Many students in today's high schools choose courses and work experiences in an unplanned, aimless manner that often results in limited career options and undeveloped potential. Innovative educators across the nation have responded by restructuring schools around career pathways, which are integrated, multiyear sequences of career guidance,…

Four articles comprise this monograph on interventions which lead to employment of youths with disabilities. Articles are based on investigations and demonstrations sponsored by the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS). In "Promoting Employment for Youths in Transition: Outcomes, Activities, and Indicators,"…

This booklet, which is intended for individuals responsible for evaluating and improving tech prep and school-to-work programs, examines the history, structure, and use of the Tech Prep/School-to-Work Index and Improvement Program, which was developed to provide a system for conducting internally focused evaluations of tech prep and school-to-work…

The South Dakota Alliance for Transition establishes a formal partnership among state agencies, local service providers, and community stakeholders to address the transition needs of youth with disabilities. The 5-year federally funded project aims to enhance transition services through systems change: developing responsive case management and…

This book is intended to assist school administrators, special education teachers, rehabilitation administrators and counselors, case managers, other employment and community living providers, and parents to understand the developing and changing programs at the local community level which provide transitional services for young people with…

The document details the development of a project to provide adult students with the academic and work skills required for admission to the Regional Skill Center, which is an adult technical school serving Erie County, Pennsylvania. The body of the report summarizes the following project outcomes: development of a four-tiered system of work force…

A team of representatives of Virginia state agencies involved in career preparation and employment examined the development and establishment of school-to-work transition (SWT) programs in Virginia. The team conducted a literature review and analyzed 42 selected state programs. The 16 school-based programs primarily provided classroom instruction…

Work force development systems have three primary subsystems: youth development and preparation for employment, adult work force entry, and worker retraining and transition assistance. Programs targeting youth pose one of the greatest challenges to those striving to develop or improve work force development systems. School-to-work will not…

This paper presents an overview of a three-phase investigation that featured: (1) an analysis of Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services demonstration projects focused on employment; (2) consensus development with respect to specific employment-related outcomes and activities; and (3) the identification of employment-related…

In 1994, Alaska began the process of using its grant funds from the National School-to-Work Opportunities Act to design a school-to-work system to meet the following objectives: obtain commitment and involvement from Alaska's governor and officials involved in human resource development; develop an implementation plan for a statewide system to…

Employer attitudes toward youth, the youth labor market, and prospects for a national system of youth apprenticeships were studied through a survey of firms that had participated in local youth apprenticeship or cooperative education programs in seven U.S. cities and focus group discussions with small and large employers in eight U.S. communities.…

This document examines the first year of Jobs for the Future's Benchmark Communities Initiative (BCI), a 5-year effort to achieve the following: large-scale systemic restructuring of K-16 educational systems; involvement of significant numbers of employers in work and learning partnerships; and development of the infrastructure necessary to…

A project was conducted to build an education and career enhancement system for Pennsylvania's adult population over age 24 that includes all three basic components of a school-to-work program: work-based learning, school-based learning, and connecting activities. The program was opened to unemployed and underemployed adults in two rural…

According to the school-to-work (STW) program philosophy, STW efforts should be comprehensive and begin as early as preschool. At the elementary school level, the developmental process of career education begins with career awareness designed to broaden student knowledge about careers and connect academic learning to the workplace. Developing…

The role of school-to-work transition in the broader context of K-12 systemic reform was examined by way of a case study of Jefferson County, Kentucky, before and after passage of the Kentucky Education Reform Act (KERA) in 1990. The systemic approaches toward school-to-work transition as part of educational reform that were developed and…