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History of Workforce Preparation Education in California

K-12
The antecedents for California's workforce preparation programs can be found in the World War I time-period, when the federal Smith-Hughes Act provided funds to states for the underwriting of salaries for teachers and other staff involved in preparing students for vocations in industry, agriculture, and home economics. California’s first major workforce program, vocational education, was established in 1917 through federal funding from the Carl Perkins Act. The program expanded in the 1920’s –1950’s with the establishment of polytechnic high schools and again, in 1968 in California, with the founding of Regional Occupational Centers and Programs (ROCPs).

Throughout the aforementioned period of expansion, the idea that there should be an educational program for students headed to college that is different from that for students going directly to the job market after high school dominated the organizational structure of high schools. That approach made sense in the context of the post-agrarian and prevailing industrial economy of the time, when only a small elite with solid liberal studies education was needed for the economy to prosper, and when workers seldom veered from one career over a lifetime. The advent of the information age, however, began to augur change in the educational system. Now, students are required to have more substantial knowledge, as well as more technical workplace skills, in the post-industrial economy.

The California Legislature first addressed this trend in 1981 by expanding the Peninsula Academy at Sequoia High School in Redwood City to a statewide Partnership Academies program focusing on computer and electronic training, as well as preparing students for both college and careers through an integrated curriculum. In 1985, prompted by the publication of the Carnegie report – A Nation at Risk – with its iconic imperative decrying the “rising tide of mediocrity” in the nation’s schools, the Legislature more firmly established an emphasis on academic and college preparatory programs with its passage of the Hart-Hughes Education Reform Act.

Though politically popular, this academic focus served to further the chasm between vocational education and the college preparatory programs that opened after the passage of the 1978 Proposition 13 Property Tax Reform Act, which shifted the K-12 funding mechanism from primarily one of local monies to one supported by the state and left vocational education, the 290 academies, 72 ROCPs, and various adult education efforts in K-12 and the California Community Colleges (CCCs) to compete over rapidly dwindling resources. Since 1980, nearly two-thirds of the state's vocational classes have been eliminated. California's economic decline in the early 1990's further compounded the divide, and this array of workforce-oriented efforts has never recovered as California's high school programs became more focused on college-bound students in response to the state's flurry of accountability legislation. The irony amid all this political fervor is that 60-70 percent of California's students do not seek higher education.

CCCs
The first community college (known as a junior college then) was established in Fresno in 1910. Within a decade, nearly 20 school districts were offering general education, vocational, and remedial coursework through junior colleges, and by 1960, there were 63 junior college campuses, which included adult education and community service courses. The 1960 Master Plan affirmed the diverse missions of the community colleges, but renewed emphasis on transfer education. Following the Master Plan for Higher Education Commission review in 1989, AB 1725, deemed transfer and vocational education training as the primary missions of the community colleges. Instruction in basic skills, English as a second language, community service, and adult education were identified as "essential and important functions”.

Over the past decade, several federal statutes have required that CCCs strengthen the relationship between school and work by bringing together the academic and vocational parts of the educational system.[1] Economic development was codified as a mission of the community college system in AB 1497, 1991.

The vocational delivery system of the CCCs has been historically designed to meet the needs of entry, or transitional workers. A 2001 Center of Excellence report reveals that most courses are delivered in eighteen-week day or evening formats, rather than on weekends or intensive formats that might better support the educational needs of full-time employees. Workplace instruction is generally not available, and for the most part, students are not required to demonstrate knowledge and skill attainment through the use of portfolios or projects.

In 2001, the CCCs Board of Governors moved forward with the Ladders of Opportunity workforce initiative, which implements a system that combines classroom instruction and career development, and introduces workplace training on a lifelong basis in order to accommodate workers' needs to adapt to the volatile and evolving workplaces of the 21st century. It is a paradigm that engages a wide range of students, from the non-English speaking worker, to the holder of a baccalaureate degree.

Universities
The California State University (CSU) system's first campus was begun as the California State Normal School (now San Jose State University) in 1862, and by 1920, there were seven normal schools. The Legislature abolished their local governing boards and reorganized them under the State Board of Education and the Superintendent of Public Instruction, renaming them teachers' colleges. In 1935, the Legislature again changed their names to state colleges and authorized expansion of their curriculum to the liberal arts and sciences and various technical fields, including agriculture. Over its years of expansion, CSU became involved in substantial research activities, in addition to its role for the training of teachers and other professionals.

