Life’s Silver Linings, Inc.

Chapter 3, Part II: National Center on Education and the Economy - School-to-Work

“One of the mistakes we made in the late 1980s and early 1990s was to handle economic development, workforce skills and education reform separately. What we are doing now is trying to change that, and get the three things looked at holistically.” ¹
The “machine” built to reform America’s education, health, and labor functions regardless of who is President. The “machine” is manned by a public/private (government and business) partnership. Parents are told participation is voluntary. School-to-Work documents indicate otherwise.

Goals 2000’s, Title III admits that “simultaneous top-down and bottom-up education reform is necessary to spur creative and innovative approaches by individual schools to help all students achieve internationally competitive standards” (emphasis added).

Well-meaning, sincere teachers and administrators tell parents that School-to-Work is voluntary. They explain that they are simply providing career information so as to spark thought among students about their future plans. This is to encourage students to choose their high school courses with thought and consideration relative to their future plans following high school.

Schools have had partnerships with local businesses for years, so what is so “bad” about School-to-Work? Missouri’s School-to-Work federal grant proposal explains that it is “integrating existing successful programs into the School-to-Work System.”² This indicates that there is something “bigger” into which what schools have done in the past are fitting into. Career programs currently provided by schools will be merged, “integrating existing programs and resources to fulfill School-to-Work System needs.”³ What is a School-to-Work System, and what are its needs? A large part of the answer may be found in the state’s labor market system, and its Occupational Information Coordinating Committee (MOICC).

The School-to-Work grant states that ALL students are to participate, and “barriers” to this goal will be identified and overcome.⁴ “Radical changes in attitudes, values and beliefs are required to move any combination of these agendas.”⁵ If you asked how your student may “opt out” of choosing a career path, you would learn that the general education track has been, or is scheduled to be eliminated.

In June 1990, the National Center on Education and the Economy’s Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce published America’s Choice: High Skills or Low Wages. The Commission’s recommendations included “A new educational performance standard set for all students to be met by age 16. This standard should be established nationally and benchmarked to the highest in the world–Students passing a series of performance based assessments that incorporate the standard would be awarded a Certificate of Initial Mastery–Through the new local Employment and Training Boards, states, with federal assistance, should create and fund alternative learning environments for those who cannot attain the Certificate of Initial Mastery (CIM) in regular schools.” ⁶

America’s Choice High Skills or Low Wages! defends educational reforms and a cumulative assessment system in this way:

“A Cumulative Assessment System: The assessment system should allow students to collect credentials over a period of years, perhaps beginning as early as entrance into the middle school. This kind of cumulative assessment has several advantages over a single series of examinations:

- It would help to organize and motivate students over an extended period of time. Rather than preparing for a far-off examination, students could begin early to collect specific certifications.

- It would provide multiple opportunities for success rather than a single high-stakes moment of possible failure. Cumulative certificates would greatly enhance the opportunity for the undereducated and unmotivated to achieve high educational standards. All could earn credentials at their own pace, as the criteria for any specific credential would not vary, regardless of the student’s age.

- It would allow students who are not performing well in the mainstream education system to earn their credentials under other institutional auspices.

To set the assessment standards and certification procedures, we recommend the establishment of an independent national examination organization that broadly represents educators, employers and the citizenry at large.

The organization should be authorized to convene working commissions in a variety of knowledge and skill areas to help train judges, set and assess standards and conduct examinations. The organization should be independent of schools and school systems and protected from political pressures.” ⁷ [Be sure to read about SCANS later in this chapter.]

Will the Certificate of Initial Mastery replace the traditional diploma? According to the schematics found on pages 87 and 88 of America’s Choice: High Skills or Low Wages! (which represents the Commission’s proposals), only those bound for college will receive a high school diploma after obtaining the Certificate of Initial Mastery. Those obtaining the Certificate of Initial Mastery may go directly into the workforce.

Following elementary and middle school, students move on to either a secondary school or a youth center. Either alternative provides the Certificate of Initial Mastery. From there the student chooses between either entering into a college preparatory or a combined work-and-study program. If the student chooses college preparatory the next step is college before entering the workforce. Students who choose the combined work and study program then moves on to earn technical and professional certificates and may then go on to college or enter the workforce. The schematic shows that the Local Employment and Training Board funnels people from the workforce into where they may obtain a Certificate of Initial Mastery or the combined work-and-study programs.

The schematic provides the following examples: A 45-year-old hotel attendant with a fifth-grade education will go to the Local Employment and Training Board, obtain his Certificate of Initial Mastery, enter a combined work and study program, receive a certificate of Retail Sales, be a sales clerk, and earn an advanced Certificate of Retail Sales, before becoming a fashion department manager. A ninth-grade drop out who is in a youth center will earn a Certificate of Initial Mastery go through a combined work-and-study program, may earn an Electronics Technician Certificate, take a combined work and study program with college credit, earn an Electrical Engineering Certificate, take the last two years of college, earn an engineering degree, and become an industrial process control engineer. A kindergartner will go through elementary and middle school, enter secondary school, obtain the Certificate of Initial Mastery, enter the Army, then enter a combined work and study program, earn a Technical and Professional Certificate in Manufacturing, and become a skilled manufacturing worker. The last example is a tenth-grader who obtains a Certificate of Initial Mastery, then finishes the Junior and Senior years of high school, receives the high school diploma, attends four years of college, and earns a Bachelor’s degree in Journalism before entering the workforce as a newspaper journalist.
Page 90 of America’s Choice: High Skills or Low Wages! states that “Underlying this proposed structure is a philosophical change in the way we as a nation view human resources policies–It is a bold, new agenda which necessitates the creation of a more uniform system to replace the existing variety of agencies.” ⁸

It seems that what is meant by “life-long learning” is that throughout one’s life and working career, they will be tested through performance-based assessments such as the American College of Testing’s (ACT) Work Keys, for work-related competencies in knowledge, attitudes and behaviors. Those found lacking in competencies will be “recycled” through work-and-study programs by the local Employment and Training Board or its cohorts. Read more on Work Keys at the end of this chapter.
Members of the Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce included:

- Ira Magaziner, President, SJS, Inc. (also Clinton’s “front” man on health care reform.)
- William Brock, Senior Partner, The Brock Group; Former Secretary of the U.S. Department of Labor
- Ray Marshall, Chair in Economics and Public Affairs L.B.J. School of Public Affairs, University of Texas at Austin; Former Secretary U.S. Department of Labor
- Robert Atkinson, Director of Academic Programs School of Business and Industry, Florida A&M University
- Owen Bieber, President, United Automobile Workers
- Edward Carlough, General President, Sheet Metal Workers’ International Association
- Anthony Carnevale, Vice President of National Affairs and Chief Economist, American Society for Training & Development.
- Paul Choquette, Jr., President and Chief Executive Officer, Gilbane Building Company
- Richard Cohon, President, C.N. Burman Company
- Badi Foster, President, AEtna Institute for Corporate Education
- Thomas Gonzales, Chancellor, Seattle Community College District VI
- Rear Admiral W.J. Holland, Jr., USN (retired) President, Educational Foundation Armed Forces Communications and Education Association
- James Houghton, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, Corning Incorporated
- James Hunt, Partner, Poyner & Spruill; Former Governor State of North Carolina
- John Hurley, Vice President and Director, Corporate Training and Educational Resources, The Chase Manhattan Bank
- John Jacob, President and Chief Executive Officer, National Urban League, Inc.
- Thomas Kean, President, Drew University; Former Governor State of New Jersey
- William Kolberg, President, National Alliance of Business
- William Lucy, International Secretary/Treasurer, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, AFL-CIO
- Margaret L.A. MacVicar, Dean for Undergraduate Education and Professor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Eleanor Holmes Norton, Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law Center; Former Chairwoman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
- Karen Nussbaum, Executive Director 9to5, National Association of Working Women
- Peter Pestillo, Vice President, Corporate Relations and Diversified Businesses, Ford Motor Company
- Philip Power, Chairman, Suburban Communications Corporation
- Lauren Resnick, Director, Learning Research and Development Center, University of Pittsburgh
- Kjell-Jon Rye, Teacher, Bellevue (WA) Public Schools
- Howard Samuel, President, Industrial Union Department AFL-CIO
- John Sculley, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, Apple Computer, Inc.
- William Spring, Vice President, District Community Affairs, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston
- Anthony Trujillo, Superintendent, Sweetwater Union (CA) High School District
- Marc Tucker, President, National Center on Education and the Economy
- Laura D’Andrea Tyson, Director of Research, Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy, University of California at Berkeley
- Kay Whitmore, Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer, Eastman Kodak Company
- Alan Wurtzel, Chairman of the Board, Circuit City Stores, Inc.

It is NO accident that Magaziner, Whitmore, Sculley, Hunt, Tucker, Carnevale, Marshall, Power, and Resnick are ALSO members on the Board of Trustees of the National Center on Education and the Economy as reiterated later in this chapter.

A letter dated August 2, 1991, was written by Lamar Alexander, Secretary of the United States Department of Education in the Bush administration at the time, to “Dear Friends.” Mr. Alexander writes to provide highlights of President Bush’s education strategy called AMERICA 2000 that had been released a few months earlier. Following are the highlights he speaks of:

- President’s proposal to create the American Achievement Tests.

- An AMERICAN 2000 Hotline (1-800-USA-LEARN) set up in April (1991)

- AMERICA 2000 offers a framework for action

- President’s education team was confirmed by the Senate in May (1991).

- President’s education team includes:
* David Kearns as the Deputy Secretary of Education. David was the Chairman of Xerox.
* Diane Ravitch, an education historian from Columbia University was sworn in as the Assistant Secretary for Educational Research and Improvement.

- Colorado 2000 kicking off Colorado 2000 on June 17 (1991). President Bush, I [Lamar Alexander], Colorado Governor Roy Romer, and legislative leaders Ted Strickland and Chuck Berry joined on the first day of the initiative to create over 175 Colorado 2000 communities.

- Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley is–becoming an AMERICAN 2000 community–launched Memphis 2000.

- July 8 (1991), the President announced the formation of the New American Schools Development Corporation [NASDC]

- NASDC, a “private, nonprofit corporation is chaired by Drew University president Tom Kean, the former Governor of New Jersey.

- NASDC Board of Directors “is made up of some of the nation’s top chief executive officers:
* AT&T loaned Frank Blount, senior executive to serve as President and Chief Executive Officer.
* Saul Cooperman, former New Jersey Commissioner of Education, chairs the Education Advisory Panel of distinguished educators who are advising the New Schools Corporation on policy issues.

- Before fundraising officially began, board members contributed over $30 million, including a $10-million “challenge grant” from the Annenberg Foundation. The RAND Corporation has agreed to work closely with the New Schools Corporation, and will provide invaluable research and analysis over the months ahead.

- Two design conferences: Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles for those who may be interested in participating in the design team competition.

- In May (1991) President Bush sent the AMERICA 2000 Excellence in Education Act to the Hill.

- Already, Congress has passed and the President signed a bill creating both the National Council on Standards and Testing and the National Commission on Time and Learning.

- The Council on Standards and Testing has until the end of this year to make recommendations, including ways to develop both World Class Standards in English, math, science, history and geography, and a voluntary national examination system, the American Achievement Tests” (emphasis added). ⁹

A now-famous eighteen page letter dated November 11, 1992, was written by Marc Tucker, President of the National Center on Education and the Economy, to Hillary Clinton. (Mr. Tucker, Laura Resnick, and Missouri Education Commissioner Bartman signed the “Memorandum of Understanding” which brought Tucker’s New Standards Project to Missouri. See the chapter titled “Local Accreditation Reflects National Standards and Assessment.”) Tucker’s letter was addressed to Hillary at the Arkansas Governor’s Mansion shortly after her husband, Governor Bill Clinton, won the November, 1992, presidential election. The letter makes the following statements:

- “We have a system that rewards students who meet the national standards with further education and good jobs, providing them a strong incentive to work hard in school (page 3).

- All students are guaranteed that they will have a fair shot at reaching the standards; that is, that whether they make it or not depends on the effort they are willing to make, and nothing else (page 4).

- All students who meet the new national standards for general education are entitled to the equivalent of three more years of free additional education. We would have the federal and state governments match funds to guarantee one free year of college education to everyone who meets the new national standards for general education. So a student who meets the standard at 16 would be entitled to two free years of high school and one of college. Loans, which can be forgiven for public service, are available for additional education beyond that (page 4).

- Loan defaults are reduced to a level close to zero, both because programs that do not deliver what they promise are not selected by prospective students and because the new postsecondary loan system uses the IRS to collect what is owed from salaries and wages as they are earned (page 6).

- Achieving that standard is the prerequisite for enrollment in all professional and technical degree programs (page 6).

- Employed people can access the system through the requirement that their employers spend an amount equal to 1-1/2 percent of their salary and wage bill on training leading to national skill certification” (page 6).

- Page 7 addresses the Labor Market System stating “The system is fully computerized as described later in this chapter.”

- Our assumption is that the system we are proposing will be managed so as to encourage the states to combine the last two years of high school and the first two years of community college into three year programs leading to college degrees and certificates (page 9).

- The object is to create a single comprehensive system for professional and technical education that meets the requirements of everyone from high school students to skilled dislocated workers, from the hard core unemployed to employed adults who want to improve their prospects. Creating such a system means sweeping aside countless programs, building new ones, combining funding authorities, changing deeply embedded institutional structures, and so on. Trying to ram it down everyone’s throat would engender overwhelming opposition (page 10).

- Our idea is to draft legislation that would offer an opportunity for those states-and selected large cities-that are excited about this set of ideas to come forward and join with each other and with the federal government in an alliance to do the necessary design work and actually deliver the needed services on a fast track. The legislation would require the executive branch to establish a competitive grant program for these states and cities and to engage a group of organizations to offer technical assistance to the expanding set of states and cities engaged in designing and implementing the new system. This is not the usual large scale experiment, nor is it a demonstration program. A highly regarded precedent exists for this approach in the National Science Foundation’s SSI program. As soon as the first set of states is engaged, another set would be invited to participate, until most or all the states are involved. It is a collaborative design, roll out and scale-up program. It is intended to parallel the work of the National Board for College Professional and Technical Standards, so that the states and cities and all their partners would be able to implement the new standards as soon as they became available, although they would be delivering services on a large scale before that happened. Thus, major parts of the whole system would be in operation in a majority of the states within three years from the passage of the initial legislation. Inclusion of selected large cities in this design is not an afterthought (page 10).

