v;as,%%,i According to I av,-

rent ( "l'hiladelphia founded a publicmanual naming school in 1885; Si. l'aid (men-et' one in 1888. And city alter cit establishedin timid classes as ,itljunct to the general

piogiam tin I In, 1twtslwinanon 1)1the tit /i(nd, S rotate l'iess, 19(1,4, p. 12).

Executive Director, and "ill his brieftenure there, his passion for separatevocational schools and specific-tasktraining of students for existing jobsproduced policy directives, articles,and advice to thousands of like-minded advocates across the coun-try."

Federal policy should now encour-aee the maximum integration nossihlebetween vocational instruction andgeneral education, and achieving thisshould he a condition of Federal aid,removing any Federal influence forcreating a parallel system of educa-tion. This would work both to expandvocational offerings to those planningmore general secondary and postsec-ondary educations, as well as assureincrease in general educagon oppor-tunities for those terminating theireducations with high school.

Such general policy would have tobe turned into specifics, and therewould be choices to be made as towhat constituted integration. It wouldalso be necessary to avoid detailedguidelines that had the effect of sub-verting state and local control and dis,couraging divergent educational phil-osophies. To complicate matters a bit,there are probably separate vocationalhigh schools having more success inthe teaching of the basics than are thegeneral track courses in the regularschools. The principle is integrationof vocational and general education,and there is a variety of forms andorganizational arrangements underwhich this could be accomplished and

'Draft paper by I arry Cuban, titled "En-during Resiliency: Enacting and Implementingl'ederal Vocational Education Legislation."

11

already is being accomplished inmany places.

The second element of a policy ofrecognizing the primary educationalobjectives of the vocational educationsystem is broadening the standardsused to evaluate vocational educationoutcomes. We need to know the edu-cational progress of all students. Therecopnized cyctem for Ink is theNational Assessment of EducationalProgress (NAEP). However, NAEPdoes not identify vocational educationstudents among the national sampleof I7-year-olds taking the tests. Thenecessary background informationshould be collected in the examina-tions of I7-year-olds to identify S114-dents enrolled in vocational educa-tion, under what arrangements, andto what degree. This would enable acomparison over time of the achieve-ments in reading, writing, and arith-metic, by region of the country, andy socio-economic level of the stu-

dent. Such a change would recognizethe dual objectives of vocationaleducation: the providing of an educa-tion and preparation for a specificvocation.

7

Learning andWorking: They GoTogether Well

/1 policy of moving toward jointschool-employer occupationalinstruction, with the burden ofproof shifting to the states tojustify a strictly classroom ap-proach.

Integration between occupationaleducation and general education isnot, by itself, enough. Integration isalso required between the school andthe employer.

There has been a trend under wayfor some time in the direction ofblending schooling and workingtogether, at both the secondary levelof education and the postsecondarylevel, complementing a trend duringthis same period in which more adultshave gone hack to school on a part-time basis.

On the youth side, a number of fac-tors have been involved. Vocationaleducation has long had a cooperativeeducation component, developingmost broadly in retail trade, office oc-cupations, and "trades and industry"programs. According to Rupert Evansand Edwin Herr:

Hptie opnoU ion from SS nt the 'Mlle', 'till('

Cal IS \ piogiatit gre%% rn See,nul,u ..haul entullntrnt from /ll) inPilo to 117,000 in 1965-66 and to112.0011 in 19'71 72 ksonie 2,500 ur Ilie18,001) lueli distil:I. had.11,11 pi ot,i ani. in 196c W., I he

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u et mainly higher now, but no oneknutt; how much higher.*

They go on to say that "studies ofthe economics of vocational educa-tion have shown higher rates of returnon investment in cooperative pro-grams than in other types of voca-tional education."

Cooperative education was givenadditional Impetus in the VocationalEducation Amendments of 1968, in aseparate Part G, beginning with thestatement that "The Congress findsthat cooperative work-study pro-grams offer many advantages in pre-paring young people for employment.Through such programs, a meaning-ful work experience is combined withformal education enabling students toacquire knowledge, skills, and ap-propriate attitudes."

Other Federal laws and efforts havestimulated simultaneous learning andworking arrangements. The work-study programs for students fromlow-income families, in both the Vo-cational Education Act and theHigher Education Act, are two ex-amples. The programs emanatingfrom Federal employment and train-ing legislation are another, beginningwith the Neighborhood Youth Corpsrun by the Department of Labor tin-der the Economic Opportunity Act of1964, with successors tracing throughto the present CETA programs.

More recently, there has been somegrowth in the number of schools offer-ing Exp.rience Based Career Educa-tion. The cooperative approach has

`Rupert N. ham and l'k in I . Herr.1 ottnelatirm% Qt. I 'ocittirmill Ethwation. Cliadc

Company, I978

also continued to grow in junior andcommunity college settings, with lim-ited Federal financial assistance com-ing through the Higher Education Act.

As important, or perhaps moreimportant, are the individual deci-sions of young people to seek part-time work while they are in school,outside any formal program stem-ming dual education or employmentand training institutions. There hasbeen a steady increase in labor forceparticipation rates among 16- to 21-year -old students over the last twodecades.

One clear finding in national levelstudies, from which very little else ofclarity emerges, is the relationshipbetween working part-time while stillin high school and the unemploymentrate after high school. The most com-prehensive set of data (although notthe only set) on this comes from theNational Longitudinal Study of theHigh School Class of 1972 (for thosewho did not enroll full-time in post-secondary education) *:

Hours Worked Average UnemploymentPer Week Rate 141 Years After

Senior Year High School)0 120/0

1-5 I I W0

6-10 904,

II -ISI 6-25 70,0

More than 25

This relationship holds irrespectiveof race or sex.

',Welt! V. Harrell and Philip W. Wirtz,Social and Ednttional Antecedents to loud)Une(11ploownt. Social Research Group, TheGeorge Washingion Washinglon,1),('.. 1980.

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There are, of course, qualificationsto any conclusions drawn from suchdata, particularly with respect tocause and effect. lint this relationshiphas been found in studies going all theway hack to a national study by theBureau of J.abor Statistics in 1963.Also, these data do not discriminateamong youth working and schoolingas a result of planned programs ascompared to those getting jobs ontheir own in the open labor market. Infact, one of the problems encounteredin studies that evaluate work-studyprograms is that a high proportion ofyouth in general education programsalso work.

I o whatever extent vocational edu-cation advocates argue that combiningbasic education with learning occupa-tional skills provides a good learningenvironment for a high proportion ofyouth, that argument applies evenmore to acquiring skills in real worksettings. The link between learning andwork experience is stronger than whenonly the school workshop serves as aproxy for experience. The learning ex-perience nexus, of course, gets its

clearest expression in educationphilosophy in the work of JohnDewey, writing at the turn of the cen-tury, who said: "As formal teachingand training grow in extent, there is thedanger of creating an undesirable splitbetween the experience gained in moredirect associations, and what is ac-quired in school."

Mere are, however, a number ofpractical considerations, and observa-tions based on common sense. fogeth-

' I I I )ev.eN Ih./1111(tug r and I (h(eatton,I IP. Mak \1111,111 ( ompaii% 1961.

It)

er, they make a strong case for steadilyenlarging the proportion of youth whohave a combined learning-work op-tion.I. Learning oxiipational ,skills is

aided by experience.Actual experience in real work set-tings adds an important elementthe reason why medical studentswork in hospitals and educationstudents practice teach. It's alsowhy industry relies so heavily onon-the-job training.

2. For cooperative education, theschool and employer work togeth-er.The employer adds the experiencedimension to the school classroom.Communication ex;sts, with em-ployers able to spot and point outeducational deficiencies, and theschools able to point out when thework station assignment is notproper for skill development.