The University of California was founded in the Organic Act of 1868 as a public trust governed by a Board of Regents, and it is a land grant institution. Over the years, research efforts of the system have created an untold number of new jobs, as well as new fields of work. University efforts range from significant breakthroughs in agriculture to advances in chemicals, pharmaceuticals, and biotechnology. For approximately 30 years, UC has been involved in the field of microelectronics, computer architecture, and computer design. It is world renown for work in gene splicing, cancer research, energy, and earthquake safety, among others.

Private Postsecondary and Vocational Institutions
Another segment of the vocational education providers are proprietary institutions, which operate as postsdecondary institutions. These schools were originally governed within the Department of Education. Reform legislation in 1988 created the Council for Private Postsecondary and Vocational Education, which expired in 1997, and the schools were placed under a newly named agency, the Bureau of Private Postsecondary and Vocational Education. The several thousand private postsecondary and vocational institutions approved by the state through the Council for Private Postsecondary and Vocational Education provide a multitude of educational services, from vocational training to doctoral education, to approximately a half million students throughout the state. These schools do not receive annual state appropriations.


Introduction

"A booming economy is only as good as its next workforce."

Stephen Levy, Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy

It is that workforce -- and the next, and the next, and the next -- which a more expansive Master Plan must address, particularly as it echoes the stated principle of the Joint Committee to develop an educational system that prepares all students for success at the next level of education and/or for the world of work -- one not exclusive of the other, but at the choice of the student. It is a fundamental tenet of the Working Group that providing all students the opportunity to achieve their highest academic and skill potential will enable them to pursue greater economic prosperity over a lifetime, better serving them and society.

Though the founding Master Plan for Higher Education understood the importance of education and its relationship to the economy, it failed to recognize that the seeds of career preparation can be rooted in the earliest grades. The Group determined early on that the basic foundation of California's workforce should begin in a strong K-12 education system, where children are engaged in career awareness at the earliest ages and come to understand that what they are learning in school has relevance and usefulness to their future and lives outside of school. The system should strive to imbue students with the understanding that the basic skills and attitudes they develop in these early years are fundamental to their success, whether they enter the workforce immediately after graduation from high school or at later intervals through grade 13 and beyond in the state's public and private postsecondary education systems.

To build recommendations appropriate to the Joint Committee's charge and its vision and goals, it was necessary for the Group to first explore the nature of California's economy and how it is inextricably entwined with the state's education system.

California's Economy and its Workforce: The roller coaster nature of the modern day California economy, which was at the bottom of the track in the early 1990s (California suffered a net loss of more than a half million jobs between 1990 and 1993) and soared to its highest rail as the decade transitioned to a new century. As that century transitioned to a new millennium, the state economy began to drift downward again, demonstrating the need for a workforce as diversely skilled and flexible as any in the world, for California to retain its current position as the 5th largest global economy.

The nuances and vagaries of the economic structure aside, that status is already in some peril because of the shortage of skilled workers, for which there are several reasons. Many fields and occupations are beginning to lose workers to retirement. For example, more than half of the machinists in Southern California are reaching retirement age, and the "baby boom" generation is just around the corner (The Employment Policy Foundation's "American Workplace Report 2001" estimates more than 61 million workers, nationally, will retire over the next three decades). Sometimes, the state is simply "behind the curve". While machinists and many other occupations are rapidly requiring more sophisticated computer skills, California ranks 34th nationally in providing computer instruction in our schools, even while firms in the state employ almost 30 percent of the national computer industry.

California's gross state product accounts for 12 percent of the total in the nation, and job creation is an important economic engine in the state. California's economy is highly dependent on the innovation and creativity of university research. It is no accident that Silicon Valley developed in close proximity to premier universities in the state, and indeed, the nation. The faculty and graduate students at those universities are creating the new knowledge that drives California's economy and ultimately the state's needs for a highly-trained and compensated workforce. The next "high tech" break-throughs that will keep California competitive may occur in disciplines that are not obvious today. More than ever, the jobs of tomorrow do not exist today; they will be created by innovative application of ideas.