- Develop uniform reporting system for providers, requiring them to provide information in that format on characteristics of clients, their success rates by program, and the costs of those programs. Develop computer-based system for combining this data at local labor market board offices with employment data from the state so that counselors and clients can look at programs offered by colleges and other vendors in terms of cost, client characteristics, program design, and outcomes, including subsequent employment histories for graduates (pages 11 and 12).

- Everything we have heard indicates virtually universal opposition in the employer community to the proposal for a 1-1/2 levy on employers for training to support the costs associated with employed workers gaining these skills, whatever the levy is called. We propose that Bill [Clinton] take a leaf out of the German book (emphasis added). One of the most important reasons that large German employers offer apprenticeship slots to German youngsters is that they fear, with good reason, that if they don’t volunteer to do so, the law will require it. Bill could gather a group of leading executives and business organization leaders, and tell them straight out that he will hold back on submitting legislation to require a training levy, provided that they commit themselves to a drive to get employers to get their average expenditures on front-line employee training up to 2% of front-line employee salaries and wages within two years. If they have not done so within that time, then he will expect their support when he submits legislation requiring the training levy. He could do the same thing with respect to slots for structured on-the-job training” (page 13).

- As you know very well, the High Skill: Competitive Workforce Act sponsored by Senators Kennedy and Hatfield and Congressmen Gephardt and Regula provides a ready-made vehicle for advancing many of the ideas we have outlined. To foster a good working relationship with the Congress, we suggest that, to the extent possible, the framework of these companion bills be used to frame the President’s proposals. You may not know that we have put together a large group of representatives of Washington-based organizations to come to a consensus around the ideas in America’s Choice. They are full of energy and very committed to this joint effort. If they are made part of the process of framing the legislative proposals, they can be expected to be strong support for them when they arrive on the Hill. As you think about the assembly of these ideas into specific legislative proposals, you may also want to take into account the packaging ideas that come later in this letter (page 14).

- So we confine ourselves here to describing some of those activities that can be used to launch the Clinton education program:
Standard Setting: Legislation to accelerate the process of national standard setting in education was contained in the conference report on S.2 and HR 4323 that was defeated on a recent cloture vote. While some of us would quarrel with a few of the details, we think the new administration should support the early reintroduction of this legislation with whatever changes it thinks fit. This legislation does not establish a national body to create a national examination system. We think that is the right choice for now (emphasis added).

Systemic Change in Public Education: The conference report on S.2 and HR4323 also contained a comprehensive program to support systemic change in public education. Here again–we believe that the administration’s objectives would be well served by endorsing the resubmission of this legislation, modified as it sees fit.

Federal Programs for the Disadvantaged: Federal programs need to be overhauled to reflect an emphasis on results for the students rather than compliance with the regulations. A national commission on Chapter 1, the largest of these programs, chaired by David Hornbeck, has designed a radically new version of this legislation, with the active participation of many of the advocacy groups.

Public Choice, Technology, Integrated Health and Human Services, Curriculum Resources, High Performance Management, Professional Development and Research and Development: One of the most cost-effective things the federal government could do is to provide support for research, development and technical assistance to the schools on these topics. Existing programs of research, development and assistance should be examined as possible sources of funds for these purposes. Professional development is a special case. To build the restructured system will require an enormous amount of professional development and the time in which professionals can take advantage of such a resource. Both cost a lot of money–But here, as elsewhere, there are some existing problems in the Department of Education whose funds can be redirected for this purpose–Much of what we have in mind here can be accomplished through the reauthorization of the Office of Educational Research and Improvement.

Early Childhood Education: The president-elect has committed himself to a great expansion in the funding of Head Start. We agree. But the design of the program should be changed–The quality of professional preparation for the people who staff these programs is very low and there are no standards that apply to their employment. The same kind of standard setting we have called for in the rest of this plan should inform the approach to this program. Early childhood education should be combined with quality day care to provide wraparound programs that enable working parents to drop off their children at the beginning of the work day and pick them up at the end. Full funding for the very poor should be combined with matching funds to extend the tuition paid by middle class parents to make sure that these programs are not officially segregated by income. The growth of the program should be phased in–(pages 15 and 16).

- Putting the package together: We propose that you assemble the ideas just described into four high priority packages that will enable you to move quickly on the campaign promises:

1. (U)se your proposal for an apprenticeship system as the keystone of the strategy for putting the whole new postsecondary training system in place–

2. (C)ombine the initiatives on dislocated workers, the rebuilt employment service and the new system of labor market boards as the Clinton administration’s employment security program–

3. (C)ombine most of the elements of the first and second packages into a special program to greatly raise the work-related skills of the people trapped in the core of our cities.

4. (T)ake advantage of the legislation on which Congress has already been working to advance the elementary and secondary reform agenda (incorporating the systemic reforms agenda and the board for student performance standards), with the proposal for revamping Chapter 1” (pages 16 and 17).

- Organizing the Executive Branch for Human Resources Development: Organize the federal government to make sure that the new system is actually built as a seamless web in the field–and that programs get a fast start with a first-rate team behind it. We propose:

1. That the President appoint a National Council on Human Resources Development. It would consist of the relevant key White House officials, cabinet members and members of Congress. It would also include a small number of governors, educators, business executives, labor leaders and advocates for minorities and the poor. It would be established in such a way as to assure continuity of membership across administrations, so that the consensus it forges will outlast any one administration. It would be charged with recommending broad policy on a national system of human resources development to the President and the Congress, assessing the effectiveness and promise of current programs and proposing new ones. It would be staffed by senior officials on the Domestic Policy Council staff of the President.

2. We propose a new agency be created, the National Institute for Learning, Work and Service. Would–put the continuing education and training of the ‘forgotten half’ on a par with the preparation of those who have historically been given the resources to go to college and to integrate the two systems–to make good on the promise that everyone will have access to the kind of education that only a small minority have had access to up to now. To this agency would be assigned the functions now performed by the assistant secretary for employment and training, the assistant secretary for vocational education and the assistant secretary for higher education. The staff would be small, high powered and able to move quickly to implement the policy initiatives of the new President in the field of human resources development. The closest existing model to what we have in mind is the National Science Board and the National Science Foundation–In this scheme, the Department of Education would be free to focus on putting the new student performance standards in place and managing the programs that will take the leadership in the national restructuring of the schools. Much of the financing and disbursement functions of the higher education program would move to the Treasury Department, leaving the higher education staff in the new institute to focus on matters of substance. In any case, as you can see, we believe that some extraordinary measure well short of actually merging the departments of labor and education is required to move the new agenda with dispatch (pages 17 and 18).

- Radical changes in attitudes, values and beliefs are required to move any combination of these agendas. The federal government will have little direct leverage on many of the actors involved. For much of what must be done, a new, broad consensus will be required” (page 18 emphasis added).