3. Joint work-study programs pro-vide a job connection.In addition to getting a skill, thereis a connection to an employeroften several of themwhichmany times results in a job offerupon graduation.

4. The market test is applied all thetune.To interest employers in such jointefforts, the occupational areasmust be ones in which demand isreasonably strong. It cannot sur-vive in an area where no substan-tial hiring is taking place. Thiscounters tendencies in strictly class-room vocational education to con-tinue offerings when demand hasshifted.

5. Cooperative ytyle education re-duces equipment problems.

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This is true from two standpoints:

The equipment actually in use inindustry is usually more up-to-date than classroom equipment.Training on employer-owneLequipment reduces the cost ofreplacing school equipment,which can rapidly become obso-lete.

6. In general, .such joint venturesforce educators and business peo-ple to talk to each other,One of the serious problems ineducation generally, and vocation-al education specifically, is the ten-dency toward isolation from em-ployment institutions. Joint ef-forts, such as cooperative educa-tion, require a dialogue in order tomake them work.

While the term "cooperative edu-cation" is used frequently above, it isused in the generic sense and is notconfined to the particular existingforms of cooperative education. Ex-perience Based Career Educationwould be included, as would variousinternship programs. Formal appren-ticeship programs are a mixture ofclassroom and on-the-job training.Work-study programs are encom-passed here, altl.ough the term is

often used Ion programs in which thework is for income purposes only,and where no interchange takes placebetween school and, employer.

Unfortunately, such joint school/employer programs command only asmall portion of vocational educationfunds. Only 2.0 percent of Federalfunding (from the basic grant) goesfor cooperative education, and 2.2percent of non-Federal. The com-parable percentages for work-study

programs are 1.3 percent and 0.1 per-cent.*

Through matching grants, Federalpolicy encouraged the development ofclassroom occupational skill training.This was a successful effort, and avast .system of classroom occupationaleducation now exists, with nine out often dollars provided from non-Feder-al sources. But, in too high a propor-tion of school systems, this educationis not linked to employer training sys-tems to the degree it needs to be. Fed-eral policy should now shift towardencouragement of joint school-em-plow occupational education andtraining.

the burden of proof should nowship to showing why a particular oc-cupational area should not be ap-proached on a cooperative basis,he fOre Federal money is spent onteaching occupational skills. Thiswould move toward a vstem in whichcontinual adjustments would have tobe made to market shifts, and whereeducators and employers would findit necessary to work together.

Most observers of the transitionfrom school to work have commentedon how known and certain that tran-sition is for most youth, particularlyin countries such as West Germany.As previously pointed out, some ofthis certainty conies from early track-ing into industry, foreclosing optionsfor continuing education. The UnitedStates does not want that kind oftracking. But another reason for suc-cess in these other countries is the ex-

httertm Reiutrt (,1 the I'veutionallie ill Shnlr, N;111011.11 Illqi1111c olwillettibct HSU

tensive use of the apprenticeship sys-tem, where young people get a combi-nation of classroom training and on-the-job experience and instruction.The apprenticeship system, as impor-tant as it in the U.S., serves only alimited 'number of young people, andthe average age of entry is far beyondthe age of high school graduation.

What we need is an American coun-terpart to this system widely used inEurope. The vocational education sys-tem, working with employers andunions, is uniquely situated to workout such a counterpart system, com-bining instruction and experience.

14 ll

IV.Meeting the Marketand Making It

I policy of building adjust-ellts to changing technologyand markets into the .syslem,rather than relying, on govern-ment corrective action to adjustcurriculum afier skill needs. havealrmly changed.

Occupational offerings of voca-tional education have gotten, fromtime to time, out of line with thestructure of the job market. Federalpolicy itself shares a responsibility forhis development. due to the rigidity

in the categories specified in Federallaw. These rigidities have been re-mo ed or reduced, and vocational ed-ucation has in fact become more re-sponsive to market shifts. Rut the ad-justment is incomplete and slow totake place.

What is needed is to build the pro-cess of adjustment into the system, sothat by its regular operation it adaptsto the changes in the economy. Twosteps recommended earlier are verymuch in this direction: the broadeningof collaboration and the shift towardcooperative education-type arrange-ments between schools and employ-ers. iloweer, the whole tracking sys-tem needs improvement and integra-tion at the loc.' of the community.

Fsperts disagree on predictions ofthe haute, and it is dangerous to get

too dependent on such predictions.'"Rut we can at least keep up with thechanges that arc happening everyyear.

Since the lime of the comprehen-sive review of vocational education bythe commission President Kennedyappointed, vocational educators haveheard the refrain, over and over, of"use occupational trends and projec-tions to keep curriculum offerings upto date." By this means, the charge ofthe 1963 amendments to provide vo-cational training "which is realistic inthe light of actual or anticipated op-portunities for gainful employment"was to be met.

In the beginning, there was very lit-tle such data available in a form thatcould he used in decisions on expand-ing or contracting education for par-ticular occupations. There were a fewnational projections, coming from theBureau of Labor Statistics, and a fewlocal skill surveys by state employ-ment services. They were not a basisfor educational planning.

A combination of events and devel-opments has changed this situationconsiderably. One was the passage ofthe 1968 Vocational Education Amend-ments, providing for transfer ofmoney to the Labor Department topurchase better information. The ef-forts of the Labor Department culmi-nated in: guidebooks to states showingthem how to translate national projec-tions into state and metropolitan area

41.0t one review of the official projectionsof occupational trends as they affect voca-tional education. and an alternate scenario togmerninent projections, see Joseph hroom-kin, -the Future Role of Vocational Educa-tion," prepared for the National Institute ofI'docalion, Novoty! 1980.

projections (1969); progress ol'131...S ineconomic growth modeling, using in-put-output matrices; and the creationof the BI.S Occupational EmploymentStatistics program, getting occupa-tional statistics directly from employ-ers. Most important, from the point ofview of process as well as advancementof technique, were the 1976 educationamendments creating the National Oc-cupational Information CoordinatingCommittee (NOICC), and thecooperating State Occupational Infor-mation Coordinating Committees(SOICCs), to bring the education andthe labor market agencies together.

From the standpoint of policy,what are the next steps in assuring thebest match between occupational of-ferings and labor market realities?And what Federal role is appropriatein achieving them? The first step hasto do with bringing the education andlabor market authorities together atthe local level on the development andapplication of occupational statisticsand projections. The second has to dowith compensating for the inadequa-cies of such projections. The third in-volves making a market for vocation-al education, rather than just meetingthe existing one.

Coordinating OccupationalInformation at the LocalLevel

The steps taken by NOICC and theSOICCs have been very important increating a base 01' occupational infor-mation and projections. These coor-dinating committees have greatly in-creased the communications betweenthe Federal and state agencies respon-

BEST COPY AVAILABLE '3

Bible for education and labor markellamination and programs. Technicalcapacity has been increased at thesame lime undermanding and [rusthike been Unproved.

I foe situation al the local level is alot less dear, and the next step is tobring the same joint error! to bear atthe local level as is beginning to existat the Federal and slate levels. Therearc a number of reasons for this:

A principal reason is that in a greatmany states, given available bud-gets, the basic decisions about ex-pansion and contraction of partic-ular courses a instruction aremade at the local level. So it is herethe lamination must be brought,to hear.A second reason is that the mix ofindustry and ocCupations can hedifferent in a metropolhan areathan in a state as a whole, or,perhaps, there is a particulardevelopment that will change thelunire drastically, like a new in-dustry arising or an old one de-parting.A third reason is that even thoughtechnicians can make statisticalprojections in Washington or inthe state capitol, there is still aquestion as to whether they will betrusted or used by local officials,

ho are aware of their separateiurisdidions and are somewhalsuspicions of Federal and statelevel efforts to control local deci-sions through statistics generatedclew here.A 'mirth reason is that there needsto be local understanding of theuses and misuses of the projectionsand the extent to which judgmentN ink tack' in their application.