The Education Factor: In California and across the nation, there is a shortage of science and math instructors in K-12, and nearly 5,000 California mathematics teachers have been judged to be under-prepared. Additionally, the California Department of Education data reveal that 11 percent of public school teachers were on emergency permits in 2000-01, a situation especially pronounced in low-performing schools, most often found in communities with high concentrations of low socioeconomic status (SES) students.[2]

The data are equally daunting in higher education, where the overall awarding of baccalaureate degrees in California lags behind other states and countries, and the awarding of baccalaureate degrees in key scientific and technical disciplines actually declined over the last decade, forcing more employers to hire from overseas. California ranks 44th among the states in the percentage of 19 to 24 year olds with a baccalaureate in some fields. [3]

As happened with the recent K-12 reform, further up the educational pipeline, universities are being encouraged by businesses to pay more attention to their students. According to a study of doctoral students from twenty-seven universities across the nation, professors are far more prepared to do research than to teach. In fact, doctoral programs typically train students to be research faculty even though fewer than half of forty thousand students who earn a doctorate each year actually get jobs at research universities. [4]

The Workplace of Today and the Future: Nearly half (45 percent) of California's projected job growth will occur in occupations requiring only short or moderate on-the-job training. Twenty percent of the jobs will be available to new workers with career technical training, a community college degree, or long-term on-the-job training; 16-20 percent will require a four-year degree; and 2 percent will require a graduate degree. The remaining 16 percent require significant work experience, and thus will not be available to first-time workers.[5]

Recent stopgap measures, such as the H-1B visa program, as responses to the challenge of a rapidly changing workplace are less preferable than increasing the state's focus on long-term solutions through the upgrading of skills, academic achievement, and career preparation among all students in the state's education system -- a system that must shift to the provision of multiple entrances and exits over a lifetime to accommodate the "retooling" needs of a rapid and ever changing workplace, as well as the serial career patterns of contemporary and future generations. Career and job change is pervasive in California, with three years as the median tenure for workers in their current job. Forty-five percent of California workers have been with their current employers for less than two years. Compared with 35 percent nationally, only 21 percent of California workers have been with their current employer for more than ten years. [6]

The contemporary workplace confirms the old adage, that the only constant is change, but with a new twist -- the rapidity at which it occurs. Consider that in the 19th century, there was more technological change than in the prior nine centuries; the first 20 years of the 20th century saw more change than all of the 19th century; the world wide web did not even exist a little more than a decade ago, and never did its founders envision it would spawn the rise and fall of an entire dot com industry at the turn of the 21st century! It took radio thirty years to reach an audience of 50 million; television, fifteen years; and the Web, five! The paradigm shift rate is currently doubling every decade, so the 21st century will see almost a thousand times greater technological change than the prior century. [7]

The implications for the workplace are enormous, as technology has also transformed its operations. The economic decline in the early 1990s forced downsizing among many companies. Even with the upswing of the state's economy, this phenomenon has continued. It is known as "unbundling", where companies unwind their large centralized corporate structures of the past and maximize their flexibility and speed to readily adapt to market changes. Businesses also began to forgo traditionally structured workforces in favor of informal networks of subcontractors. There was a concomitant trend among workers, where the more youthful segment of the workforce operated as "free agents", some by choice and some by workforce circumstances, such as was wrought by the precipitous decline in the "dot com" industry. Together, these phenomena demand that the education segments mobilize to more concertedly address career preparation appropriate to their levels, as well as to increase academic achievement and skill acquisition of students or possibly face decreasing relevance in workforce preparation. The corporate e-learning market, the fastest growing segment, is estimated at $11.5 billion. The University of Phoenix now enrolls 50,000 students in over sixty-five centers nationally. Granted, these private sector efforts are not bound by the retention and completion rates demanded of public institutions, but they portend change in the public education system. In the same way that California businesses had to adapt to survive the more aggressive marketplace, so too must education adapt to meet the workforce needs of the rapidly changing labor market.

Characteristics of the California Workforce:

California's fast-paced economy and workplace requires a constant upgrading of skills, which results in higher wages for employees. Education can be the major key to economic success for the individual as well as the state. The median college graduate in California made almost $43,000 in 1999, while the salary of those who do not graduate from high school generally hovers around $10,000 or less. [8] The wage gap between high school dropouts and high school graduates has become larger in California -- 29 percent compared to 25 percent in the rest of the country. The earning data supports the idea that demand for college graduates has increased due to increased skill demands, hence the increase in pay. Recent data indicate that California has lost ground in the share of the population holding a high school diploma or with 13-15 years of schooling. For example, in 1970, California had 10.1 percent fewer dropouts in its population than did the rest of the country. By 1997, California's dropout rate was 5 percent higher than the national average. During that same time period, there was also a 6.5 percentage point drop in the relative share of the adult population holding some college education below a four-year degree. Industry by industry, California's college-educated workforce comes from the national market, but high school graduates and below enter the state's workforce from the statewide population. [9]

