THE NEW SHAPE-UP

...Half the jobs lured to South Carolina because of state-sponsored vocational education over the last fifteen years have been in the textile or textile-related industries, notoriously anti-union and known for poor working conditions...

...The executive director of one state board of vocational education went so far as to claim that screening "is probably the most important part of the [special industries] school program...

...Even though worker participation in decision-making is gaining in popularity, and even though there is evidence that most new jobs are generated by small and new business, vocational education has not responded...

...But the best interests of the student are always assumed to be the same as those of business...

...For the student, however, highly specialized skills geared to a particular piece of equipment or manufacturing process are infrequently transferable to other occupations...

...And there is an imbalance between the commitment to underline the duties owed to future employers and a reluctance to discuss workers' rights...

...In 1979, about seventeen million people were enrolled in public high school, post-secondary, and adult vocational education courses—almost one out of nine working-age Americans...

...It's like merchandising," says a Southern state industrial coordinator...

...Operating under this loaded assumption, vocational education becomes one-dimensional, if not one-sided...

...Some educators, particularly in the North, continue to emphasize training for jobs that students might find fulfilling, but the trend is to gear programs toward the real "customer"—industry...

...One reason for the low incidence of successful worker-run businesses might be the kind of education workers get...

...Now many states, cater to businesses that offer low-paying and deadend jobs...

...The lobbying efforts of liberals are focused exclusively on the equity provisions of the Act—the distribution of the funds...

...One of the most important things we can do here is to modify attitudes," said the chairman of the vocational education department at a Vermont training center...

...Kentucky is up to much the same thing...

...To justify the construction of a new area vocational center, local businesses were asked what they wanted most from the school: more basic education, more training for adults, more vocational education, more shop experience, or better work attitudes...

...But they are not, and one reason is that companies want more than just skills from public education...

...They are grateful for the attention paid to them by the business community, and are more than willing to cater to the needs of the likes of Pratt-Whitney or Martin Marietta...

...The Vocational Education Act, which sets goals and direction for the state programs, expires this year...

...But the programs designed for industry that are presented under the guise of vocational education are more like the frozen pie you get at the supermarket for $1.09—attractively packaged but short on nutrition...

...Equipment and course materials grow obsolete quickly...

...But as corporate goals and values invade public education, there has not been a whisper of protest from the Left...

...Students are taught the value of company loyalty: they learn how to dress properly, follow directions, and, generally, how to adapt to the ways of the workaday world...

...It is little wonder, then, that vocational educators have taken pains to turn out graduates with work habits and attitudes pleasing to industry—hard working, loyal, and compliant employes...

...They want students with attitudes and behavior patterns suitable for their particular working conditions, and they want a selection mechanism that assures them of getting what they want...

...Similarly, it could be argued that part of the high failure rate of new businesses is attributable to the lack of appropriate education...

...And not only will Maryland bankroll training in company-specific job skills: The state promises that the transmittal of proper company attitudes is part of the deal, too...

...And, of course, it is the taxpayers who are putting up the ante...

...Schooling workers to stay in line the John Dewey-inspired comprehensive approach to vocational education (the encouragement of small business development and expanded opportunities for individual workers) falls by the wayside, special industry training threatens to become the vocational education of the 1980s...

...The Left's reluctance to take vocational education seriously is puzzling, and so is labor's go-along attitude While these matters of balance obviously affect the future of the worker, they also say quite a bit about the nature of work...

...Many texts and workshops, in fact, are designed by the companies served, and naturally impart the corporate view...

...Still, vocational educators insist that industry-oriented programs are necessary, even though most new jobs are created not by large corporations but by small businesses...

...Students are not taught to take advantage of new opportunities in the general economy...

...Students learn not to question authority, not to be "taken in" by union organizers, to appreciate .their jobs, and, above all, not to make waves...

...The problem with both the special industries programs and the influence they have on the rest of vocational education is a lack of balance...

...The reluctance of those on the Left (who are ostensibly interested in a more democratic workplace) to take seriously the role of vocational education is puzzling...

...The Department, however, never encouraged its use in the vocational classroom and the material was left to collect dust...

...You have to keep abreast or ahead of the competition...

...If we can do that we're doing our job...

...In response to Maine union pressure, a unit called "A Worker's Guide to Labor Law" was developed with funds from the State Department of Vocational Education...

...In an effort to convince Congress to increase funding and renew the Act, seductive amendments to aid big business (training in support of ^industrialization) and the military (smarter GIs) are being.proposed...

