3
	Integrating Vocational and Academic Education
	Thomas Bailey
	Columbia University

In high school education, preparation for work immediately after high school and preparation for post-secondary education have traditionally been viewed as incompatible. Work-bound high-school students end up in vocational education tracks, where courses usually emphasize specific skills with little attention to underlying theoretical and conceptual foundations.¹ College-bound students proceed through traditional academic discipline-based courses, where they learn English, history, science, mathematics, and foreign languages, with only weak and often contrived references to applications of these skills in the workplace or in the community outside the school. To be sure, many vocational teachers do teach underlying concepts, and many academic teachers motivate their lessons with examples and references to the world outside the classroom. But these enrichments are mostly frills, not central to either the content or pedagogy of secondary school education.

Rethinking Vocational and Academic Education

     Educational thinking in the United States has traditionally placed priority on college preparation. Thus the distinct track of vocational education has been seen as an option for those students who are deemed not capable of success in the more desirable academic track. As vocational programs acquired a reputation as a "dumping ground," a strong background in vocational courses (especially if they reduced credits in the core academic courses) has been viewed as a threat to the college aspirations of secondary school students.

     This notion was further reinforced by the very influential 1983 report entitled A Nation at Risk (National Commission on Excellence in Education, 1983), which excoriated the U.S. educational system for moving away from an emphasis on core academic subjects that, according to the report, had been the basis of a previously successful American education system. Vocational courses were seen as diverting high school students from core academic activities. Despite the dubious empirical foundation of the report's conclusions, subsequent reforms in most states increased the number of academic courses required for graduation and reduced opportunities for students to take vocational courses.

     The distinction between vocational students and college-bound students has always had a conceptual flaw. The large majority of students who go to four-year colleges are motivated, at least to a significant extent, by vocational objectives. In 1994, almost 247,000 bachelors degrees were conferred in business administration. That was only 30,000 less than the total number (277,500) of 1994 bachelor degrees conferred in English, mathematics, philosophy, religion, physical sciences and science technologies, biological and life sciences, social sciences, and history combined. Furthermore, these "academic" fields are also vocational since many students who graduate with these degrees intend to make their living working in those fields.

     Several recent economic, technological, and educational trends challenge this sharp distinction between preparation for college and for immediate post-high-school work, or, more specifically, challenge the notion that students planning to work after high school have little need for academic skills while college-bound students are best served by an abstract education with only tenuous contact with the world of work:

     1. First, many employers and analysts are arguing that, due to changes in the nature of work, traditional approaches to teaching vocational skills may not be effective in the future. Given the increasing pace of change and uncertainty in the workplace, young people will be better prepared, even for entry level positions and certainly for subsequent positions, if they have an underlying understanding of the scientific, mathematical, social, and even cultural aspects of the work that they will do. This has led to a growing emphasis on integrating academic and vocational education.²

     2. Views about teaching and pedagogy have increasingly moved toward a more open and collaborative "student-centered" or "constructivist" teaching style that puts a great deal of emphasis on having students work together on complex, open-ended projects. This reform strategy is now widely implemented through the efforts of organizations such as the Coalition of Essential Schools, the National Center for Restructuring Education, Schools, and Teaching at Teachers College, and the Center for Education Research at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Advocates of this approach have not had much interaction with vocational educators and have certainly not advocated any emphasis on directly preparing high school students for work. Nevertheless, the approach fits well with a reformed education that integrates vocational and academic skills through authentic applications. Such applications offer opportunities to explore and combine mathematical, scientific, historical, literary, sociological, economic, and cultural issues.

     3. In a related trend, the federal School-to-Work Opportunities Act of 1994 defines an educational strategy that combines constructivist pedagogical reforms with guided experiences in the workplace or other non-work settings. At its best, school-to-work could further integrate academic and vocational learning through appropriately designed experiences at work.

     4. The integration of vocational and academic education and the initiatives funded by the School-to-Work Opportunities Act were originally seen as strategies for preparing students for work after high school or community college. Some educators and policy makers are becoming convinced that these approaches can also be effective for teaching academic skills and preparing students for four-year college. Teaching academic skills in the context of realistic and complex applications from the workplace and community can provide motivational benefits and may impart a deeper understanding of the material by showing students how the academic skills are actually used. Retention may also be enhanced by giving students a chance to apply the knowledge that they often learn only in the abstract.³

     5. During the last twenty years, the real wages of high school graduates have fallen and the gap between the wages earned by high school and college graduates has grown significantly. Adults with no education beyond high school have very little chance of earning enough money to support a family with a moderate lifestyle.⁴ Given these wage trends, it seems appropriate and just that every high school student at least be prepared for college, even if some choose to work immediately after high school.

Innovative Examples

     There are many examples of programs that use work-related applications both to teach academic skills and to prepare students for college. One approach is to organize high school programs around broad industrial or occupational areas, such as health, agriculture, hospitality, manufacturing, transportation, or the arts. These broad areas offer many opportunities for wide-ranging curricula in all academic disciplines. They also offer opportunities for collaborative work among teachers from different disciplines. Specific skills can still be taught in this format but in such a way as to motivate broader academic and theoretical themes. Innovative programs can now be found in many vocational high schools in large cities, such as Aviation High School in New York City and the High School of Agricultural Science and Technology in Chicago. Other schools have organized schools-within-schools based on broad industry areas.