14

A Fifth reason is that while there isone local labor make', and onetotal estimate of job openings Forthe area, there is more than onesupplier of occupational training.While these suppliers are unlikelyto agree fully on dividing up themarket to prevent over-training ina particular occupation, sittingaround a table with the fads andfigures will bring sonic reality intothe picture.The recommendation iv that Feder-

al policy encourage the creation of oc-cupationul information coordinatingarrangements between educators./trainers and local labor market au-thorities. While it would seem naturalto call these Community Occupation-al Information Coordinating Com-mittees, to follow on the NOICC andSOICCs, the Function is what is im-portant and can he carried outihrough varying formal arrange-ments. That is, there should he asmuch room as possible for the exer-cise of local judgment.

Why is Federal policy involved atall at this level? For one reason, theFederal government has chosen, since1917, to take a leadership role in cre-ating a system of occupational educa-lion. It follows that this role emendsto assuring that the occupationaltraining is realistic in terms of whatdie needs are in these occupalions.For another reason, the Federal gov-ernmeni funds practically all of theoperations of local labor markelagencies: the local offices of the stateemployment service and the Mayors'employment and [raining programsunder .1TPA. It has some responsibili-ty 10 assure that labor market inky-inalion for occupalional educalion

decision making is available and thatthese agencies cooperate with theircounterparts in educalion.

Getting UnderneathOccupational Projections:Employer Hiring Practices

Even good occupational projec-tions, when used alone, have seriouslimitations. You need to start withthem, but you can't end with them.The reason is that knowing how manypeople will be hired in a particular oc-cupation is only limited information.There are a number of routes into anoccupation in American industry. Ac-tual hiring practices vary among oc-cupations and among industries. Theyalso vary within occupations and in-dustries, depending on the location ofthe Firm. Firms in the sanie industrymay well have different hiring prac-tices. The amount of training timevaries greatly among occupations,and many do not require extensivetraining.*

Sonic Firms hire workers with basicskills and provide their own training.They would not expect to hire peopleFrom schools that had provided occu-pational education. AT&T would bean example of a corporation thatwould expect to do most of its own[raining. Some firms expect [hat jobskills will be learned on the job and

1.01 a useful presentation on him to look ala community's jobs from ihis siamItioini. see.lutes Skills hull:Inv k&I) Mono-

1176, II.S. 1)epatInicill of Labor, 1980,bawd on the sock of 11alcia 1ive(11nali.

16

through experience, and a schoolproduct may or may not have a com-petitive advantage. If there is pro-jected growth in an occupation in asituation where the employer does notuse vocational schools as a source ofsupply, then the projection itself is in-sufficient to justify creating or ex-panding courses in that occupation.

Rather than relying on projectionsof occupational demand, each localvocational education system shouldhave a regular program of visits to thecommunity's major employers toidentity hiring and training practices,in order to plan vocational educationollerings so us to maxinsize the possi-bility that graduates will be hired bythose employers.

Now, a great many vocational edu-cators would say that they "talk tobusiness executives." Many of themprobably do. This recommendation isfor a systematic approach to talkingwith employers about their hiring andtraining practices. A local vocationaleducation .system should identify a setof "account managers," so that oneperson makes regular visits to a set ofemployers. This is not necessarily anew or separate set of people in thesystem. It may be a full-time represen-tative, who covers a large number ofemployers, or it may be an additionalresponsibility of teachers or adminis-trative staff. The point is only that itbe comprehensive and regular. It pro-vides both the opportunity to recordin the information system the employ-ers' hiring and training and recruit-ment policies and practices and theopportunity to get information usefulin making curriculum and contentmore responsive to current employerneeds.

Enlarging the MarketThere is, in the preceding, a some-

what negative tone, being sure not tooffer occupational education (i) whenthere is insufficent projected growth inthe occupation or (ii) when there isgrowth, but the employer provides hisor her own training and would riot ex-pect to use graduates of vocationaleducation. There is another side to thecoin, however, The account managerapproach provides both an opportuni-ty to record employer hiring and train-ing practices and also to Wed them.

The vocational education systemhas two clients to satisfy. One is thestudent. The other is the employerwho hires the student. Satisfying thestudent depends heavily on satisfyingthe employer, and the regular visit bythe account manager provides the vo-cational education system with an op-portunity to tell the employer aboutits occupational training and explainhow the system can help meet the em-ployer's skill needs and reduce inter-nal training costs.

Through regular arrangements forvisits, the vocational education systemalso has the opportunity to:

find out what problems the employ-er has had with the school products;work out arrangements for upgrad-ing training for employees; andwork out arrangements for cooper-ative education approaches and in-ternships for students.At the same time that vocational ed-

ucation can be adjusting to the realitiesof the job market, it can also be ex-panding the use of its graduates by em-ployers.

1 7IS

V.Youth Transition toWork: The Whole ofIt

A polity of recognizing thatMeditating the youth transitionto work is important, that class-room occupational education isonly ant' element in the transi-tion, and that Federal pokyshould encourage states and lo-calities to deal with all elementsof the transition.

It is of more than passing interestthat the organi/al ion representing vo-cational education practitioners is

called the American Vocational Asso-ciation, leaving out the word f:duca-lion. A concern with youth achieving"vocations" is a broader concerntall education alone, a fact that has

become more evident in the past fewdecades.

1he original interest of the pro-moters of vocational education was insery ing that large portion of youthgoing directly from school into thelob market as well as in meeting thetraining needs of industry. Since then,institutions have become largeredu-cation institutions, employment insti-tutions, and union institutions. Therange of job offerings and occupa-tional specializations has greatlyenlarged. The geographic factor hascome into the picture as metropolitanareas have grown. All this means thatinformation needs to he better, morechoices need to be made about voca-tions, brokers are often needed to

help youth make the job connection,and young people need to he taughthow to negotiate this complex labormarket in order to land on their feet,None of this is being done very well inmost places.

Federal policy successfully encour-aged the creation of classroom occu-pational training. But it has not madea consistent effort to put in place theother activities that would deal withthe whole of the youth transition towork, It is proposed here that Federalpolicy now concentrate on these ne-glected matters, a neglect which hasproduced the observation in a Wash-ington Post editorial that: "In noother industrialized country are thetransitions from school to work andfrom one job to another left so muchto chance as in the United States."

Job PlacementIf a public employment service sys-

tem had developed along lines that in-cluded a youth placement service witha close connection to and workingrelationship with the schools, wewould not need to pay much attentionto it in legislation authorizing class-room vocational education. In somecountries, the public employment ser-vice has performed that function, andagreements have been worked outbetween the employment service andthe school authorities. At varioustimes, it looked as if the school stu-dent in the United States would beserved by the Federal/state Employ-ment Service, but those efforts largelyfaltered, although there are vestiges ofthem in some parts of the country.Only a small proportion of school

18

graduates get their first jobs through apublic employment service.

