During the past decade, standards have become a central aspect of reforms in both academic and vocational education. Thus far, academic and industry skill standards have been developed independently of each other. Only sometimes do documents concerning academic standards discuss using standards in ways that have relevance to work, and most…

Education for all aspects of the industry (AAI) is a strategy that is being advocated by education reformers to combine learning and experience, integrate vocational and academic education, develop more interdisciplinary instruction, and forge more links between schools, business, and the community. A study examined AAI from the perspective of the…

The case can be made that school-to-work programs can be a college preparatory strategy because they can teach academic skills as well as and possibly even better than more traditional approaches. The skepticism about its potential as a means of preparing students for college is based on misconceptions about its characteristics. Its three basic…

Although there is no fixed definition of youth apprenticeship, a consensus is emerging on four basic components: student participation, educational content, location of instruction, and credentialing. Except for some recent pilot projects, no youth apprenticeship programs in the United States have all four components, but educators have some…

Economic, technological, and political changes have created a new employment relationship characterized by an externalized labor market, more tenuous ties between workers and employers, and growing wage inequality. To date, policymakers have sought to address these problems through a supply-side approach focused on education and training. What is…

A study examined the effects of high-performance innovations on workers and job quality by conducting six case studies of firms that had implemented reforms in both the production and the service end of their operations. All the firms were in the traditionally low-wage retail industry. These case studies were drawn on to examine, first, the nature…

The internship program at La Guardia Community College (New York) confirms the possibility of achieving the level of employer participation required for the success of an educational reform movement centered on work-based learning. The La Guardia program, which has existed for 25 years and has provided 1,800-2,000 internships annually, shares its…

A study tested the claim that work-based learning can have positive effects on academic learning. Data were obtained through interviews with faculty, staff, students, and employers, and observation of classroom-based links to the work-based learning components at three sites involved in a work-based learning project. At the three sites, a total of…