Helping America?s ?forgotten half? find jobs

By Tom Nugent

APA?s Board of Educational Affairs has approved a six-member 'school-to-work' task force that will explore ways to expand psychology?s role in a fast-growing, national initiative aimed at helping noncollege-bound students?and even some who may attend college?make the transition to the workplace.

'Our goal is to determine the most proactive way that psychology can be involved in the national school-to-work movement,' says Nadya Fouad, PhD, a University of Wisconsin?Milwaukee psychologist who helped craft the resolution that led to the creation of the task force.

'Many of us at APA are concerned that our expertise hasn?t been tapped for this huge national movement,' says Fouad. 'We have 70 years of very strong research on vocational development to offer?yet psychologists are not even mentioned in the national school-to-work legislation. One of the key questions for the task force will be: Why isn?t our expertise being used?'

The U.S. school-to-work movement (STW), which grew out of traditional 'vocational-ed' programs has become a major force in contemporary education. The movement, says Fouad, is aimed at unique interventions for college and noncollege-bound youth.

The U.S. Department of Education, meanwhile, estimates that 65 to 75 percent of U.S. high school students annually?about 1.5 million?do not go on to earn college degrees.

Because these students are often ill-prepared for the workplace, Congress in 1994 passed the School-to-Work Opportunities Act, which allocated $1.1 billion to help states and 'local partnerships' develop programs aimed at assisting work-bound students.

Psychology?s expertise

In recent years, APA members have been increasingly concerned that psychology has been left out of the national dialogue on STW. The idea for the study group emerged from a working conference on school-to-work transition held by a group of vocational-counseling psychologists in November, 1966. Fouad, who has done extensive research on STW programs in middle and high schools in Milwaukee, worked with other conference participants and leaders of the APA?s Div. 17 (Counseling) to develop a resolution calling for a study group. Its mission is to examine how psychology might become more involved in STW by engaging in such activities as 'theory development, evaluation, training and developing models that improve service delivery.'

On May 15, APA?s Board of Educational Affairs approved the task force, which will be made up of psychologists representing different APA divisions. In addition to Fouad, the group?s members are Cindy Carlson, University of Texas-Austin, Div. 43 (Family); Sharon Derry, University of Wisconsin, Div. 15 (Educational); Jan Jacobs, Pennsylvania State University, Div. 7 (Developmental); Fred Jay Krieg, Marshall University, Div. 16 (School); Vicki Vandaveer, The Vandaveer Group, Inc., Houston, Texas, Div. 14 (Industrial-Organizational).

The task force?s first step will be to conduct a one- or two-day study-and-discussion session this fall, to consider lines of inquiry, research methods and recommendations for a continuing APA initiative. The group will also determine ways to help implement the STW Opportunities Act while calling attention to the role that psychology should play in the movement.

'One of the most important steps the task force might take is to call for a careful evaluation of the [STW] programs already in place around the nation,' says Karen Anderson, PhD, the director of APA?s Center for Psychology in Schools and Education, which will manage the operations of the task force.

Anderson, a former congressional aide who helped to write sections of the 1994 STW Opportunities Act, says she would also like to see the task force address the intersection of STW programs with welfare reform at the state level to determine what psychology can contribute.

The transition to work

'We need to take a long, hard look at what I call the ?forgotten half? of America?s students,' says Cindy Carlson, PhD, a specialist in family psychology at the University of Texas?Austin.

'In many cases, these students don?t have good structures in place to help them make the transition to work. We need to ask ourselves how psychology?and especially the study of family dynamics?can help to address that fact.'

Task force member Fred Jay Krieg, PhD, of Marshall University says, 'Our schools are about to go through some huge changes.

'A lot of people don?t realize it, but the average teacher today is 45 years old and has 18 years of experience,' says Krieg, the author of 'Transition: School To Work' (National Association of School Psychologists, 1995).

'As these older teachers and administrators retire, the questions about values and directions are going to loom larger than ever, and the debate over school reform and new programs such as STW is only going to intensify.'

Tom Nugent is a writer in Baltimore.