School - To - Work

by Kerby Anderson

One of the hottest educational fads is workforce development, also known as School-to-Work programs. Frustrated taxpayers often welcome such proposals because they promise to "train your child for a job." But what School-to-Work would do is create a massive bureaucracy with a linked national database and then channel children into designated career paths.

School-to-Work is designed on the German system of education. The goal is to train children in specific jobs to serve the workforce and the global economy rather than educate them so they can make their own employment choices.

The traditional function of education has been to teach basic knowledge and skills, such as reading, writing, math, science, and history. School-to-Work de-emphasizes or even eliminates academic work and basic skills substituting various forms of vocational training. This plan makes it less likely that schools will produce literate, articulate, generalists who will be flexible in the changing job market. In essence, School-to-Work is about the servile arts rather than the liberal arts.

The School-to-Work Opportunities Act signed by President Clinton applies to "all students" in "all states." It establishes a "national framework" in which all state governments are to create School-to-Work systems as part of "comprehensive education reform" which will be "integrated with the systems developed" under Goals 2000. The act even stipulates that "career awareness" should "begin as early as the elementary grades."

School-to-Work is a "performance-based" training program for students. Workforce development boards will determine what jobs will be necessary in the coming years. A National Skills Standards Board will eventually certify the skills necessary for every type of job in the country. And a computer profile will be established for every student that will contain an array of personal and private family information. Counselors and computers will then do "job matching" of the students to these jobs.

I believe School-to-Work is a major threat to freedom and creativity. But more specifically, here are five major problems with this School-to-Work:

1. It is elitist. Government planners and educrats assume they know what is best for a child and are given the power to "pick" an occupational path for each child. This would push us toward a classed society where government elites decide your child's fate.

2. It is social engineering. Aldous Huxley wrote Brave New World to warn of the dangers of genetic engineering but a similar world can develop from this form of social engineering. Children are herded into social classes of occupations and not allowed to pursue their dreams. Once in a predetermined slot, it will be hard to change. If a child decides in high school that he or she would like to be a physician or scientist, it may already be too late to take the requisite classes in science and math to pursue that dream.

3. It is reductionist. It reduces children for what they can do, rather than appreciates them for who they are. They are evaluated for what they can produce in society and placed accordingly. Schools need to educate the whole child, not just prepare them for a job.

4. It is impractical. Sociologists estimate that in the service sector of our global economy, people will change careers at least three times in their lifetime. Will we be training children for jobs that won't exist by the middle of the 21st century? Planned economies around the world have been an abject failure in predicting job growth and workforce needs. There is no reason to believe that this system will be any more effective.

5. It is socialism. Implementing the details of workforce development legislation will march this country further down the road to socialism. At a minimum, it would require a complex bureaucracy and a massive database. The cost in terms of taxes and loss of freedom would be significant.

School-to-Work is a direct threat to our children and grandchildren. It removes their privacy, it determines their goals, and it limits their education to a predetermined educational path they must follow all the way to their state-approved job.

School-to-Work is also an assault on the American family. Children in early grades receive career counseling and are then directed to particular courses that will place them in slots deemed important to the job market. In most cases, their future career will be decided by a counselor rather than by the student and his or her parents.

Education in America needs to return to the basics. Students need to learn how to read and write, do mathematics, and learn the basic concepts in science, history, and other subjects. They should not be trained to be "worker bees" in a planned economy where counselors and computers determine their future. It is time to reject this latest educational fad and return to what has worked in American education.