TECHNOS

February 9, 2012

TECHNOS QUARTERLY Summer 1993 Vol. 2 No. 2

Apprenticeship American Style

By Anne C. Lewis

“We've got two very clear tracks right now—College prep and ‘Nowhere’ Prep,” bemoans the parent of a Wisconsin High School student. But the move to another track, that of youth apprenticeship, is part of the strategy for the future of American education. For the players of this game, making the right move will take on a whole new meaning as they gain work experience and academic training. Noted education writer and Washington insider Anne Lewis considers the American version of apprenticeship. Will it work here?

The profit ledgers for overseas airlines ought to be heavily black these days, considering the number of travelers from the United States who are out looking for the school-to-work system to copy. They land primarily in Germany, with side trips to Denmark and other Scandinavian countries. Some go the other way, to study how Japan's high schools educate and place students in workplaces.

When they come back to write their reports and books, the almost unanimous recommendation is that the United States needs a youth apprenticeship system. Not only should the transition from school to work be seamless, is the advice, but also it must give young people opportunities to develop higher skills and gain knowledge about technology—and real workplaces are the best places to do this.

A Changing Picture

Less than three years ago, the word “apprenticeship” was almost unknown in U.S. education and workplace circles. The Department of Labor funded a small demonstration program, primarily for youth in their late twenties. Cooperative and distributive education programs in schools traditionally provided work experiences, but they did not link education and training very well. Scattered proposals and experiments, such as Tech Prep—the melding of vocational preparation in the last two years of high school with two years of technical/community college education—popped up here and there.

Then, at a Washington, D.C., one-day meeting in December 1990, the picture changed abruptly. Several hundred people crowded into a hotel meeting room, brought together to discuss school-to-work transitions for the “forgotten half” by the William T. Grant Foundation Commission on Work, Family, and Citizenship and other groups. They heard apprenticeship mentioned loud and clear as the most viable strategy for the nation's youth and economy.

Since then, states have adopted policies and programs supporting apprenticeships, networks have been formed, pilot projects are rampant, and politicians elevated what had been mostly a demonstration project to a federal policy initiative. As a building block of its economic growth plan, for example, the Clinton Administration is asking the Departments of Education and Labor to sponsor jointly an apprenticeship program for youth, starting at $270 million in fiscal 1994 and authorized at $500 million through fiscal 1997.

But can the United States really import a German or Japanese model and make it work here? Is there agreement on what is meant by “apprenticeship”? Is the apprenticeship model the best way to guarantee that youth are prepared for high-skill work?

Systems vs. Programs

The principles of apprenticeship are good for American young people, believes Stephen Hamilton of Cornell University. He directs the Cornell Youth and Work Program, an apprenticeship demonstration emphasizing the development of a skill certification system that embodies high-skill standards. A leading proponent of apprenticeships at that Washington kick-off meeting, Hamilton points out that other developed countries “take it as a natural phenomenon that young people not going on to higher education after high school should spend several years doing work that school prepares them for.” In this country, however, there is not much difference between the work experiences of students before and after high school. When they graduate, he says, they flounder around “in the same work they did while they were in school”—such as in fast-food and retail jobs.

Hamilton acknowledges that Germany, Japan, and other countries with strong connections between school and work have systems, not programs, while the opposite is true in the United States. In those countries, employers, labor unions, and schools plan and implement apprenticeship programs together. In this country, no such tradition exists. In fact, organized labor has been very cautious about endorsing the expansion of youth apprenticeship programs. Interviews with 14 labor officials by Jobs for the Future in Cambridge, Massachusetts, found more concern about than support for a youth apprenticeship model—particularly the impact upon current workers.

One problem is the definition of the term “apprenticeship.” As it is being used by current supporters, it is misleading, according to Tony Sarmiento, assistant director of the AFL-CIO Education Department. Standards for apprenticeships imply that the trainee is an employee with the protections that status brings with it, that there is wage progression, and that the content is not firm-specific, he says. But current youth apprenticeship models seem to have none of these elements. U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich told a conference of the Joint Center on Economic Policy, a minority research/policy group, that apprenticeship “is a term that has risen from obscurity directly into meaninglessness.”