- (T)he agenda cannot be moved unless there is agreement among the governors, the President and the Congress (page 18).
Another document of the National Center on Education and the Economy is A Human Resources Development Plan for the United States. Page nine is devoted to the Labor Market Systems and says:

“The Employment Service is greatly upgraded, and separated from the Unemployment Insurance Fund. All available front-line jobs-whether public or private-must be listed in it by law [this provision must be carefully designed to make sure that employers will not be subject to employment suits based on the data produced by this system-if they are subject to such suits, they will not participate]. All trainees in the system looking for work are entitled to be listed in it without a fee. So it is no longer a system just for the poor and unskilled, but for everyone. The system is fully computerized. It lists not only job openings and job seekers (with their qualifications) but also all the institutions in the labor market area offering programs leading to the general education certificate and those offering programs leading to the professional and technical college degrees and certificates, along with all the relevant data about the costs, characteristics and performance of those programs-for everyone and for special populations. Counselors are available to any citizen to help them assess their needs, plan a program and finance it, and, once they are trained, to locate available jobs.

A system of labor market boards is established at the local, state and federal levels to coordinate the systems for job training, postsecondary professional and technical education, adult basic education, job matching and counseling. The rebuilt Employment Service is supervised by these boards. The system’s clients no longer have to go from agency to agency filling out separate applications for separate programs. It is all taken care of at the local labor market board office by one counselor accessing the integrated computer-based program, which makes it possible for the counselor to determine eligibility for all relevant programs at once, plan a program with the client and assemble the necessary funding from all the available sources. The same system will enable counselor and client to array all the relevant program providers side by side, assess their relative costs and performance records and determine which providers are best able to meet the client’s needs based on performance.”

A Human Resources Development Plan for the United States says that the components to remold the entire American system for human resources development were put in place before World War II. The National Center on Education and the Economy has two visions. The first is to “create a seamless web of opportunities to develop one’s skills that literally extends from cradle to grave and is the same system for everyone-young and old, poor and rich, worker and full-time student.” ¹⁰ The second vision is a legislative agenda to implement this vision. Four high-priority packages are proposed which is to enable the federal government to move quickly:

1. President Clinton’s proposal for an apprenticeship system for putting a whole new post-secondary training system in place. That system would incorporate his [Clinton’s] proposal for postsecondary standards, the Collaborative Design and Development Proposal, the technical assistance proposal and the postsecondary education finance proposal [author’s note: such as that found in Missouri’s A+ Schools Program.]

2. Combine initiatives on dislocated workers, a rebuilt employment service and a new system of labor market boards in a single employment security program.

3. Combine elements of the first and second packages into a special program to raise the work-related skills of the people trapped in the core of our cities.

4. The fourth would enable the new administration [Clinton] to take advantage of legislation on which Congress has already been working to advance the elementary and secondary reform agenda. It would combine the successor to HR 4323 and S2 (incorporating the systemic reform agenda and the board for student performance standards) with the proposal for revamping Chapter 1. ¹¹

The Board of Trustees for the National Center on Education and the Economy include:
- Mario Cuomo, then Governor of New York
- John Sculley, Chairman and CEO, Apple Computer, Inc.
- James Hunt, Governor-Elect of North Carolina
- Carlos R. Carballada, CEO of First National Bank, Rochester, New York
- Marc Tucker, President of the National Center on Education and the Economy
- Anthony Carnevale, President of Institute for Workplace Learning, American Society for Training & Development
- Sarah Cleveland, Law Clerk, U.S. District Court, Washington, DC
- Thomas Cole, Jr., President, Clark Atlanta University
- VanBuren Hansford, Jr., CEO and Chairman, Hansford Manufacturing Corp., Rochester, New York
- Louis Harris, Chairman, LH Research, New York, New York
- Guilbert Hentschke, Dean, School of Education, University of Southern California, Los Angeles
- Vera Katz, Mayor-Elect, Portland, Oregon
- Arturo Madrid, President, The Tomas Rivera Center, Claremont, California
- Ira Magaziner, President, SJS, Inc., Providence, Rhode Island (and Clinton’s “front man” on health care reform)
- Shirley Malcom, Head, Directorate for Education and Human Resources Programs, American Association for the Advancement of Science, Washington, D.C.
- Ray Marshall, Audre and Bernard Rapoport Centennial Chair in Economics & Public Affairs, L.B.J. School of Public Affairs, University of Texas at Austin
- Richard Mills, Commissioner of Education, Vermont Department of Education, , Montpelier, Vermont
- Philip Power, Chairman, Suburban Communications Corporation, Ann Arbor, Michigan
- Lauren Resnick, Director, Learning Research and Development Center, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (see this book’s chapter titled Local Accreditation Reflects National Standards and Assessments).
- Manuel Rivera, Superintendent, Rochester City School District, Rochester, New York
- David Rockefeller, Jr., Chairman, Rockefeller Financial Services, Inc. New York, New York
- Adam Urbanski, President, Rochester Teachers Association, Rochester, New York
- Kay Whitmore, Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer, Eastman Kodak Company, Rochester, New York

It is NO coincidence that Ira Magaziner, Marc Tucker, Lauren Resnick, John Sculley, Kay Whitmore, James Hunt, Anthony Carnevale, Ray Marshall, and Philip Power, were ALSO members of the Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce which wrote America’s Choice: High Skills or Low Wages! addressed earlier in this chapter.

It should be understood that “human resources” are you-the American people. Does being referred to as a “resource” make you feel like something to be used? Does it bring back memories of historical facts surrounding the misuse of people in Germany who were also seen as mere “resources”? Some may ask whether this “new agenda” is a new system through which those who do not display, possess, or comply with politically correct values, attitudes, and behavior are to be rehabilitated. Others may ask whether we are trading a free-market system for a command economy which has proven to fail in other countries. It appears suspiciously so.

It is no accident then that appendix IV of Missouri’s 1995 federal grant proposal for state implementation of Missouri’s School-to-Work system (called Missouri’s Roadway to Success) contains a map showing how Missouri is broken down into eleven Labor Market Areas and states:

“The Missouri Occupational Information Coordinating Committee (MOICC) uses these geographic areas to organize labor market information collected by local, state and federal government agencies. The Committee will provide state and substate labor market information to the local partnerships to identify projected employment needs. Information on all industries and occupations will be included. Current and projected employment estimates through the year 2000 will be provided for over 400 detailed industries (e.g. hospitals, residential construction, etc.) and over 700 detailed occupations (e.g. nurses, carpenters, etc.).
This labor market information will be used by a local partnership if it, for example, identifies health services as a career path and is seeking information on potential employment for occupations and industries within the health field. In this case, reports will be provided which show growth rates for health-related industries and occupations and which industries customarily utilize which occupations. This information will assist the partnership in identifying local employers for job sites suited to the individual’s career path. Information will also be provided to assist in determining if an adequate supply of trained workers is being prepared or if additional skilled workers will be needed. Occupational supply-demand reports are available for those skill areas which require significant training and education.”

