Overbrook School for the Blind (OSB), a specialized school serving students with blindness and visual impairment, has provided, since the early 1990s, paid summer work experiences as part of the school's Work Experience Program. In this article, the authors discuss how OSB has strengthened its original program as a result of the Workforce…

Intended for those responsible for supervised work experience in all levels in further and higher education, this book debates some issues surrounding placements and outlines a procedure for managing them. Chapter 1 is an introduction to the topic. Chapter 2 discusses the educational purpose of placements. Chapter 3 suggests that some difficulties…

The challenge of preparing young people for employment and facilitating the smooth transition from school to work has spurred the enactment of the federal School-to-Work Opportunities Act (STWOA), in May 1994. The intent of STWOA is to establish a national framework in which states can create work- and school-based learning systems that include…

The Business and Education Transition Alliance (BETA) is a model school-to-work transition program that was developed to facilitate the school-to-work transition of at-risk youth in the Boulder Valley School District in Colorado. Among the BETA program's specific goals are the following: increase students' knowledge/understanding of demands of the…

This handbook is designed to assist preceptors/mentors in a local allied health technology program, a school/industry partnership focused on training students for entry-level employment in the health care field by means of a work internship/externship. It draws heavily on the Secretary of Labor's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills (SCANS)…

A study assessed the relevance of work-based learning approaches used in school-to-work efforts. Evidence indicated that employers were steadily raising the entry requirements into the low end of the labor market. Despite the serious skill deficiencies of welfare recipients, employers felt no responsibility to people who lacked the basic skills…

This book contains 30 chapters on the tech prep initiative in Texas: "The Identity of Tech Prep in Texas" (Tunstall); "A Snap-Shot of the Impact of the Tech Prep Initiative in the Governor's 24 Planning Regions" (Brown); "The Tech Prep Consortium Directors: The Architects for the Future of Texas" (Hensley et al.);…

The 1994-95 school year was the first year of the MECA (Manufacturing, Engineering, Construction, Automotive) partnership implementation in the Saginaw (Michigan) Public Schools. MECA's purpose was to nurture the potential of youth while placing them in workplace environments that had not been a traditional part of applied learning in secondary…

The Summer Training and Education Program (STEP) research demonstration was initiated in 1984 to test the effects of a two-summer remediation, work, and life skills intervention on the lives of 14- and 15-year-olds from poor urban families who were already seriously behind academically. The program provided youth with half-day summer jobs combined…

Outcomes of a longitudinal study of the Earn and Learn program are summarized. Earn and Learn was a work-experience program initiated in 1972 as a school-based, goal-oriented program for at-risk middle school students designed to increase their self-image and school performance. Two evaluation studies were carried out. One study focused on the…

The passage from adolescence to adulthood of a group of young Latino immigrants, all of whom attended a Washington (District of Columbia) high school called the Multicultural Career Intern Program (MCIP) in the 1980s, is traced. Background and circumstances suggested that these youths were at-risk, but most made good use of their MCIP-related…

In view of the increasing emphasis on work experience in higher education (HE), a research project was undertaken to identify and compare current practices in the area of work-based learning in undergraduate programs. The study, which focused primarily on work experience in the United Kingdom, involved a literature review and site visits and…

This self-instructional module, the last in a series of 16 on techniques for coordinating work experience programs, deals with affirmative action. Addressed in the module are the following topics: the nature of affirmative action legislation and regulations, the role of the teacher-coordinator as a resource person for affirmative action…

Project HOST (Hospitality Occupational Skills Training) provided vocational training and employment opportunities in the hotel industry to disadvantaged adult minority populations in Chicago. It demonstrated a model for successful cooperation between the business sector and a public vocational education agency and developed and piloted a…

This document is designed to provide practical suggestions to help Alaska's teachers and administrators plan, initiate, operate, and evaluate cooperative vocational education (co-op) and on-the-job training (OJT) at the secondary level. Section 1 states the purposes of co-op and OJT programs and what such programs provide. Section 2 gives a…