Moreover, important questions are being raised about the readiness and willingness of the business sector to participate in building an apprenticeship system. It certainly would be a new experience for most American businesses. In a 1991 survey of 4,000 companies, the National Association of Manufacturers found that 60 percent believed work experience is one of the best ways to develop good skills in entry-level workers. However, only five percent of the companies were participating in work/learn programs with the schools. The American business community may point proudly to the $30 billion a year it spends on training employees, but the fine print shows that only 0.5 percent of the employers—15,000—account for 90 percent of that spending. Further, almost all of the investment is in people with some managerial experience and education, the management level and above. Less than one percent of the training dollars goes to unskilled workers.

Some Considerations

Practically speaking, recent trends in the economy would not seem propitious for a turnaround in business attitudes about investing in youth training. An increasing percentage of the work force—estimated to be 30 percent—is now employed part-time or on a contingency basis. Though the Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics hedges, Sarmiento cites a University of Lowell (Massachusetts) study that estimates five million part-time workers, of whom one million are working two part time jobs. “If businesses are moving in this direction with regular employees, why would they want to take on a youth apprenticeship program?” asks Sue Berryman, former director of the Institute on Education and the Economy at Teachers College, Columbia University. Now with the World Bank, Berryman is just as passionate as Cornell's Hamilton about wanting to link what youth learn in school to what they need to know in the workplace. The issue as she sees it, however, is where best to put such learning.

Hamilton insists that, properly designed and supervised, real workplaces “can contribute not only to job training but also to making schooling more relevant.” Students may not appreciate learning higher order math in school, he says, but “when they see people using such math, not at McDonald's but in a high tech machine shop, they begin to make connections.”

Berryman, on the other hand, cautions about overselling the workplace as an educating place. Some workplace training she has observed is highly inadequate, particularly if it uses traditional drill-and-skill methods. If the employer focuses on high skills and modern methods of teaching, though, the training could be quite good. The downside, as other researchers have pointed out, is that the turnover among supervisors at workplaces creates situations where novices are training novices.

A Few Options

Do not let schools off the hook in preparing youth for an increasingly high-skill economy, Berryman advises. The bulk of occupational training (redefined) ought to be in the schools, she says, but in a way that makes maximum use of the resources of the workplace (such as equipment, personnel, involvement in setting standards, career counseling). Options are available, though not all are well-defined or have been implemented properly. In addition to cooperative education and apprenticeships, Berryman lists:

Cognitive apprenticeship. This in-school strategy uses “experts” to introduce gradually and guide students through the skills they will need—as tailors, for example, once taught their apprentices. It's still a “hot-house idea,” popular in theoretical articles but not yet implemented.
Tech Prep. Encouraged by the Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Applied Technology Education Act of l990, this provides a sequence of course work, usually beginning at the 11th grade, that continues through community/technical college and provides both a high school diploma and an associate's degree in a specific field. Work experience is an important component.
Integration of academic and vocational education. Also emphasized in federal vocational programs, this model seeks to reform the school curriculum, although real work experiences often are part of the overall effort. It has been most successful in the 13 states under the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB). Through a grant from the DeWitt Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund, SREB has expanded to l00 sites in l9 states and is expected to grow to 300 sites by the end of 1994.
School-based enterprises. Originating many years ago in Arkansas and Georgia, this model engages high school students in identifying businesses that might be supported locally, especially in rural areas. Enterprises help students develop and maintain businesses such as retail stores, bicycle repair shops, or child care facilities. One of the cleverest was a restaurant started by students in North Carolina on the interstate to Florida. The students named it the “Way Off Broadway Deli.”
In-school academies. These can be career magnet schools or schools-within-schools emphasizing a specific, sequential curriculum that prepares students for occupations. Usually they're organized with the help of local businesses, which offer on the job experiences.

Of all of these options, Berryman sees Tech Prep and magnet schools as the most promising components with which to build a school-to work transition system in this country. Both can include apprenticeships, and both also can incorporate using workplace experts to help with school-based instruction.

No matter what pieces are put together, she adds, they all need to emphasize more and more how to deal with abstract thinking and appropriate technologies. Young people, she says, “need to be bloody well prepared” for work that will continue its march toward higher skills.