The following are member agencies of the Missouri Occupational Information Coordinating Committee (MOICC)
Department of Higher Education
Council on Vocational Education
Division of Vocational Rehabilitation
Division of Job Development and Training
Department of Labor and Industrial Relations
Division of Health Resources
Division of Budget and Planning
Division of Employment Security
Department of Economic Development
Division of Vocational and Adult Education

MOICC provides data coordination, information for human resources planning, and information for career decision-making. MOICC’s Microcomputer Occupational Information System (MICRO-OIS) is a collaborative effort to share data among the MOICC member agencies and to make this data available across the State of Missouri. The MOICC Occupational Data Book provides printed reports and definitions used in the Missouri OIS. Using the OIS you may answer questions such as: (1) Do we need to increase the number of persons being trained as aircraft mechanics in the Kansas City area? (2) Which school(s) conduct training programs for truck drivers in SDA 7? (3) What is the entry-level wage for welders in Cape Girardeau County? (4) Which industries are growing or declining in the St. Louis Metropolitan area? ¹²

MOICC’s 56-page newspaper called Missouri Career Guide Preparing Missourians for the New Global Economy lists six career paths with which occupations are associated. These same six career paths are listed in Exploring Career Paths A Guide for Students and Their Families produced by the University of Missouri’s Instructional Materials Laboratory. This document states that it was “adopted from a model developed by the state of Oregon.”

The manual explains to students that different career paths require different levels of education and training, and provides the student with an area of focus. The stated intent is not to decide on a specific occupation for the rest of one’s life, but to select a career path into which energies can be directed towards. Students who decide to later change their career path are advised to discuss it with their counselor and adjust future course selections accordingly. The manual doesn’t say whether the number of opportunities to change career paths are or will be limited.

The manual contains pages to help students develop a course plan from 9th through the 14th grades. This necessitates students making some sort of a decision about their life’s career path before leaving middle school. Page 20 of Exploring Career Paths states, “More than 70 percent of the jobs in America will not require a college education (bachelor’s degree) by the year 2000.” The footnote next to this statement identifies it as a quote from America’s Choice: High Skills or Low Wages!, National Center on Education and the Economy, June 1990.

The six career paths include:

1. Arts and Communications: related to humanities and performing arts, visual, literary, and media arts. Architecture, interior design, creative writing, fashion design, film, fine arts, graphic design and production, journalism, languages, radio, television, advertising, and public relations.

2. Business, Management, and Technology: related to the business environment. Entrepreneurship, sales, marketing, computer/information systems, finance, accounting, personnel, economics, and management.

3. Health Services: related to the promotion of health and the treatment of disease. May include research, prevention, treatment, and related technologies.

4. Human Services: related to economic, political, and social systems. Education, government, law and law enforcement, leisure and recreation, delivery, military, religion, child care, social services, and personal services. (The manual defines religion to include pastors.)

5. Industrial and Engineering Technology: related to agriculture, the environment, and natural resources. Agricultural sciences, earth sciences, environmental sciences, fisheries, forestry, horticulture, and wildlife.

Goals 2000 says, “If a State has received Federal assistance for the purpose of planning for, expanding, or establishing a school-to-work program, then a State shall include in the State Improvement Plan a description of how (the) school-to-work program will be incorporated into the school reform efforts of the State.” ¹³

Missouri’s School Improvement Plan includes a State funded reform called the A+ Program. School districts compete for the A+ grants. “A+ Candidate High Schools [are those which] have been promoting career pathways, STW [School-to-Work] activities, and the elimination of the ‘general education track.” ¹⁴ An A+ School is to ensure that ALL students graduate from high school, complete a selection of high school study that is challenging and has identified learner expectations (outcomes), and ensure that ALL students proceed from high school graduation to a college or post-secondary vocational or technical school, or high wage job with workplace skill development opportunities.

It would be beneficial to obtain your State’s School Improvement Plan and School-to-Work grant from your U.S. Congressman or State Department of Education. Also beneficial would be a copy of your school district’s School Improvement Plan and School-to-Work grant available through your local school district or State Department of Education.
Missouri’s School-to-Work program became law through Governor Carnahan’s Executive Order 95-11. Missouri’s legislative process and representative government were not allowed to function in this endeavor.

Missouri’s 1995 federal grant proposal for state implementation of the School-to-Work System was titled Missouri’s Roadway to Success which included:

- “Goal 4: developing career and education plans for each student (page 3)

- (E)xpanding career education and planning into all elementary, secondary, and postsecondary educational institutions (page 3)

- (D)eveloping skill certificates (page 3)

- (E)valuating barriers to equal opportunity for ALL learners and identifying techniques to overcome them (page 3)

- Criterion 3: Participation of All Students: The Partnership resolved to make serving ALL learners an integral part of the School-to-Work System, not an addendum. Therefore, there is not a separate section on how each ‘special’ group will be served. Rather, local partnerships will be required to incorporate service for ALL (with assistance from the state as needed) into their local plans, and the State Evaluation Team will confirm that this is accomplished–In addition, state-level barriers created by regulations or legislation will be identified and strategies will be developed to overcome any such barriers (pages 19 and 20).

- The department directors will establish an interagency team to look at the integration of School-to-Work, Goals 2000, Missouri’s Outstanding Schools Act [SB380], Missouri’s Caring Community Project, Tech-Prep, and other programs. The team will–make recommendations on how to ensure that the programs are integrated at the local level (page 33).
(See this book’s chapter titled “Together We Can” Socialize “Caring Communities.”)

- The initial focus will be on the integration of School-to-Work and Goals 2000 (page 34)

- The Business Contact Team (BCT) will be working with businesses to identify barriers to their participation in School-to-Work. The team will look at all potential barriers including any created by insurance, liability, legislative, or other concerns. The BCT will then work with businesses to develop recommendations for changes to overcome any barriers found (page 43).

- A major part of the marketing plan for the Missouri School-to-Work Opportunities System will be an ‘Excellence in School-to-Work Award’–The award process will provide recognition only to those programs and partnerships which can objectively demonstrate the achievement of desired outcomes and thus demonstrate accountability–Award categories and criteria will be closely linked to the federal School-to-Work Opportunities legislation requirements. Within each category, criteria will be established to address such as follows:

1. Geographic Areas/Expansion: Does the program address the needs of the local labor market?

2. Collaboration/Involvement: The active and continued involvement of employers, locally elected officials, secondary schools, postsecondary educational institutions, business associations, industrial extension centers, personnel, students, parents, community-based organizations, teachers, rehabilitation agencies and organizations, registered apprenticeship agencies, local vocational education schools, vocational student organizations, state or regional cooperative education associations, and human service agencies.

3. Coordination/Integration: Coordinate or integrate program into local School-to-Work Opportunities programs that were in existence prior to this program. How does the program support the goals of the state School-to-Work Opportunities system?

4. Training Strategy: Provide training for teachers, employers, mentors, counselors, related service personnel and others including specialized training and technical support for the counseling and training of women, minorities, and individuals with disabilities for high-skill, high-wage careers in nontraditional employment.

5. Model Curricula/Innovative Instructional Methodologies: Elementary and/or secondary grades integrate academic and vocational learning and promote career awareness and are consistent with academic and skill standards established pursuant to Goals 2000: Educate America Act and the National Skill Standards Act of 1994.

6. Counseling: Expand and improve career and academic counseling in the elementary and secondary grades, including any linkages to career counseling and labor market information services outside of the school system.

7. Funding: Funded to be self-sufficient

8. Experience/Meaningful Opportunities: Provide for paid high-quality, work-based learning experiences, and generate paid experiences. Ensure effective and meaningful opportunities for all students to participate.