On the school side, a quality place-ment/job search assistance functionnever evolved as a standard feature ofthe American high school. At thepostsecondary level of education, ithas become quite common to have acollege placement office, althoughthese often amount to very little.Vocational schools vary in the extentto vA rich individual students arehelped with job search, and studentsin general track programs are by andlarge out of luck,

There are, in the area of compre-hensive, school-based placement sys-tems, good working models aroundthe country, Summit County, Ohio(Akron) would be one example, Therehave been experimental placementservices, ia cooperation with the stateEmployment Service, in Pennsylvania,and there is the WiKonsin In-SchoolPlacement Project. There are othermodels that have been functioning forsome time,* Unfortunately, there isno good national information onquality and type of job placement ser-vices available to students while theyare still in school and are preparing toleave.** Schools say they have place-ment services if one staff' member isassigned the responsibility for helpinggraduates get jobs, which is quite dif-

*See Joh Placement Services for Youth, Na-tional Mitnpm er Institute (now National In.stinue for Work and Learning), 1978." Ike survey carried out in 1976, throughthe "quick response" arrangement of NCES,Pro% Wed information or only limited use%luck more in-depth information would be re-quired to determine the degree to which viableplacement services am really available.

17

term from operating a placement ex-change, taking and soliciting joborders, and matching applicants andopenings.

Vocational education refers to suchact k ities as "student services" andplaces them in quite a different cluegory from teaching skills in the class-room, and of much lower priority inallocation of funds. The policy pro-posed here is that vocational educa-tion recognize that job training in theclassroom without providing contactswith real job openings that exist inemployment iv a little like bottlingwad wine without providing a corkscrew (we say a little, because there is,()I' course, much that young peoplecan do on their own).

To he [air to the vocational educa-tion system, two things should bepointed out. One is that it does a bet-ter job of providing such placementservices than does the regular second-ary education system in providingplacement services to general trackstudents. The oth.:r is that most voca-tional education systems have beenprovided inadequate funding for suchplacement services. The point holds.however, that such services are notHigh in the priorities.

We propose a large departure frompresent general. practice and policy. Inkeeping with the goal recommendedat the outset of this chapter, that theresponsibilities ()I' this system hedefined as dealing with all the ele-ments of school-work transition,rather than just the occupational skillcomponent, die responsibility shouldhe broadened to provide placementservices for all high school students,whether they are in the general orvocational truck. Fo he more specific,

It;

the recommendation IS that a portionof the Federal funds, matched bystate and local fiords, be provided forplacement services. available to allvocational and general track studentsand that the .state plan address theprovision of such services with thesame .wrioasness as it addresses oc-cupational education and twining.

The ideal arrangement is a joint ef-fort between the s; pool system andthe stale Employment Service underagreements facilitated at the statelevel, but with the details worked outat the local' level, between the I.EAand the local E.S. office, To this end,it would be desirable to earmarkfunds- for both the vocational educa-tion and public employment servicesystems that would become availableonly when there is a joint agreementand joint program to provide for .vm-dent job placement. This would buildon the successful experience of CETAin requiring joint LEA/Prime Spon-.vor programs in serving disadvan-taged youth, and similar requirementsin the Job Training Partnership Act.

Job Search EducationWhile there should be regular

placement assistance available to stu-dents on a routine basis, the personwith primary responsibility for find-ing a job, throughout working life, isthe individual job seeker. Even whenassistance is provided in breaking intothe market, there will be a number ofjob changes during working life. Theteaching of an occupational skill doesnot, itself, provide the necessary in-struction for how to navigate in com-plex labor markets and how to ap-

proach employers in ways that will hesuccessful.

In the last few years, experience hasbeen gained in teaching "job searchskills" under various CETA pro-grams for the disadvantaged and un-der career education banners, Thereare now tested programs where thishas been done well, programs iden-tified by the Work in America Insti-tute in its training workshops onplacement and job development overthe last year or so. In fact, that In-stitute is now attempting to developmodel curricula, based on successfulprograms.

Such job search instruction, whendone well, could provide a skill thatwould last a lifetime, rather than justfor one job. Employers have expecta-tions youth can learn to meet. Thereare best ways to answer the questionon application forms asking "whatsalary would be acceptable?". Thereare appropriate ways to conduct one-self during a job interview. There areways to use the telephone in search ofa job interview. There are pointsabout using public and private place-ment agencies that would he useful toknow.

Again, it would be a serious mis-take to leave general track high schoolstudents out of such job search educa-tion programs. They, by definition,are not receiving job-specific informa-tion. More than any other group, theyneed to know how to fend for them-selves in the job market.

The need for such job search edu-cation is clear in the statistics. Mostyoung people get jobs through otherthan fornial, organized placementsystems. Interviewed two and one-half years after graduation, 47 percent

of the high school class 01 '72 gottheir job,, by applying directly toemployers and 36 percent throughleads from friends and relatives. Only6 percent got them through formalmeans. such as through the publiclnployment Service, only 8.6 percentthrough school placement services,and only 4.2 percent through privateagencies.* 1,1"e put them on their own;W(' should teach them how to cope inthe job world.

federal policy should encouragestates and loadities to provide youngpeople with basic knowledge aboutthe operation of the job market, andlb a' to conduct themselves in it, edu-Cali011 (butt is practical and experien-tial, rather than abstract and theoreti-cal.

Employment AssistanceOfficers

There is a growing recognition thatwe have come to rely on professional-counseling and guidance personnel"for too many things, particularly inview of the fact that their numbershave been inadequate in the highschool. Whether for good or for bad,the evolution of that profession hasbeen away from assisting high schoolgraduates with immediate post-schooland in-school job choice and job find-

ing to counseling built on the treat-ment model of psychology and psy-chiatry. and with a large number ofduties to perform such as:

high school curriculum choices;

"Naitotiot I onginitlithil Sure>, CA/cc of2. V.Iuonal t'entct for ith:anon:1i Stali

tr-c 208: l',5. (to%connein Printing ()IIhr, 19"c

college choices and assistance withtesting and admissions;discipline and behavior problems;andwhatever else a harried principalneeds that he or she cannot useteachers for.The broad professional training of

counselors provides a competence tostretch their services far, particularlyin helping young people make careerchoices, in the broadest sense; thesetalents are especially focused on thoseprofessions and careers for which col-lege is appropriate. That's the waythings have developed; it's too muchto expect that counselors will be ableto cover as well the day-to-day jobfinding needs of the half of youngpeople who do not even enter postsec-ondary education.

It is time to be inventive and tocreate u small cadre of personnel inthe schools and in the community thatis equipped to tell all young peopleleaving high school without immedi-ate college plans what is out there,what they have to do to be prepared,and what employers offer that fit theirinterests. These people do not have tohe professional counselors; their baseof knowledge is the job market. Theyknow:

the community's economic struc-ture and what the industrial andservice sector trends arc in thecommunity;the hiring and training require-ments of industries and employersin them (if they follow the recom-mendations in this paper for use ofinformation about projections andemployer practices);the pattern of job openings avail-able through the school-based, or

20

public employment-based, or com-munity-based placement agencies;andhow to recognize when a youngperson needs professional counsel-ing and make referrals to such pro-fessional personnel. (Conversely,these professionals know when topass a young person on to one ofthese employment experts.)

Qualifications would be in terms ofdemonstrated knowledge, however ac-quired. There would be an attempt toattract people with industry experi-ence. In fact, a person who has spentan entire career in the educationalsystem would probably be the leastqualified. There would be no profes-sionaldegrees in counseling and guid-ance required. However, it might beappropriate for employment experts toserve under the general supervision ofthe counseling and guidance directors,much as a physical therapist wouldserve under supervision of medicaldoctors. In such a model, there is noreason for jurisdictional disputes andbattles over turf.

As in the case of placement services,these everts in the local job marketwould he available to all high schoolstudents, not just those enrolled invocational tracks. In fact, vocationalstudents are likely now to get the bestjob advice of all from teachers whokeep up with their occupational spe-cialty or from professional vocationalcounw!ors stationed in vocationalschools.

There is widespread interest in get-ting this function performed, and itwould be a worthy objective for Fed-eral stimulation, as was skill edlca-don itself in the original vocationaleducation act.