State Leadership

For Hamilton, these various bottom-up approaches to a system that he hopes will depend heavily upon apprenticeships is being matched by top-down policies at state and federal levels. Good examples abound.

The Wisconsin legislature approved a youth apprenticeship program in l991, making it part of a general school reform plan. This component requires 10th-grade students to pass a “gateway assessment” before being allowed to gain workplace experience. Their work placements are competency-based, integrate with academics, focus on high-skill occupations, and pay students a minimum wage. Students receive dual credit from a technical college and are credentialed statewide by the industry.
In a similar vein is the Oregon school-to-work transition plan and its apprenticeship program. The state is developing assessments of mastery to be taken by all 16 year-olds; those who pass the assessments will have several options, including a registered apprenticeship program to help them enter high-skill and high-wage employment. The initial focus will be on six job categories: health services, industry and technology, human resources, natural resources, arts and communications, and business management.
Maine has set up a Center for Youth Apprenticeship at Southern Maine Technical College in South Portland. That state's apprenticeship program—to begin in 20 percent of its high schools in 1993—offers 30 weeks of workplace experience during the eleventh grade. Then follows two years of further education and work, with the first year of college at no expense to the student.
Oakland, California, offers eight schools-within-schools, each focused on a specific occupation. Its Health and Bioscience Academy, for example, enrolls 175 students chosen because they are at risk but show an interest in health-related careers. They outperform students in the regular school around them. Among the “specials” enjoyed by these students are smaller classes, tutoring, internships, mentors, and part time jobs.

Common Elements

Communication skills and dependability enable a diverse work force such as the Banquet Kitchen Team at the Scottsdale, Arizona, Plaza Resort, to work together effectively. The chef and his crew are featured in the “Teamwork” module of Workplace Readiness, a three-part multi-technology series from AIT.

Jobs for the Future is a major proponent of apprenticeships. It is providing technical assistance to newly funded demonstration projects selected by the Department of Labor. In addition, the Department has given planning grants to six states—California, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, Oregon, and Wisconsin—to design and implement statewide youth apprenticeship systems.

Because the movement in the United States is so new, no single model of youth apprenticeship has been developed, according to Jobs for the Future. It has identified some elements that distinguish apprenticeships from other forms of school-to-work links:

Active participation of employers, not only in providing jobs but also in developing curriculum and industry standards.
Integration of work-based and school-based learning so that the learning at one place reinforces learning at the other.
Integration of academic and vocational learning, focusing on cognitive as well as technical skill development.
Structural links between secondary and postsecondary institutions, so that credits may be transferred to four-year colleges and universities.
Award of a broadly recognized qualification of occupational skill, particularly a certificate of mastery of skills recognized by firms across the industry in which students train.

Richard Kazis, director of work-based learning programs for Jobs for the Future,* welcomes the possibilities for building a “system” of school-to-work transitions that incorporates these components. But he also cautions against new federal policies that promote apprenticeships at the exclusion of other options, such as youth service, cooperative education, and high school career academies. What needs to be encouraged, he says, is continued diversity and experimentation as the country moves toward a solid system, one that “will outlast a few demonstration projects—or another change in administration….”

(*See “Improving the Transition from School to Work in the United States,” by Richard Kazis, for the American Youth Policy Forum, the Competitiveness Policy Council, and Jobs for the Future (1993)).

For more information, contact:

Cornell Youth and Work Program, Department of Human
Development and Family Studies, Martha Van Rensselaer Hall, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853;

Jobs for the Future, 1815 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA 02140;

American Youth Policy Forum, 1001 Connecticut Ave., N.W., Suite 301, Washington, DC 20036;

See “Union Perspectives on New Work-Based Youth Apprenticeship Initiatives,” by Carol Shenon for Jobs for the Future (1992).

Anne C. Lewis, an education policy writer, lives in the Washington, D.C., area. Except for 10 years as editor of the weekly Education USA, she has spent the last 30 years as a freelance writer on education issues. Lewis is a columnist for three monthly magazines and is editor of the Education Writers Association's High Strides. She is author of Restructuring America's Schools and two books on urban middle school reform, Making It in the Middle and Gaining Ground.

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