The marked difference in earnings by educational attainment is problematic because of the economic impact on the least advantaged in the populace. The construction of a more seamless education system can positively impact the economic well-being of the citizenry. High school academic preparation has a high correlation to first-generation students' likelihood of enrolling and remaining enrolled in postsecondary education -- the more rigorous their high school curriculum, the more likely students are to persist along the education continuum to a degree.[10]
For example, the framers of California’s Master Plan for Higher Education recognized that educational quality and opportunity to learn varied significantly throughout the state and prompted creation of a set of community colleges to provide college access to Californians who had the desire and could benefit from education beyond high school. The opportunity to obtain the skills and academic achievement not obtained in K-12, is embedded in the varied goals and missions of the California Community Colleges (CCCs) and is a critical factor in the path to greater economic prosperity for many Californians, particularly for Latinos, the largest group of immigrants in the state.[11]

Workforce Needs as a Priority for the State:

While the state's education system meets the needs of many California employers, there are deficiencies in the quality and quantity of the workforce in some industries and occupations. Education clearly has a central, basic purpose in developing responsible citizens and members of society, but it also has a critical role in preparing people to be productive members of the workforce and to stimulate its own economy. The current education system is primarily designed to give people basic education early in life and thus provide them access to entry-level positions. It is poorly suited to providing all people with the access to affordable life-long learning and continuing education opportunities, which will enhance their employment skills throughout their work life.

Except for various university extension programs and some community college contract training initiatives, public educational institutions are not structured to help workers adjust to rapid changes in the economy. It is critical for the Master Plan to guide the education institutions toward development of approaches which recognize the rapidly changing and more diverse skill demands of the workplace. These programs should aim for greater ease of student transition into work and offer specific skill preparation, such as computer literacy and information technology to reduce the digital divide through high quality training and education programs that prepare workers for direct entry into the workforce. When these programs are offered in public high schools and colleges, it is important for the facilities to remain open in the evenings to accommodate schedules of working students. These facilities, and quite possibly, new institutions, should be targeted to communities with low rates of completion and unemployment.

This Report

"No problem can be solved with the same consciousness that created it."

Albert Einstein


The power of the original California Master Plan was its ability to frame the state’s educational promises to its citizens and the will to deliver on those promises. This report provides the Joint Committee with a more expansive framework for extending the reach and the promise of the 1960 Master Plan by moving the state’s schools, colleges, and universities toward a more cohesive, learner-focused system through greater emphasis on career/workforce preparation across all levels of California's educational system.

In its first meeting, the Working Group contemplated the two main principles envisioned in the Joint Committee's Framework to Develop a Master Plan. The magnitude of the first, "focus on all students", became immediately evident when considering that, at the beginning of the 20th century, fewer than 17 percent of 17-year-olds even held a diploma from high school, much less a college degree. The second principle, "focus on the best interests of the students", was recognized as a powerful mechanism for restoring student achievement as the centerpiece of California's education mission.

As an initial strategic step toward envisioning what a future system might look like, the membership generally agreed on the following precepts for effective programs in workforce preparation, presented by Dr. Norton Grubb, David Gardner Chair in Higher Education, UC Berkeley.

5 Precepts

Effective career or workforce preparation programs would:
  1. Target jobs with relatively high earnings, strong employment growth, and opportunities for individual advancement.
  2. C ontain an appropriate mix of academic (or including basic or remedial) education, occupational skills, and work-based learning. The intensity of both academic and vocational education is appropriate to the jobs, and effective programs pay attention to the pedagogy of everything they teach.
  3. P rovide appropriate supportive services.
  4. P rovide their students with pathways or "ladders" of further education opportunities.
  5. C ollect appropriate information about results and use these to improve their quality.

The Group then agreed on three broad topical areas -- academic focus, alignment, and accountability -- as parameters for mapping out the following recommendations to move the state toward the development of a more coherent system of workforce preparation throughout the segments of public education in California. Sections on these three topics are followed by a fourth section on resources, which, while not a structural element, permeated all the discussions at some level, and a fifth section, which addresses proprietary institutions in the state.

Table of Contents
Summary Introduction 1. Integration 2. Alignment
3. Accountability 4. Resources 5. Private Conclusion
References Charge Members Notes