The School-to-Work Opportunities Act was signed into law in 1994.  It provided funding for systematic implementation of work based learning programs.  It was designed to be 'seed' money to get programs started.  It was never intended to provide a permanent funding source.  The funding for this act ended in October of 2001.  A school did not have to have School-to-Work funding in order to implement work based learning components. 

• In effect from 1994-2001
• Money was provided in the form of grants to states.
• Introduced by the Clinton Administration
• Venture Capital or Seed Money

Details

The intent of the School-to-Work Opportunities Act (STWOA), passed in 1994, is to provide states and local education agencies incentives to develop systems that will help all students prepare for, and make, the transition from school to work, postsecondary education, or advanced training. This is done by providing states with start-up money to design and implement their own comprehensive School-to-Work system.

With passage of the School-to-Work Opportunities Act (STWOA) of 1994, national attention had turned to the systems in place in this country for educating and training people for work.  

As a result of study tours abroad, many American policymakers have marveled at the ability of European nations to reach high achievement levels as well as provide substantive unsubsidized work experience and sophisticated skill training to a large proportion of their youth population, especially since a much lower percentage of European youth pursue a university education. However, they also acknowledge that these European education systems, so deeply ingrained within their national traditions, could not be replicated intact in the United States. Most notably, the common tracking of European students, which begins in elementary school, is particularly troubling to American policymakers and educators. Nevertheless, many advocates of this model have asserted that "elements" of the European systems can be adapted to the American experience.

In early 1993, the Clinton administration was promising the introduction of a youth apprenticeship bill and youth apprenticeship advocates were busily formulating a framework for federal youth apprenticeship legislation. However, by the summer of 1993, youth apprenticeship began to fade as the centerpiece of the administration’s school-to-work initiative primarily because it was recognized that the model could not achieve the broad scale envisioned. The administration shifted its focus to increasing the capacity of states to develop a comprehensive school-to-work system that would build on existing school-to-work models and incorporate many of the fundamental principles of youth apprenticeship. The administration’s initiative moved away from establishing yet another federal program that would serve only a segment of the secondary-school student population (i.e., the non-college bound) to urging and enabling broad-scale education reform for all students at both the state and local levels. The broad system envisioned would enable students to select from several career majors, each of which would prepare them for a range of related occupations, including those requiring college degrees. Upon completion all students would be prepared to enter college, other postsecondary training, or the job market.

On August 5, 1993, the Clinton administration’s School-to-Work Opportunities Act of 1993 (S. 1361 and H.R. 2884) was introduced in Congress. The proposed legislation incorporated the fundamental principles of youth apprenticeship and also advanced other school-to-work strategies, such as tech-prep, career academies, and cooperative education. The bill represented the administration’s efforts to build a national framework for the development of state school-to-work systems by providing grants and federal regulatory waivers.

On May 4, 1994, President Clinton signed into law the School-to-Work Opportunities Act of 1994 (Public Law 103-239). The act provides a national framework and "venture capital" to enable all states to create statewide systems that offer all young Americans access to performance-based training that will:

• enable them to earn portable credentials;
• prepare them for their first job in a high-skill, high-wage career; and
• increase their opportunities for further education, including education at a four-year college or university.

The funds appropriated under the act underwrite the initial costs of building state school-to-work transition systems that ultimately will be maintained with other federal, state, and local resources. The law also requires each local program that receives a grant under this act to establish a work-based learning component, including work experience, workplace mentoring, and broad instruction in "all aspects of an industry." Yet the legislation precludes programs from using awarded funds to subsidize participant wages.

The law also requires that all school-to-work programs funded under the act be open to all youth, with particular emphasis on ensuring opportunities for disadvantaged youth and school dropouts. All participants are expected to meet high academic standards and must be prepared to enter college upon completion of high school. Furthermore, the legislation stipulates that participants must be trained in all aspects of an industry, not just in narrow occupational skills.

School-to-work programs funded under the act are required to integrate work-based and school-based learning; provide students with the opportunity to complete a coherent sequence of courses or field of study (career major) that prepares them for their first job and postsecondary education; and incorporate a school-based learning component, a work-based learning component, and "connecting activities" that coordinate the involvement of employers, schools, and students.

Some of the purposes of the act are to:

• create statewide school-to-work systems that are part of comprehensive education reform and integrated with the systems developed under the Goals 2000: Educate America Act and the National Skills Standards Act;
• utilize workplaces as active learning environments in the educational process by making employers joint partners in providing high-quality, work-based learning experiences;
• build on and advance a range of promising school-to-work programs, such as tech-prep education, career academies, school-to-apprenticeship programs, cooperative education, school-sponsored enterprises, youth apprenticeship, business-education compacts, as well as promising strategies that assist dropouts; and
• expose students to a broad array of career opportunities and facilitate the selection of career majors, based on individual interests, goals, strengths, and abilities.

By coordinating the school-to-work initiative with the Goals 2000: Educate America Act, the administration has sought to advance a coherent federal education policy. The Goals 2000 legislation creates a structure for coordinating a number of federal programs and policies and aligning them within the context of a state’s education system. States are asked to develop a comprehensive strategy of education reform that results in the attainment of the National Education Goals and a lifelong learning system. Individual federal programs, previously viewed as separate and categorical, now can be viewed as part of a system with many reinforcing and essential elements.

The Goals 2000 framework supports strategies and activities at the state level to:

• promote coherent, nationwide, systemic education reform;
• improve the quality of learning and teaching in both the classroom and the workplace;
• define appropriate and coherent federal, state, and local roles and responsibilities for education reform and lifelong learning;
• establish mechanisms for building consensus for, and assisting in the development of, high-quality, internationally competitive content and student performance standards, opportunity-to-learn standards, and assessment measures;
• support new initiatives at the federal, state, local, and school levels to provide equal educational opportunity for all students to meet high academic standards and occupational skills standards and to succeed in civic participation and the world of employment;
• provide a framework for the reauthorization of all federal education programs; and
• stimulate the development and adoption of a voluntary national system of skills standards and certification to serve as a cornerstone of a national strategy to enhance skills.

Additional Information

• STW Opportunities Act(Provision of Act)