19

VI.OccupationalEducation and theAdult Learner

. policy ql assisting in oecupa-trona/ adjustments and of aid-mg employers to upgrade theirlabor force.

It should not be forgotten that thevocational education of adults is animportant objective of the vocationaleducation system. To specify exactlyhow large that enterprise currently iswould require agreement on defini-tions and choices among several waysof doing the counting. The NOESsurvey of participation in adult educa-tion shows enrollments in 1978 of711,0(X) full-time vocational studentsover 24 years of age. The Bureau ofOccupational and Adult Educationshowed total enrollments of 3.5 mil-lion adults in occupational education.

Expansion of adult occupationaltraining has been dramatic over thelast decade, particularly in part-timeenrollments in junior and communitycolleges. The vocational educationsystem is involved to varying extentsin these developments, depending onthe funding patterns and organiza-tional arrangements in individualstates.

The successful transition fromschool to work is important, but so isthe ability of adults to make transi-tions hack to education. A principalreason why adults go hack to school isoccupational, in one form or another

to advance on a job, or change

jobs, or adjust to another occupationwhen they have been dislocated fromtheir employment.

Adult learning proceeds on manyfronts: in two year colleges; four yearcolleges and universities; technical in-stitutes; public high schools; commu-nity institutions such as churches andY M/ YWCAs; offerings of profes-sional associations; correspondencecourses; television; and at the place ofemployment. The threads of many ofthese efforts lead, in one way oranother, hack to sonic involveniert ofthe Federal government, from sup-port for public broadcasting, to directinvolvement in basic opportunitygrants, to tax treatment policies foremployer tuition reimbursements.

While the whole of adult learningcannot be explored here, a compre-hensive two year project, sponsoredby the National Institute of Educationand carried out by the National In-stitute for Work and Learning,* wascompleted during the fall of 1980. Abook summarizing the results of thiswork was published by McGraw-Hillin I982.**

A few priority matters will betreated here, of particular relevance tothe vocational education system andthe Federal role in it. One is the needto help workers dislocated from jobsprepare for new ones. Another is theneed for vocational education to workcooperatively with industry on theskill upgrading front and to work col-

*Forint:11 National Mattponer Intiti

**Paul t.. Raison and She National Instittlicfor Work and I earning. transi-Ii Thu, Adult 1.euttlitti; Connection,tiGraa Hill, 1982.

21

laboratively 10 help workers take ad-vantage of the tuition aid benefitsavailable to them from their employ-ers, or unions, or under collectivebargaining agreements.

Occupational AdjustmentAssistance

A dynamic economy based on prin-ciples of free enterprise requires ad-justments on the part of all partici-pants in it. Businesses adjust theirlevels of production based on changesin demand, shift their products basedon experience with shifts in consumerwants and tastes, succeed or lose outto foreign competition, expand or gobankrupt, change their technology toreduce costs or improve their product, .

and move to more favorable locationsfor doing business.

Almost all these shifts are for thepurpose of improving business posi-tions, and the freedom for businessesto make these decisions is essential tothe free enterprise concept. This free-dom has been a primary ingredient inthe success of the American economy.

These elements of the economy re-sult in constant and significantchanges in the market and in the inter-nal adjustments that go on in individ-ual firms. These adjustments are con-tinually affecting the jobs of workersand the availability of opportunitieswithin the occupations they are quali-fied For, either by training or experi-ence. In this free enterprise economy,the individual worker has to be veryenterprising in order to achieve con-tinuity of employment and make suc-cessful transitions to new jobs and oc-cupations when the ones they havefall out from under them.

21

A most remarkable attribute ofAtilt:dean workers is that they have infact been very enterprising in makingthese transitions. Ifundreds of thou-sands are doing so every year, out oftheir ow n resources, using their Owninitiative and ingenuity. However, notall are successful, and not all can do itwithout help. There are those who canjust change jobs and employers on thebasis of the skills and experience theyhad prev iously developed. There arcthose, however, W ho must change oc-cupations in order to land on theirfeet .

EA en those who must change occu-pations very often do so successfullyentirely on their own initiative. Manynew jobs can be learned quickly, evenwithout pool experience. Dislocatedworkers may have savings that enablethem to take some training in a pri-vate or public school 10 learn a newskill or they may have been acquiringa second skill going to school part-time in a comnuinity college or a tech-nical institute or in an adult course atthe public vocational school.

In general, most workers can handlethese transitions forced on them by thefree ssorkings of the economy But notall can. There are those who find thatthey need to change to a whole dif-ferent occupation, that it requires fur-ther education or retraining to do so,and that they need help. This was theconclusion of the Manpower Develop-ment and Training Act pasyx.1 in 1962with bipartisan support by the Con-g way. also the conclusion thatthe cumomy as a whole benefittedFront making these transuions suc-cessful, because it brought the skills of(he workforce into balance with theskill needs of the economy; many a

critical skill need can he met by ref rain-ing a worker.

Under the Manpower Developmentand Training Act, with administrativeresponsibility in the hands of theDepartment of Labor, training couldhe provided either in the school sys-tem or on the job through employers.As the program began in 1962, it wasclearly for those who had become un-employed and needed retraining inorder to become re-employed. It wasto aid in successful labor market ad-justment, not to he only a service forraising people who had sunk into pov-erty or who had always been there. Inthat sense, it was a preventive effort,not just a remedial one, and it did notrequire a welfare type needs test inorder to qualify For it.

Starting about 1965, this broad e I.--Fort, only beginning to grow in site,was for all practical purposes aban-doned and converted into a povertyprogram to dovetail with the adminis-tration of the new Economic Oppor-tunity Act. The conversion was notsudden but was conducted purpose-fully over a very Few years. I3y 1973,this Federal program was decen-tralized to local Prime Sponsors underthe Comprehensive Employment andTraining Act; the public employmentcomponent was greatly enlarged; andthe conversion to a means tested eligi-bility program was virtually complete.

The use q/ occupational education/training as a means of facilitating theadjustment of dislocated workers hasdwindled, and what is left of the ef-fort is almost wholly targeted on peo-ple who meet a means test. We arguethat such retraining as a measure toprevent people dislocated by econom-ic .vhifts from being thrown into pot.-

22

er(y is also a worthy public objective,One that contributes to the ability ofthe economic system to 'villain vital.We also argue that the bendits of fiveand unlettered adjustments of busi-ness enterprises to shifts in marketsand new market opportunities accrueto till and that the hardships imposedon the relatively Jew workers whomust be dislocated because of thesenecessary .s.hifts should be borne byall, not just the dislocated workers.

Many workers will need not onlythe retraining but also Financial sup-port For themselves and their Familiesduring the period of retraining. Suffi-cient experience exists with such ar-rangements under M DTA, CETA, andthe GI Bill to work out such a system.A modest new effort is just gekingunderway in the .lob Training Part-nership Act. Also involved is sonicdegree of distinction from, and in-tegration with, the unemployment in-surance system. The Trade ExpansionAct has retraining benefit features,and a severe problem of equity hasarisen between those eligible For thesebenefits and those in equal need whoare not eligible.

There is some case for locating pri-mary responsibility for such retrain-ing in the Department of I.abor andin the stale and local structurethrough which it implements pro-grams. Such training must be directlyrelated to market needs, yet the voca-tional education system has not prov-en its willingness to he so immediatelyresponsive. However, the Labor De-partment and CETA land now its re-placement, .ITPA) have shifted so farin the direction of running onlyremedial programs for people alreadyin poverty that it probably makes

more sense to place this proe/ml' el[Or( in the yocational education sys-tem. If so. it should he mandatorythat retraining he offered only in oc-cupations approved by the appropri-ate labor market authorities and thatI he policy decisions Iv; in the hands ora collaboratke body. such as a Pri-y ate Industry Council or an Industry-Fducation-Labor (ouncil. or one ofthe yarIMIN other forms of collabora-ti% e arrangements.

