School-to-Work: A Model for Learning a Living.

Abstract

Individuals embark on the path toward learning (a living) by embracing active scholarship, citizenship, and artisanship - all three together. We cannot distinguish where one characteristic ends and another begins, Messrs. Hartoonian and Van Scotter maintain. I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but with the people themselves; and if we think them not enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take power from the people, but to inform their discretion through instruction. - Thomas Jefferson(1) The fundamental purpose of in any society is to maintain the cultural heritage and to improve both society and the individual. Thus the nature of schooling and the form it takes are defined within the context of a particular society. In the United States serves to promote the interrelated goals of self-development, citizenship, and employment. The Role of Education In a Democratic Republic Our democratic republic is built on the idea of enlightened citizens. Such individuals are aware of their cultural heritage and possess a working knowledge of the economic, political, and social conditions that make up our human ecosystem. For example, they understand the concepts of the basic rule of law, legal limits to freedom, and majority role with minority rights. They also realize that, in addition to being a legal document, the U.S. Constitution serves as a symbol of the story of America that provides its citizens with meaning and a moral light. They themselves display, and expect in others, such characteristics as fairness, cooperation, integrity, responsibility, and the performance of high-quality work. Without a conscious effort by society to teach and learn these cultural and civic virtues, a democratic capitalistic republic will not long endure. Thus this nation's first priority and public policy goal must be to ensure our republic's survival as a free nation by developing in the minds and hearts of its students the qualities of good scholars, citizens, and workers. Education's Response To Global Markets The dynamics of economic cycles affect virtually every aspect of society, and is no exception. Similarly, the U.S. domestic economy is embedded within the tides and currents of the global economic ocean. In fact, to speak of a domestic economy today is outmoded. Economic activity is essentially global; we all inhabit one economic world. As a result, must address both broader and higher standards. As global markets ebb and flow, business and government leaders have applied pressure to American schools to help maintain and expand the international economic competitiveness of the U.S. This relationship between markets and is a theme that dates back more than 100 years, to the time when the United States became a minor and then a major player in the global economic network. In the closing decades of the 19th century, authorities criticized schools as the United States continued to lose market share to the Germans in the machine tool industry. Then, in the 1930s, educators were told that, if schools had better educated students for employment, we might have avoided the Great Depression. Needless to say, reasonable and discerning observers understood that government policy and corporate practices had much more to do with these economic conditions than did school curriculum. With the end of World War II and the beginning of the Cold War, critics led by Vice Admiral Hyman Rickover demanded that schools help keep the U.S. militarily ahead of the Soviet Union. Rickover argued that education is even more important than atomic power in the Navy.(2) Rickover blamed professional educators for creating an anti-intellectual atmosphere in schools and claimed that schools were the weakest link in America's overall defense strategy. When the Soviets put Sputnik I into space in 1957, a shocked nation, influenced largely by business and government officials, demanded that schools develop stronger science and mathematics programs. …