9. Awareness/Outreach: Provide for awareness and outreach to ensure opportunities for young women to participate, including nontraditional employment. Goals to ensure an environment free from racial and sexual harassment. Ensure opportunities for low achieving students, students with disabilities, school drop-outs, and academically talented students to participate.

10. Skill Certificates: Assess the skills and knowledge required in career majors and the process for awarding skill certificates consistent with the skills standards certification systems endorsed by the National Skill Standards Act of 1994.

11. Flexibility/Lifelong Learning: Ensure that students are given flexibility to develop new career goals over time and to change career majors. Foster lifelong learning through facilitating entry of students into additional training for postsecondary education programs, and through the transfer of students between education and training programs.

12. Performance Standards: Relate programs performance standards to those established by the state-wide system (Appendix II).

- All learners include students currently involved in general education as well as dropouts, learners with disabilities, gifted and at-risk students, and those in need of special education and/or rehabilitation (page 3).

- To encourage the small businesses that are the backbone of Missouri’s economy, we must teach Entrepreneurship, beginning in kindergarten (Appendix V).

- Currently, eight companies have contracts with three community colleges to provide training to employees needed for new or expanding industries. Training certificates are sold by the community colleges and a portion of the new employees’ taxes is deposited into a special fund to repay the certificates (Appendix V).

- Missouri’s Outstanding Schools Act requires the State Board of Education to develop performance-based assessments to identify what students know as well as what they are able to do. These assessments will measure student success in achieving the academic performance standards. Our goal is to ensure that the performance-based assessments include assessment of work-place skills and competencies (Appendix V).

- On August 25, 1994, Missouri was approved to receive a planning grant under the Goals 2000 Act. Among other things, [the state educational improvement plan] must include procedures for incorporating the School-to-Work Opportunities System into school reform efforts in Missouri (Appendix V).

- (I)mplementation of both the Goals 2000 Act and the Outstanding Schools Act–have involved and will continue to involve business, educators, parents, elected officials, state departments, and many other groups (Appendix V).

- Comprehensive Guidance Programs are essential and central partners in education and the School-to-Work Opportunities process. Comprehensive Guidance programs provide important benefits for all students by addressing their career, personal-social, and educational needs in relationship to the needs of society and the development of a quality United States work force for the 21st century. Comprehensive Guidance Programs are developmental and include sequentially organized activities and experiences designed to assist all students, K-12, to acquire knowledge and skills in career planning and exploration, knowledge of self and others, and educational and vocational development. They are implemented in each school by counselors in close collaboration with teachers, parents or guardians, administrators, community members, students, and representatives of business, industry, and labor (Appendix V).

- Parents as Teachers program will be revised to include career information; parents will be actively involved in the development of their child’s individual career and education plan” (page 16).
Missouri’s Roadway to Success identifies the following barriers to School-to-Work on page 48 and in Appendix III:

- Businesses may be reluctant to offer students paid work experience.

- Child labor laws may keep students out of the workplace. Missouri’s child labor laws prohibit the employment of children under the age of 14, and bans 14- and 15-year-olds from high-risk occupations. Allowable working hours for 14- and 15-year-olds are limited, depending on the time of year. Workers under the age of 18 may not use certain dangerous equipment. [Author’s note: Is the intention of the School-to-Work program to alter child labor laws to have children UNDER 14 working at high-risk occupations, and children under the age of 18 using dangerous equipment?]

- Employers may be reluctant to assume liability of having students in the workplace. There also may be increased benefits for an injured employee who is under the age of 21.

- Some students may have difficulty securing transportation to and from the work-based learning site.

- Parents, students, and others may perceive School-to-Work as a program for non-college bound students.

- Some locally-controlled school boards may refuse to cooperate with any local partnership.

- Educators may see School-to-Work as a distraction from and dilution of necessary basic academics.

- Educators already have ‘plates full,’ can’t take on additional responsibilities.”

Missouri’s Roadway to Success’s 1995 budget provides the following “list of potential resources for use by communities as leveraged and/or matching funds in the development of their local partnerships:

“STATE FUNDS
Caring Communities $ 24,500,000
Community College Work Force Preparation $9,432,463
A+ Schools 7,500,000
Incentives for School Excellence 6,000,000
State Vocational Education 43,852,528
Vocational Enhancement Grants 6,000,000
Technology State Funds 10,500,000
Outstanding Schools Line 14 129,259,647
Outstanding Schools Regional Training 12,000,000
Foundation Formula 1,116,845,283
VIDEO Grants 3,824,663
Parents as Teachers 21,204,651
LOCAL FUNDS
Local Tax Funds $1,392,049,653
Outstanding Schools Local Professional Development 12,000,000
FEDERAL FUNDS
Even Start $1,562,366
Homeless 48,510
Emergency Immigrant 97,000
Migrant Education 812,257
IASA Title I School-wide 106,000,000
IASA Title I Targeted 560,000
IASA Title II 3,350,000
IASA Title VI 7,000,000
Drug-Free 3,000,000
Goals 2000 4,900,000
Carl Perkins Basic Grant 19,596,633
Tech Prep 2,241,409
JTPA II B/C 20,385,872
Vocational Rehabilitation Title I 50,761,833
Vocational Rehabilitation Title VIC 573,000
Adult Basic Education 8,381,013
Learn and Serve America 355,619
IDEA (P.L. 94-142) 36,340,000
Wagner-Peyser 13,000,000
Total $3,073,936,398

This list DOES NOT include donations from business, in the form of cash, time and services which is expected to be substantial.” ¹⁵ Note that Caring Communities includes the “Medicaid program for schools.” ¹⁶

Missouri’s federal School-to-Work grant dated August 1996 was titled Missouri’s Community Careers System and provided the following table titled Available Funds and/or Matching Funds for Fiscal Year 1995.

“STATE FUNDS
Caring Communities $ 24,857,405
Community College Work Force Preparation 3,980,392
A+ Schools 7,500,000
Incentives for School Excellence 6,000,000
State Vocational Education 38,334,741
Vocational Enhancement Grants 6,000,000
Technology State Funds 10,500,000
Outstanding Schools Line 14 129,259,647
Outstanding Schools Regional Training 12,000,000
Outstanding Schools Local Professional Development
12,000,000
Foundation Formula 1,116,845,283
VIDEO Grants 3,824,663
LOCAL FUNDS
Local Tax Funds $1,427,648,866
FEDERAL FUNDS
Even Start $1,562,366
Homeless 337,372
Emergency Immigrant 115,584
Migrant Education 812,072
IASA Title I 113,093,564
IASA Title II 3,821,126
IASA Title VI 6,048,203
Drug-Free 6,296,310
Goals 2000 6,534,148
Carl Perkins Basic Grant 19,596,633
Tech Prep 2,241,409
JTPA II B/C 10,766,714
Vocational Rehabilitation Title I 42,001,432
Adult Basic Education & Futures 8,183,354
Learn and Serve America 355,000
IDEA (P.L. 94-142) 48,751,983
Wagner-Peyser 15,000,000
Total $3,085,307,267

This list DOES NOT include donations from business, in the form of cash, time and services which is expected to be substantial. The state will require a significant local match for STW funding from all STW Partnerships. The goal of the State of Missouri is to have all STW activities self-supporting within five years.” ¹⁷

In just two years School-to-Work has cost Missouri taxpayers $6,159,243,665 PLUS the donations from businesses in the form of cash, time and services, which the State says was expected to be substantial. THANK YOU, MR. TAXPAYER!