I here is need for Iederal stimula-tion of adith retraining through aseparate Title or the Vocationalklueation Act. to provide matchingI inds %%Inch w offid expand importu-nities heytilld the limited nunthersaYalliille Miller the .lob I raining part_nership Act.

A Public-Private SectorRelationship

Moving forward with the adultlearning enterprise involves adultsw Ito want both to work and to go (0school. I he tremendous growth inadult learning in the last decade hasbeen in part-time students. In order tosense adults. many, of the traditionalpractices used for young and full-timestudents must he abandoned. In theadult learner enterprise, there areseveral potential heneficiaries, all ofw hum must work together if that po-withal is to he realized. Employerswant career advancement, and contin-uing education is one important wayto meet critical skill needs. Unions ad-k Mill e educational opportunity fortheir members. [Lineation institutionsare more and more turning to adultlearners to compensate for the loss ofyouth learners.

The first fact of interest to all thesepotential beneficiaries is the growingavailability of funds in the private sec-tor for education and training. Oneelement of this growth is the large ex-penditure of business enterprises forinternal education and training direct-ly' related to the production objective.I-he other is the increasing use of "Wi-t ion-aid" arrangements throughwhich the Lmployer (and sometimesthe union) pays the costs of part-timeeducation outside of working hours.

These tuition-aid benefits are grow-ing in availability, but only a smallproportion of employees are takingadvantage of them. Only four to livepercent avail themselves of thesebenefits, and only one or two percentof blue collar workers use them.*While a number of reasons explainthis limited use, experimental work bythe National Institute for Work andI.earning has established that increas-ing information to workers aboutthese plans, providing educationalcounseling services, helping workersdeal with educational institutions, andgetting education institutions to tailortheir offerings more to workers' needstin content, time, and place) will in-crease workers' use of these benefitsand enlarge enrollments in educationinstitutions.

From the standpoint of Federalpolicy, enrollments can be increasedthrough this avenue with much lessexpenditure of public funds than

*1 or a lull dcirmiion ur iliese program.,and( the harrier lo (heir use. Nue IS an

( hairier. et (11.. .1H Unlappe(l Relullree. Thetiaruartl Insiiitile for Work anal Learning.1978,

23

would otherwise he the case. What isinvolved is the eY,Teise of some lead-ership to get communities and the vo-cational/technical schools in them tomaximize these opportunities.

This leadership could he exercisedthrough the flinding of a number ofexperiniental and demonstration proj-ets thugh vocational education in-stitutions in onler to perfect ap-proaches to this opportunity andcreate models for other institutions..Recommended is a series of tuition-aid pilot programs to create a base ofexperience in education and emplov-ment institutions working together inthis area.

The pilot program would involve:collaborative arrangements be-tween school and employment in-stitutions;the provision of information andbrokering services;identifying what workers want andwhere they are comfortable gettingfurther education; andexperimenting with ways to dealwith the proNem raised by the factthat these plar's usually reimbursethe employee offer completion ofthe course, while many workerslack the means to pay "z.1) Front."The tuition-aid arrangement is not

the only basis for joint efforts be-tween employers and educators, but itmight he a good place to start andmight lead to other joint efforts todevelop the skills needed by industryand to aid the career mobility ofworkers.

23

VII.Some NationalImperatives

A policy of meeting nationalskill shortages, promoting en-trepreneurship, and integratingthe multitude of Federal humanresource development efforts.

While the whole of this document isabout critical skill needs and the Fed-eral involvement in vocational educa-tion policy, there are some particularinterests and responsibilities thatmerit separate attention, either be-cause of overriding national interests,because of wholly new initiatives onthe youth unemployment front, or be-cause the Federal partner in this wholeventure of human resource develop-ment has approached its task on an adhoc. and uncoordinated basis.

National Skill Shortages

polio. of directing Federal re-sources towards meeting clearlyrecognized economic needs..

In its recent report, the NationalPanel on Worker Education andI raining Policy staled:

N the Nation enter; the 1980ti it curiesinto the decade ,otne serious economicpioblenh. Inflation remain, :at tillaCCV111-411)1C Iceis. Iltu plOillICIN ale ley, com-p:nine m oild inaikeh. And undomg both ()I IlleNC 01101101)N a setioie,det.litk in nioductnih. \\idle no oneL:111 lanl,unu ell the 11:04)11., for 'hit,Iodine. plotillt IR IR nhrasurcnhenl c\01 I, nth I114:11 IIItolical 'ludic; hake at

tribute(' Nignilicant tole; to educationand training.*

Adequate development of the hu-man resource is increasingly recog-nized as playing an important role ineconomic well being, along with suchother important factors as the avail-ability of natural resources and ade-quate levels of investment in plantand equipment. The pioneering workin this area was done by EdwardDenison, ** although more specificand more explicit estimates have beenmade recently (drawing on Denison'sdata) by John W. Kendrick. Kendrickconcludes that .7 percentage points ofthe 1.3 percent productivity rate (overhalf of it) from 1966 to 1977 was dueto education and training.***

To whatever extent the policiesrecommended here (for making vo-cational education offerings adaptmore rapidly to the adjustments andshifts taking place in the market)bring education and the need for itinto better balance, there will belarger contribution to the economy.Where education and training areneeded, there is economic benefit.This benefit derives from the wholesystem of responsive vocational edu-cation. To say that it has an econom-ic benefit does not, in itself, establish

'Adult L('arran,e and The .4n/erica,/ Work-er. National Institute ror Vork and Learning.tall 1981.

**F(Rrird I. 1)eniwii. .4(voitrilingl'rtiterl Fonunnie Growth, /919 -/9b9,I he lirookingN lihtittition. 1974.

**John W. Kendrick. "Increasing Produc-li% Hy. Ill brfirioon and ,Voornia/ .tiorvivo/,edited he Clarence C. %Valion. the Academyof Political Science, 1979.

24

any necessary Federal financial re-sponsibility to the system. Elementa-ry education has economic value. Sodoes maintaining a network of roadsand streets, primarily a local respon-sibility.

However, there arise from time totime skill shortages of national im-portance, and when they exist, it iscritical that the technical institutes,and other skill producing institu-tions, take steps to relieve theseshortages. In the late 1960s and early1970s, for example, there were severeshortages of a wide variety of techni-cians of the kind produced by two-year postsecondary institutions. As aresult, the National Manpower Insti-tute, together with the AdvertisingCouncil, organized a national cam-paign to increase enrollments in theseoccupational areas.

At the current time, there are se-vere shortages in the various categor-ies of computer skills, some of whichcan be alleviated through the outputof ne two-year postsecondary voca-tion d education institutions. Thereare shortages of machinists, there areshortages in health occupations, andthere are many more, even in thisperiod of high unemployment rates.And as the economy expands, theshortages become more critical.

Such critical skill shortages can beof considerable detriment to individ-ual firms, as well as exacerbate na-tional economic problems. The de-velopment of a skill bottleneck canslow down production and affect alarge number of other workers. Askill shortage can lead to the use ofinadequately trained personnel andto quality problems in the product orservice.

25

lite existence of skill shortages ofsufficient magnitude to affect pro-duction has potential for contrib-uting to inflation. Where there is de-mand for goods and services not metb sufficient output because of in-ahilit y to secure a sufficientlytrained lalvw supply, there is a Fuel-ing of inflationary forces, resultingI nom pressure an prices caused by theinsufficiency of supply. Past short -a .,es of engineers (and these short-ages now exist) to design more fuelefficient engines, for example, madeit more difficult for the Americanautomobile industry to compete withlapanese I irms.

