Learning to Work: The Case for Reintegrating Job Training and Education.

Abstract

Job training programs have grown considerably in number in the United States of America (USA) in response to increasing problems of unemployment and poverty. These programs and the institutions that administer them have become increasingly numerous and complex so that accurate evaluation of their effectiveness is difficult. This publication provides a comprehensive assessment of efforts to move individuals into the workforce, and explains why their success has been limited. It offers a complete history of job training in the USA and examines the outcomes of the most recent and advanced job training evaluations and the findings for each type of program. Overall, job training programs moved very few people permanently off welfare, and provided no entry into a middle-class occupation or income. The author offers possible explanations for these poor results and traces the root of the problem to the inherent separation of job training programs from the more successful educational system. He proposes a practical reform solution through the consolidation of the two domains into a clearly defined hierarchy of programs that combine school- and work-based instruction and employ proven methods of student-centred, project-based teaching. The chapters are: The separation of job training from education; The nature of job training programs; The methodology of job training evaluations; The effectiveness of job training programs: overall outcomes; The effectiveness of job training programs: specific outcomes; The modest effects of job training: alternative explanations; Reintegrating education and job training.