     Agriculturally based activities, such as 4H and Future Farmers of America, have for many years used the farm setting and students' interest in farming to teach a variety of skills. It takes only a little imagination to think of how to use the social, economic, and scientific bases of agriculture to motivate and illustrate skills and knowledge from all of the academic disciplines. Many schools are now using internships and projects based on local business activities as teaching tools. One example among many is the integrated program offered by the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Virginia, linking biology, English, and technology through an environmental issues forum. Students work as partners with resource managers at the Mason Neck National Wildlife Refuge and the Mason Neck State Park to collect data and monitor the daily activities of various species that inhabit the region. They search current literature to establish a hypothesis related to a real world problem, design an experiment to test their hypothesis, run the experiment, collect and analyze data, draw conclusions, and produce a written document that communicates the results of the experiment. The students are even responsible for determining what information and resources are needed and how to access them. Student projects have included making plans for public education programs dealing with environmental matters, finding solutions to problems caused by encroaching land development, and making suggestions for how to handle the overabundance of deer in the region.

     These examples suggest the potential that a more integrated education could have for all students. Thus continuing to maintain a sharp distinction between vocational and academic instruction in high school does not serve the interests of many of those students headed for four-year or two-year college or of those who expect to work after high school. Work-bound students will be better prepared for work if they have stronger academic skills, and a high quality curriculum that integrates school-based learning into work and community applications is an effective way to teach academic skills for many students.

     Despite the many examples of innovative initiatives that suggest the potential for an integrated view, the legacy of the duality between vocational and academic education and the low status of work-related studies in high school continue to influence education and education reform. In general, programs that deviate from traditional college-prep organization and format are still viewed with suspicion by parents and teachers focused on four-year college. Indeed, college admissions practices still very much favor the traditional approaches. Interdisciplinary courses, "applied" courses, internships, and other types of work experience that characterize the school-to-work strategy or programs that integrate academic and vocational education often do not fit well into college admissions requirements.

Joining Work and Learning

     What implications does this have for the mathematics standards developed by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM)? The general principle should be to try to design standards that challenge rather than reinforce the distinction between vocational and academic instruction. Academic teachers of mathematics and those working to set academic standards need to continue to try to understand the use of mathematics in the workplace and in everyday life. Such understandings would offer insights that could suggest reform of the traditional curriculum, but they would also provide a better foundation for teaching mathematics using realistic applications. The examples in this volume are particularly instructive because they suggest the importance of problem solving, logic, and imagination and show that these are all important parts of mathematical applications in realistic work settings. But these are only a beginning.

     In order to develop this approach, it would be helpful if the NCTM standards writers worked closely with groups that are setting industry standards⁵ . This would allow both groups to develop a deeper understanding of the mathematics content of work.

     The NCTM's Curriculum Standards for Grades 9-12 include both core standards for all students and additional standards for "college-intending" students. The argument presented in this essay suggests that the NCTM should dispense with the distinction between college intending and non-college intending students. Most of the additional standards, those intended only for the "college intending" students, provide background that is necessary or beneficial for the calculus sequence. A re-evaluation of the role of calculus in the high school curriculum may be appropriate, but calculus should not serve as a wedge to separate college-bound from non-college-bound students. Clearly, some high school students will take calculus, although many college-bound students will not take calculus either in high school or in college. Thus in practice, calculus is not a characteristic that distinguishes between those who are or are not headed for college. Perhaps standards for a variety of options beyond the core might be offered. Mathematics standards should be set to encourage stronger skills for all students and to illustrate the power and usefulness of mathematics in many settings. They should not be used to institutionalize dubious distinctions between groups of students.

References

Bailey, T. & Merritt, D. (1997).

School-to-work for the college bound. Berkeley, CA: National Center for Research in Vocational Education.

Hoachlander, G. (1997).

Organizing mathematics education around work. In L.A. Steen (Ed.), Why numbers count: Quantitative literacy for tomorrow's America, (pp. 122-136). New York: College Entrance Examination Board.

Levy, F. & Murnane, R. (1992).

U.S. earnings levels and earnings inequality: A review of recent trends and proposed explanations. Journal of Economic Literature, 30, 1333-1381.

National Commission on Excellence in Education. (1983).

A nation at risk: The imperative for educational reform. Washington, DC: Author.

Notes

¹ Vocational education has been shaped by federal legislation since the first vocational education act was passed in 1917. According to the current legislation, the Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Technical Education Act of 1990, vocational students are those not headed for a baccalaureate degree, so they include both students expecting to work immediately after high school as well as those expecting to go to a community college.

² This point of view underlies the reforms articulated in the 1990 reauthorization of the Carl Perkins Vocational and Technical Education Act (VATEA). VATEA also promoted a program, dubbed "tech-prep," that established formal articulations between secondary school and community college curricula.

³ This argument is reviewed in Bailey & Merritt (1997). For an argument about how education may be organized around broad work themes can enhance learning in mathematics see Hoachlander (1997).

⁴ These wage data are reviewed in Levy & Murnane (1992).

⁵ The Goals 2000: Educate America Act, for example, established the National Skill Standards Board in 1994 to serve as a catalyst in the development of a voluntary national system of skills standards, assessments, and certifications for business and industry.

Thomas Bailey is an Associate Professor of Economics Education at Teachers College, Columbia University. He is also Director of the Institute on Education and the Economy and Director of the Community College Research Center, both at Teachers College. He is also on the board of the National Center for Research in Vocational Education.