How Will “School to Work”
Affect your Business

What is “School-to-Work”?

What it is NOT:  an improved vo-tech system which simply offers students exposure to the world of work through a career day or job shadowing experience.

Stripped of deceptive packaging, “School-to-Work” is:

•     A STATE-MANAGED ECONOMY
•     Schools as training centers for state projected employment slots.
•     Appointed bureaucrats (“regional labor market boards”) who will:
•     Determine requirements for specific jobs
•     Issue certificates
•      Decide which job skills schools teach
• Collect data to match jobs and people.

Schools will gear their instructional programs to fit the “needs” of the regional economy.  Businesses, as “partners”, will get stuck with the bill (jobs, mentors, facilities, and hardware) for the system!

GONE IS THE TRADITIONAL WELL- ROUNDED, LIBERAL ARTS EDUCATION.  Adolescents will be choosing career majors! Welcome to the system that produces workers for the 21st century.  “Productive Labor”, rather than an educated populace, is the end-all of education.

How will you be affected if you choose to participate?

School-to-Work grants (contracts) will require one or more of the following of your business:

•     Compliance with international standards and government regulations.
•     Work-based learning training for “mentors” to supervise students in the program.
•     Criminal background checks for all employees having contact with the student.     On-site inspection of workplace conditions by program administrators.
•     No choice in which students are assigned to your business.

In addition, the following other effects are possible.

• You may be training your competitor’s future employee.
•     The disruption of the free market forces may affect your labor pool.
•     Non-union businesses may be subject to union influences through labor partnerships in the grant.

Businesses will be expected to pay their “share”.

How will you be affected if you choose NOT to participate?

•     Tax incentives
•     Free or subsidized labor
•     Free or subsidized capital (A lathe or auto computer might be classified as “curricular materials” and be purchased by the grant moneys.  This confuses the issue of ownership — government or private?)
•     Quality of future employees is compromised, since increased job training leaves little school time for learning the basics (3 R’s).
•     If you hire any high school student, you may automatically be subject to the School-to-Work grant regulations, whether or not you have signed onto the program.

“Most companies have moved operations to places with cheap, relatively poorly educated labor.  What may be crucial, they say, is the dependability of a labor force and how well it can be managed and trained — not its general education level, although a small cadre of highly educated creative people is essential to innovation and growth.  Ending discrimination and changing values are probably more important than reading and writing in moving low-income families into the middle class.”

 — Thomas Sticht, SCANS Commission testimony before the 101st Congress,

How will School-to-Work Affect the Education of Your Future Employees?

•     The students educated under this system — your future labor pool — will likely be missing the essential academic (3R’s) skills because of the reduced emphasis on teaching these disciplines.  You can expect an increase in employees who are unable to read a training manual or make correct change.
•     Teaching cutting-edge (and quickly changing) job technology  to a student who may not use them before they become obsolete wastes scarce  resources — the public’s and yours!

“To succeed in high performance work organizations, today’s students must master the New basic skills — teamwork, critical thinking, making decisions, communications, adapting to change and understanding whole systems.”

High Skills, High Wages, a publication of the Washington
State Workforce Training and  Education Coordinating Board, 1994

Unanswered Questions

•     If the School-to-Work money comes from federal sources, will you be subject to federal regulations and inspections?
•     Who bears the legal liability for students injured, disabled, killed, or molested on the job?  Will Workmen’s Compensation cover it?  If so, will that raise your rates?
•     Who decides how many students will work at a business — the school, the program administrator, or you?
•     What happens if there aren’t enough jobs for all the students who want one?
•     Will students displace union labor, causing labor disputes?
•     What state tax will replace the federal School-to-Work grant funding when it expires?

What Can You Do?

•     Refuse to participate
•     Contact lawmakers (federal and state). Tell them to repeal School-to-Work.
•     Tell your Small Business lobbyists to oppose School-to-Work.
•     Spread the word. (Copy this brochure.)