“Work Keys is a national system focused on workplace skills that are used in a wide range of jobs, are teachable in a reasonable period of time, and can be defined for purposes of job analysis. Work Keys provides a continuous structure for documenting and improving such skills. When developing the Work Keys system, American College Testing (ACT) consulted with educators, national organizations, and representatives from more than 150 large, medium, and small businesses throughout the nation. The Work Keys system has two factors: (1) the ability to compare an individual’s workplace skills to the requirements of a particular job, and (2) instructional support materials that enable individuals to improve their skills. With these, schools can determine how to prepare students more completely for the workplace, and employers can measure the qualifications of potential employees and design job-training programs that will help current employees meet the demands of their jobs. The Work Keys system consists of four integrated components: assessment, job profiling, instructional support, and reporting. Four standard reports are generated by this component, and customized reports may be generated upon request.” ¹⁸

Work Keys, a product of American College Testing (ACT) is referred to in Teaching The SCANS Competencies which is published by the U.S. Department of Labor and its Secretary’s Commission On Achieving Necessary Skills (SCANS).

“SCANS was formed “to encourage a high-performance economy characterized by high-skills, high-wage employment–SCANS defines the know-how American students and workers need for workplace success and in the applications of its principles in communities across the United States. Supporting the mission are the SCANS reports: Learning a Living; What Work Requires of Schools, the Commission’s first report; Skills and Tasks for Jobs, a tracing of the relationship between the SCANS competencies and skills and 50 common occupations; and Teaching the SCANS Competencies, uniting six articles that give education and training practitioners practical suggestions for applying SCANS in classroom [into curricula and instruction] and workplace.” ¹⁹

SCANS is an assessment and tracking system of knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors associated with the workplace. Be sure to note information on “tracking” in this book’s chapter titled “’Together We Can’ Socialize ‘Caring Communities’.”
The following information is taken from Teaching the SCANS Competencies:

“The know-how identified by SCANS is made up of five competencies and a three-part foundation of skills and personal qualities needed for solid job performance (emphasis added). These include:

“COMPETENCIES. Effective workers can productively use:

- Resources: allocating time (time management, setting priorities), money, materials, space, staff;

- Interpersonal Skills: working on teams [the “good” of the team is more important than the individual?], teaching others, serving customers, leading, negotiating (stress and conflict management), and working well with people from culturally diverse backgrounds; [note: Will those who are not “politically correct” fail this competency?]

- Information: acquiring and evaluating data, organizing and maintaining files, interpreting and communicating, and using computers to process information;

- Systems: understanding social, organizational, and technological systems, monitoring and correcting performance, and designing or improving systems;

- Technology: selecting equipment and tools, applying technology to specific tasks, and maintaining and troubleshooting technologies.

“THE FOUNDATION. Competence requires:

- Basic Skills: reading, writing, arithmetic and mathematics, speaking and listening;

- Thinking Skills: thinking creatively, making decisions, solving problems, seeing things in the mind’s eye, knowing how to learn, and reasoning;

- Personal Qualities: individual responsibility, self-esteem, sociability, self-management and integrity.” [Is responsibility defined to include family planning?]

“Although a new course or two (e.g. Principles of Technology) might be designed at some schools, the primary place to teach SCANS skills is within existing curricula. SCANS skills can and should be integrated into each subject in the core curriculum.

“The New Standards Project is a national effort managed by the National Center on Education and the Economy in collaboration with the Learning Research and Development Center at the University of Pittsburgh, plans to articulate world-class standards and then develop a national assessment system based on these standards. The assessment system is likely to include timed performance examinations, student projects, and portfolios of student work.” ²⁰

Michael Schmidt and Arnold Packer wrote a paper titled Technology and High-Performance Schools: A SCANS Survey. Michael Schmidt, served as a staff member for SCANS and has written several articles on workforce policy and human resources development. Arnold Packer, chairman of Johns Hopkins University Institute for Policy Studies SCANS/2000 Program, served as Executive Director of SCANS and co-authored the seminal study Workforce 2000: Work and Workers for the 21st Century. The article explains the four-step process in adapting their technology plan for schools:

“STEP 1: Preparing for Technology Acquisition
- Establish a planning committee
- Agree on purposes of educational technology
- Hold a technology conference

STEP 2: Investing in Hardware
- Classroom workstations (computer linked to a large-screen TV display.
- Laptop computers for teachers/administrators
- Classroom workstations for students
- Classroom laser printers
- Integrated Learning Systems (ILS) Labs
- Compact-disk (CD/ROM) players
- Computer file servers (machines that link computers into Local Area Networks (LANs).
- Electrical wiring
- Technology Resource Center

STEP 3: Investing in Software and Support
- Educational software:
1. Teachers’ Aids (attendance, record grades, design lesson plans, write curricula, and monitor student progress.
2. Instructional Aids (drill students in basic skills, instructional programs that provide students with information about a variety of issues, and programs that develop such higher-order skills as creative thinking and problem-solving.
3. Multi-Media software blend computer, video, and audio technology into one integrated system.
4. Application/work-related software include word-processing, database, and spreadsheet programs.
- Software for classroom and technology center
1. Teachers’ organizational aids-grading, attendance, etc.
2. Software for teachers to fully integrate technology into the curriculum.
3. Media/technology resource center
4. Software for students (word processing, database, and spreadsheet programs that properly prepare them for work.
- Maintenance, repair, and replacement of equipment
Allocate five to seven percent of the hardware budget.

STEP 4: Investing in Staff Development
- Recommend an initial training program of 10 days for staff with ongoing training of five days per year.
- Recommend hiring at least one full-time computer specialist to provide on-site faculty support and to oversee the ILS lab.
- Suggest that $300 per student be allocated on an ongoing basis for training and development of staff based on a school with 1,400 students.
- Staff members must also receive training in new ways of thinking and teaching and in taking on new responsibilities.” ²¹

This may sound all well and good, but, does it work? Has the SCANS assessment been assessed?

“John Wirt, an independent consultant on skills standards and other job-assessment issues, was formerly Deputy Director of SCANS. Prior to that, he directed the Congressionally-mandated National Assessment of Vocational Education and was a policy analyst for the Rand Corporation.

“The SCANS competencies present challenging problems for assessment. One potential difficulty is determining the level of students’ general competency when their prior knowledge of the specific contexts of assessment exercises may vary significantly. Several of the competencies also involve social skills, and some assessment experts doubt that social skills can be reliably and validly assessed on a large scale. A third potential problem is that the thinking inherent in many of the competencies, such as improving systems and allocating resources is much more complex and open-ended than generally can be assessed using conventional testing methods.

