There is widespread agreement on the goal of preparing every high school student for both postsecondary education and a lifetime of fulfilling work, that every graduate should be "college and career ready." The authors' view is that career readiness and college readiness entail many of the same skills, bodies of knowledge, and…

Work-Based Learning (WBL) has been at the heart of school-to-work initiatives in the 1990s. Local partnerships funded by the 1994 School-to-Work Opportunities Act are placing high priority on developing WBL opportunities for students. However, there is still controversy about whether work really contributes to students' education, and results of…

Describes two critical dimensions of work-based learning (WBL), firm-based versus school-based, and "learn-and-stay" versus "learn-and-go." Recommendations are offered for the design of new WBL in the light of empirical findings on the employment patterns of young people as they grow older. (SLD)

Paper I: Using information from the national 1973 Quality of Employment Survey, the following assertions are examined relative to white employees: (1) Employees with more years of schooling and experience can obtain more agreeable and better-paying jobs and (2) among workers with equal schooling and experience, those with more agreeable jobs must…

This digest briefly reviews the ways that working affects students, and describes ways that schools can partner with businesses to increase the educational benefits of working. The economic payoff for students who work in high school is well-established, including a positive association between the amount of high school work experience and…