I is analysis is by no means newnor is the relationship of skill short-ages to inFlaiion undiscovered. TheCabinet Committee on Price Stabili-ty reported in 1969 that:

In Mai kCIN Charade! iieil by CCeS`t de-[Mind. rcrlulretl CeCt.1

;111.11)Ie and intl:thouary ptc,ourk.,. re-sell Itpul Ihr oluvglc of the market it

,spud' and klentancl. Such preNque, ()CCM Oa ell hen emploIneni

Own lull and cnnitthule ill secioral

There Ls, We believe, .vulficient ar-torment for earmarking a portion ofhylerofhowls appropriated for voca-tional education lOr use as a reservefor allocation, thinwh stats, to local.ocononal and technical institutions

to help them meet specifically identi-fied national sh ill shortages. Theseuntls should he kept outside the regu-

lai Ittrinula allocation to the stalesand released only w hen there is a bonafa/(' skill shortage. identified by someprocess that pros ides confidence thatthe shot lave in fact exists.

certilianion of .such skill .short-ages, JOr alleviation with FederalIntidv, could be made through a Hu-man Resources Development Board,recommended on page 28. The com-position of this Board is sufficientlybroad as to permit due considerationof the ptoblems and also providesome asstliallees that these fundswould not be 'used simply to augmentregular formula allocations unlessthere is clear and identifiable nationalneed. Setting the criteria for whatconstitutes such skill shortages wouldhe a task of the Human ResourcesDevelopment Board.

Entrepreneurship

A policy of teaching skills nee-()scary to run vey busi-nesses and developing youth-operated enterprises ,from thehave of the .school svviem.

There is one prinie candidate furFederal stimulus to broaden the mis-sion of the vocational education sys-tem beyond basic education, occupa-tional education, and employmenttransition services.

There are a number of develop-ments shut make it important that vo-cational education expand its dThrtsto help young people enter and create.small business. entetprisev. While wehave an economic system that hasrelied on risk-taking and entrepre-neurship, public education has sup-posed that preparation for workmeans preparation to he hired in on-going organizations.

It is not likely that the individual-ism inherent in creating one's ownbusiness can he factored into a stan-

25

chid curriculum. On the other hand,much of the job growth in recentyears has been in very small busi-nesses. The service sector is loadedwith opportunity to create small en-terprises, from dry cleaning establish-ments, to appliance repair shops, 10typing services.

Time was when this was relativelysimple. But small business attemptsfrequently run aground on the shoalsof inadequate bookkeeping, inade-quate tax records, inadequate knowl-edge of purchasing, and on and on.Those harriers can he eased, if notremoved, if some of these basics arem.ombincd with training in deliveringthe service itself. Teaching appliancerepair can be combined with teachingthe basics of how to sell the serviceand open a small shop and how to goabou. securing funding. Teachingabout the risks of opening a smallbusiness should be included. Thefailure rate is high. Some people failseveral times before they establish a"going concern."

Any such effort should be ap-proached using instructors who havehad practical experience and relyingon advisory groups of small businesspeople.

A related area in which more sup-port systems exist is in the many fran-chise systems, from gas stations tofast food chains. Basic informationcould be provided through the schoolsystem about these operations andwhat is required to enter them.

One instructional mode that hasbeen used successfully in severalplaces is for the school system to ac-tually operate a number of small busi-ness enterprises, using students to doso and rotating them among the vari-

ous lunetions that are involved. Sonicof this is taking place within the voca-tional education system. One exampleeeryone knows about is the automechanics course in which students(ix cars and charge fees.

While there is at present no thor-ough treatment of all past and existingefforts in this area, extensive con-sideration was given to creating newmodels of school and employment-based youth enterprise approaches inJob Stralegiev.for Urban Youth, pub-lished in 1979 by the Work in Ameri-ca Institute.

The Federal Partner in!Inman ResourceDevelopment

policy of better integrationand development of tederal ef-fort in the human resource -area.

Ihe Federal governmeni. has neverreally had a policy toward the devel-oomem of human resources and itsrole in it. So one cannot agree or dis-apt cc about Federal policy. to speakof a Federal policy would require ex-tensk c synthesis of the disparate, adhoe, and unrelated efforts over thelast soeral decades.

In the I950s, the I .abor DepartmentIt primarily the I I.5. ".mploy-mew Set.% ice) and the Office of

(and their state counter-parts) argued a hit from time to time1)1 et jurisdiction with respect to theddiunstration of the (ieneral Apti-tudes I est Battery and the develop-ment of employment counseling andplacement within the schools, even-tually reaching an uneasy truce.

Neither really ever did the job verywell, separately or together.

A national trauma in 1957, thelaunching of Sputnik, produced deci-sive Federal action to increase our poolof talent in science and engineering, inthe interest of national defense (in fact,it was named the National Defense Ed-ucation Act). The National ScienceFoundation has watched over the ade-quacy of the science and engineeringtalent pool, with varying degrees ofdiligence during its lifetime.

As the decade of the 1960s began,Senator John F. Kennedy promised a

revitalization of the U.S. Employ-ment Service in campaign speeches inthe hills of West Virginia. This pro-duced a spurt of reform activity, andsome new money. But with the adventof the war on poverty in 1964, theEmployment Service was diverted toserving poor people, with very little ofsubstance to offer them. In the pro-cess, it resumed its decline, becomingless and less a widely used job place-ment exchange. The result was lesscapacity to serve anyone, includingtie pool'.

On the Office of Education side, along and continuing reform effortwas started by President Kennedy, re-sulting in the Vocational EducationAmendments of 1963, 1968, and1976, This Federal activity has had alot to do with the fact that vocationaleducation can now be taken seriously,as an important element of the na-tion's public education system and asan important supplier of the skills theeconom) needs (although recommen-dations made above indicate a belief'that it has a long way to go in becom-ing responsive to these needs).

In the meantime, also located in the

26

Department of Health, Educationand Welfare, the Vocational Kehabi:i-union Administration continued togrow and broaden its clientele until itsdefinition of handicaps overlappedthose being used in the poverty war.

The Economic Opportunity Act it-self' was principally a set of human re-source development measures, with itsNeighborhood Youth Corps, its Com-munity Action Agencies (that devel-oped employment assistance services),and its work experience programs forwelfare heads of families. The enact-ment of this legislation was precededby the enactment of the ManpowerDevelopment and Training Act, ofwhich sonic history is provided in Sec-tion V 1. The short of this history is thatwhat started out to be an idea of a"manpower policy" that would pro-vide an integrating force for Federaland national ef'f'orts in human resourcedevelopment was diverted almost en-tirely into a front line battalion in thepoverty war. Many starts were made,however, under M DTA, both in devel-oping a body of experience and in dili-gent conduct of a program of researchand experimentation.

The Comprehensive Employmentand Training Act created a NationalCommission on Manpower Policy,later renamed the National Commis-sion on Employment Policy. In theo-ry, this could be a mechanism throughwhich a more cohesive approach tohuman resource development policycould be established. By its location inthe CETA, legislation (now in JIM),its principal tasks have been in connec-tion with the means tested poverty ap-proach of CETA, and its location forhousekeeping purposes in the Depart-ment of Labor limited its agenda.

27

!owe% er, it has recently been road-ening the scope of its concerns.

On the welfare front, two separatepieces ()I' legislation created largetraining and employment efforts forpeople on welfare, for the purpose ofmaking them wholly or partially in-dependent. One is the Work Incentiveprogram (WIN), operated jointly atthe Federal level by the Department ofI.ahor and the Department of Healthand Hallam Services, and the other isthe training component of the socialservices title of the Social Security Act(Title II). The lines down to the localloci of these training and employmentset vices programs differ both fromeach other and from the lines downfrom CI JA to Prime Sponsors.