“A considerable amount of experience with teaching the SCANS competencies in education and training programs, coupled with research, will need to occur before methods for assessing the SCANS competencies can be firmly established. The Department of Labor, in cooperation with the Department of Education and the Office of Personnel Management, has taken a first step toward such an outcome by launching a sizable project to develop techniques for assessing the SCANS competencies in a large-scale survey or on an individual basis. Project officer is Bill Showler, OSPPD, Rm. N-5637, Employment and Training Administration, 200 Constitution Ave., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20210, telephone number (202) 219-5677.” ²²

Following are the national testing organizations involved with assessing SCANS:

“Hay/McBer’s Behavioral Event Interview (job competency generally), Educational Testing Service (interpersonal skills), Maryland Education Department (allocation of resources), Wilson Learning Corporation (interpersonal skills), American College Testing (using information-acquiring and evaluating data)–Two groups are developing performance assessments for SCANS or SCANS-like competencies: The Work Readiness Group of the New Standards Project at the University of Pittsburgh, and the State Assessments Program of the Council of Chief State School Officers.” ²³

Included among the 32 members of the Secretary’s Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills (SCANS) working under Lynn Martin, U.S. Secretary of Labor (listed on page 127 of Teaching the SCANS Competencies), were William Brock, Dr. Badi Foster, and Dr. Lauren Resnick, all of whom are associated with the National Center on Education and the Economy.

As you may have noticed earlier in this chapter, the same names keep coming up in various documents and programs associated with education, health, or labor reforms. Interestingly enough, it seems that one way or another, at least one or more in the list are associated with the National Center on Education and the Economy.

National Computer Systems, Inc. (NCS) manufactures: computer software for scoring and reporting test results to better monitor student progress, optical scanning equipment, computer forms, application software, optical scanning, and testing and systems integration services. One such product manufactured by NCS is called ABACUS. ABACUS is a complete instructional management system with one component that includes a test bank of items, test scoring, test analysis and test reporting. It has the capability of using a bar code that may decrease paperwork for teachers. A computer system may also be referred to as an MIS or Manage-ment Information System. There is more information on National Computer System, Inc. in this book’s section titled Tracking in the chapter titled “‘Together We Can’ Socialize ‘Caring Communities.’ ”

Families have concerns: that students will become workers for the state; that this will shift the emphasis away from academics toward career preparation or vocational training (Tech Prep); about their privacy relative to the centralized databank system which links national, state, and local data bases. As is documented above, these databases will be the depository through which the Labor Market Information System will plan, administer, and evaluate vast personal data in an effort to match employers with employees. Centralizing this data sets up an enormous potential for abuse should it ever be used to discriminate against individuals. Establishing local workforce development areas and one-stop career centers adds another layer of bureaucracy.
States not participating will be denied eligibility for federal funds. Employers will be pressured to hire only those who have acquired a skills certificate, or require current employees to obtain one.

A command economy destroys the incentive to produce. When a government takes the challenge, fun, variety, and technicolor of free enterprise and turns it into the stark, black and white of socialism, there is no reason to do more than the bare minimum.
As a little girl I used to lie on my back in the grass of our backyard and watch the sky as airplanes left streaks of white marks on a blue background. Earthbound, I would daydream about exotic places and vacations I imagined the passengers were bound for. How I longed for the far-away adventures that lay beyond our yard, but I was too young. In the late 1960s when I was in seventh and eighth grades, our teacher gave us an assignment to create a career notebook. Because of my wonder of aircraft and travel, I chose to do my career notebook on the airline industry. I doubt that it was very detailed. Then came the high school years. Our school had a program called COE. It was a program where a student went to school for part of the day and held a job the rest of the day. Even though I was an honor-roll student, this was an opportunity to “get out of school early, ” and into the world of paychecks. Sooo, I traded my grade-school dreams of a career in the airline industry for something more secure and “realistic” which would be arranged through school. Then there was a major catastrophe. The summer before my senior year in which I was to participate in the COE program, I endured an eight-hour surgery for pancreatic cancer and a five-week hospital stay. My surgeon said I could not participate in the COE program. I had just survived one major setback, and now the rest of my “life’s plans” were derailed! I was as devastated as any teenager anxious to experience the grown-up “real-world” of work could be.
What I didn’t realize at the time, was what a disguised blessing this would turn out to really be. Mom and dad found a newspaper ad for an airline school’s correspondence course, and I was enrolled. Since the doctor said I couldn’t take gym, I spent gym class in the gym teacher’s office working on the correspondence course. What a joy it was to learn about the latest aircraft, city codes, and the inner workings of an industry I had fallen in love with as a child. The tests were all open-book, so it was a breeze to make straight “A”s. This led to a month of intense resident training in Kansas City. Within two months I was employed with an airline. I couldn’t believe my childhood dreams had come true!! What pride I took in my employer, the work I did in the accounting office, then reservations, and finally in Central Reservations Control! I was actually working in the career I had always dreamed of because Providence forced me to believe in myself rather than the institutionalized school-to-career mold!

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[1] John Porter, ( “the National Center’s director of school-to-career,”) “Expecting More,” The Newsletter on Standards-Based Reform, National Center on Education and the Economy, Vol. 1/Issue 1; Nov., 1997, p.3.
[2] Missouri’s Roadway to Success, Goal 2, p. 2.
[3] Ibid., Goal 3, p. 3.
[4] Ibid., Goal 5, p. 3.
[5] November 11, 1992 letter from Marc Tucker, President of the National Center on Education and the Economy to Hillary Clinton, p.18.
[6] America’s Choice: High Skills or Low Wages!, National Center on Education and the Economy; pp. 5, 6; ISBN 0-9627063-0-2.
[7] America’s Choice: High Skills or Low Wages!, National Center on Education and the Economy; p. 70.
[8] America’s Choice: High Skills or Low Wages!, National Center on Education and the Economy, June 1990, p. 90.
[9] August 2, 1991 letter, Lamar Alexander, Secretary U. S. Department of Education.
[10] A Human Resources Development Plan for the United States, 1992, National Center on Education and the Economy, Introduction, p. 2.
[11] A Human Resources Development Plan for the United States, 1992, National Center on Education and the Economy, pp. 2, 3, 24-26. Address: 39 State Street, Suite 500; Rochester NY 14614-1327; (716) 546-7620; FAX: (716) 546-3145; $7.50.
[12] MOICC; 400 Dix Road; Jefferson City, MO 65109; (573) 751-3800.
[13] Goals 2000 Title III, Sec. 306. State Improvement Plans (j).
[14] School-to-Work Missouri’s Community Careers System, a federal grant proposal for state implementation of Missouri’s School-to-Work System, Aug. 1996, p. 17.
[15] School-to-Work Missouri’s Roadway to Success, June 1995, Budget Appendix 4, p. xii.
[16] Missouri School Directory 1995-96, Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, p. 240.
[17] School-to-Work Missouri’s Community Careers System, part III, August 1996, p. 35.
[18] “Work Keys,” American College Testing (ACT) National Office; 2201 North Dodge St.; P.O. Box 168; Iowa City, IA 52243; (1-800-967-5539) fax: (319) 337-1725.
[19] Teaching the SCANS Competencies, The Secretary’s Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills, U.S. Department of Labor, p. 5.
[20] Teaching the SCANS Competencies, U.S. Department of Labor, pp. 6, 7, 66, 69.
[21] Teaching the SCANS Competencies, U.S. Department of Labor, pp. 101, 103-109.
[22] Teaching the SCANS Competencies, U.S. Department of Labor, pp. 111-112.
[23] Teaching the SCANS Competencies, U.S. Department of Labor, pp. 113-120, 123.