The Changing Roles of Vocational and Academic Education in Future High Schools.

N

8

Academic Education; Educational Change; Educational Quality; Employment Potential; High Schools; Integrated Curriculum; Job Development; Job Skills; Role of Education; Tech Prep; Technological Literacy; Vocational Education; Work Experience Programs

Both the rapid movement to the knowledge/imagination age and a more thorough understanding of how problem-solving skills are developed challenge traditional education to change and adopt a new set of goals. Academic and vocational education are modifying their goals and instructional procedures, and they are blending together. As technology has evolved, the nature of work and preparation for work has changed. Tracking students into college preparatory, vocational, or general programs is not sensible now, when the nature of work does not have one group of individuals directing work and another group conducting the procedural aspects of work. In the modern workplace, the nature of much work has changed; separating those who implement the procedural aspects from those who design, supervise, and direct the work is difficult. Given this changed context for work, the Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills has identified generalizable skills required in most workplaces as a basis for preparing people for employment. In response to such new life and workplace requirements, the educational community has defined a set of Criteria for the New American High School. Tech prep and the Southern Regional Education Board's High Schools that Work are two exemplary reform programs that ensure that all students have a rigorous academic background, develop technological literacy, and have realistic experiences in real world environments as contextual references for their learning. (YLB)

2000

ED434242