The "I rade r. xpansion Act, with itsbenefits for re-training available toworkers certified as having been ad-versely affected by imports, is adin-iste.red, though the Department ofLabor, separately from both CETA(.ITP,A) and the WIN program.

This scattering of responsibility hasits mirror image in the Congress, withprogram responsibilities in differentcommittees, The Senate Labor andIlunian Resources Committee doesnot really have a "human resourcespolicy" but generally deals with thecomponents as separate issues, al-though use of oversight hearings, inadvance of specific hearings on matt-thoriiing legislation, has helped pro-vide a broader review (as, for exam-ple, the hearings held by the SenateI alloy and !finnan Resources Com-mittee before dealing with specificlegislation on reauthori/ation ofHigher Education in 1979). Respon-sibility for all the welfare training pro-grams and the 'Irate Expansion Act is

2$

with the Ways and Means Committeeand the Senate Finance Committee.The human resource elements of theNational Science Foundation are dealtwith in yet another committee. Pro-fessional education aided by variousFederal appropriations is also scat-tered throughout various Congres-sional committees.

It is unrealistic, and possibly evenundesirable, to consolidate complete-ly administratio: and legislative con-sideration of ail Federal human re-source development efforts. The ob-jectives vary, and the reasons behindthis separateness arc often still presenttoday. But there ought to be sonicbetter mechanisms for consideringhuman resource efforts as a wholeand becoming more aware of the in-dividual pieces and how they do anddo not fit together. There arc variousarrangements in other areas for suchan overview. The Joint EconomicCommittee is an example of this, incombination with the Council ofEconomic Advisors and its annualEconomic Report on which hearingsarc held by the Committee.

There are likely a number of alter-native ways of achieving such over-view and integration at the policy lev-el. One vould be the creation of abroadly representative Hunum Re-soure.s. lkvelopment Board, whichwould provide administrative over-ight, and an annual report to Con-

gress, to he received by a special com-mittee composed of representatives ofall committees with legislative respon-sibility in this area.

This need for a more general mechanism goes, of course, beyond voca-!ional education policy itself, but thetwo matters are very much related.

211

VIII.Conclusion:Responding toChange

Th. vocational education system inthe United States has assumed a tre-mendous responsibility. On the onehand, it has a responsibility for assur-ing that young people going throughhigh school are equipped with thebasic skills needed for employment, aswell as for life. No one who talks withemployers can miss getting the mes-sage that they are concerned aboutthese basic skills and count them asmuch a part of employment prepara-tion as specific occupational skills.

There has been a change in thestructure of industry and work. Thereis less plain physical work and morethat requires the mind and the abilityto read, write, and compute. Voca-tional education needs to respond tothis reality, combining general educa-tion and occupational skill trainingand using the dorkplace for develop-ment of basic skills wherever possible,as well as providing job-specific in-struction. Examples of exemplary ef-forts along this line abound and needwider application.

Another change has been in thegreater complexity of urban labormarkets that young people have to ne-gotiate in moving from school towork. It helps to have an occupa-tional skill that employers need, butthat is no longer all that is involved.There is need for information about.where the jobs actually are, a need I'morganiied job placement systems with

close relationships with employers,staffed by people who know wherethe jobs are and what they require.There are more kinds of jobs andcareers today than 30 years ago, or 20years ago, or even 10 years ago; yetcounseling for youth not going on tocollege has been seriously neglected.And the one-third or so of young peo-ple in general education tracks in highschool need these job placement andemployment counseling courses asmuch asor more thanyouth en-rolled in occupational training pro-grams.

This increasing complexity of labormarkets and the transition from schoolto work requires that the vocationaleducation system be responsive to theneed for transition services that gobeyond classroom occupational prep-aration and that are available to allyouth not continuing their educations.

Skill needs of employers change;different employers have differentpolicies with regard to hiring youngpeople and what they are looking for.The promise of vocational educationwill be realized only if it finds themeans of keeping up with this change,remaining responsive to changing em-ployment, training, and hiring prac-tices and the changing skill needs ofthe economy. The need is to buildresponsiveness into the system, ratherthan let it get out of touch and strug-gle from time to time trying to re-structure a system not in consact withthe reality of the labor market.

In one way or another, the recom-mendations made in preceding sec-tions are for the purpose of buildingin responsiveness. These include:greatly enlarged use of cooperativeeducation type approaches; other

28

joint education-employer skill train-ing ventures; enlarged participation ofemploying institutions in the govern-ance of vocational education; betteruse of occupational information andcoordination of its development andapplication at the local level; and thedevelopment of "account managers"to create a regular system of commu-nication between schools and employ-ers.

The point is made that adult educa-tion is developing along many frontsand that occupational education,through the structure of communityand junior colleges as well as the two-year technical institutes, has seen con-siderable growth over the last decadeor so. What should be the particularcontribution of Federal policy to thefuller development of the structure ofadult learning opportunity throughthe Federal vocational education law?

Two approaches to adult learningthrough Federal law are recom-mended. The first is the stimulation ofan Occupational Adjustment Assis-tance Program in the Federal Voca-tional Education Act, to be financedjointly with the states. In doing so, wewould recognize the degree of disloca-tion to individual workers resultingfrom a dynamic free enterprise systemand the need to assist some of thosedislocated by economic change to bere-equipped with the occupationalskills demanded by the economy.

The second is to create the school-employer partnership which is re-quired to utilize more fully the tui-tion-aid programs provided by privateindustry. Such a partnership wouldhave promise of using vocational-technical schools to help workersupgrade their skOls and their jobs,

29

with the tuitions paid by employersand with employers realizing a returnin terms of a more skilled labor force.The potential of tuition-aid programswill he realited, though, only if voca-tional/technical 'schools are respon-sive to the aspirations of workers andthe skill needs of industry.

Also recommended is a responsive-ness to three national needs. One isthe need to apply Federal dollarsavailable for vocational education tomeeting critical skill shortages thatretard production of goods and ser-vices. Another is the need to be re-sponsive to the Fact that the largest in-creases in employment are in smallenterprises and to equip more youngpeople with the knowledge necessaryto become small business entrepre-neurs (most all past instruction has ig-nored entrepreneurship). The third isto develop mechanisms at the nationallevel that would do a better job of in-tegrating Federal efforts in humanresource devclopmLnt and develop amore coherent Federal approach thanis represented by the present fragmen-tation which exists in this area. ofFederal law and expenditure.

While achieving a responsiveness tochange is an objective commended asappropriate for Federal level involve-ment in vocational education, therehas been no etT0.541ere to make ex-penditure estimates. This is a step ap-propriately taken aft,Nr desired policydirections have been selected. Thisdocument deals with basic policy rolesfor the Federal government and Forlocal initiative as well. While thesepolicy directions would lead towardsome redeployment of Federal ex-penditues, they would not permitredact kin, and sonic increases are tin-

doubtedly warranted. The truly na-tional objectives identified here wouldrequire a Federal involvement inFunding. The amounts involved inmeeting critical skill shortages to in-dustry and creating an OccupationalAdjustment Assistance program, touse two examples, are likely to besubstantial. So would be the expectedreturns to the economy.

Vocational education was inventedas a response to the changing needs ofindustry and to the proposition thatmore youth should be given a highschool education, rather than only afew prepared for advanced educa-tions. In order to make this response,a collaborative effort emerged amongreform-minded educators, businesses,unions, and government. That col-laboration has fallen into disrepairand needs to be restored. As it is

restored, vocational education willhave built into the system a respon-siveness to change that will bothstrengthen the economy and helpmore people advance in it.

29

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