...Congress reinforces the emphasis on employer-oriented values by demanding that states accepting Federal support for vocational education survey employers to find out whether they are satisified with voc-ed graduates...

...The student who wants to work in a family business or to start out on an independent tack gets short shrift from those in vocational education...

...Washington's concern with what had traditionally been the states' responsibility was justified by simple economic motives— higher national employment and productivity...

...The impact of labor education has been negligible...

...Annually, taxpayers are good for more than $6 billion in support of public vocational education, of which more than $1 billion comes from the Federal Government...

...Of course they can...

...This hybrid of industrial training and public education is rapidly becoming the pride and joy of vocational educators...

...Occupational training programs in the schools are today as basic to economic development as apple pie is to the apocryphal American diet...

...And although entrepreneurial training is widely acclaimed, it remains more an abstract educational concept than an actual practice...

...Customized vocational training is a trump card in the high-stake poker game called industrial development," headlined one article from the journal of the American Vocational Education Association...

...The image of vocational education as second-class learning, as a cynical means of cooling out the aspirations of urban working-class children and giving them outdated and irrelevant schooling, did not sit well with educators in the 1960s...

...The views expressed are his own, and do not necessarily reflect policies of the Institute or of the Department of Education...

...new legislation is already being debated...

...sessions in a few states...

...That's our purpose...

...It's a matter of record," he says, "that because of vo-tech involvement, jobs have been developed in Oklahoma that without the vo-tech training commitment would have gone elsewhere...

...Respondents expected and even demanded appropriate work habits from graduates of the vocational school...

...Training for good work habits, coopera-tiveness, and passivity is not the product of a conspiracy but is, in fact, usually a well-intentioned effort by schools to teach what are commonly called "employability skills...

...Those surveyed overwhelmingly chose "better attitudes...

...It is not, after all, small businesses or ambitious would-be entrepreneurs who have influence over the educators— corporate managers alone can make that claim...

...Even though there is state government participation," a Maryland flyer explains on behalf of that state's worker-training program, "the businessman retains control of who he hires, how they are trained, and who he retains...

...And the failure of organized labor to challenge current vocational education policies, given the anti-labor bias of many programs, is even more surprising...

...The schools serve as valuable screening devices to weed out potential troublemakers—those with, perhaps, a history of union activism or un-k>n sympathy or a prison record...

...Consequently, they are hungry for recognition...

...An official brochure describes Kentucky Industrial Training: "You tell us what your requirements will be and we'll start the wheels in motion...

...Respect, dependability, and diligence are traits that do, indeed, make people more employable...

...That's a far cry from the vocational education of the 1950s, when high school curricula for the less academically inclined typically included domestic and secretarial skills for girls and shop courses for boys...

...Voc ed" has, since then, been reshaped by Federal legislation and funding, and by and large has been eased out of the high schools...

...But left to the pro-corporate educators and bureaucrats, it won't happen...

...One would be hard-pressed to find a vocational educator who believes the process is not in the best interests of the student...

...As much weight is given to work habits as to skills or quality of work...

...A director of a large area technical institute in South Carolina recently put it this way to a group of industrialists: "You are our customers...

...These could have far-reaching effects on the American worker...

...Primarily, industry wants working stiffs with job-specific skills—the more tailored to unique operations, the better...

...These requirements demand quite a different style of education from one designed to produce truly industrious, highly motivated, and creative workers...

...Most research has failed to show that vocational training plays a major role in industrial site selection, especially compared to energy costs, the level of local union activity, and taxes...

...Also, the more specialized and technical the skills, the more difficult it is for the public schools to stay current with rapidly changing technologies—to the point where even vocational administrators are wondering how they can keep pace...

...It would be unfortunate if this impoverished, big-business oriented form of vocational education became the goal of all programs, particularly in the high schools where aspirations and attitudes are the stock in trade and opportunities can be so effectively expanded or cut off...

...There are few complaints about the more fundamental shifts in purpose, from education to training...

...The head of vocational education in Oklahoma, one of the first states to use tax revenues to supply businesses with trained workers, contends such programs are well worth the investment...

...gradually, however, those who emphasized farm work were criticized for overlooking changes in the national economy and failing to provide training for emerging industries...

...If we don't turn out a product that you will buy, we can't stay in business...

...There is an imbalance between efforts to shape the compliant attitudes and submissive behaviors that employers want and the encouragement of critical attitudes and independent-mindedness that build self-confidence and prepare people for more responsibility and self-employment...

...The public benefits are frequently overstated by companies bent on getting all the help possible from the public purse...

...Industrial training, along with tax abatements and right-to-work laws, is part of the package of incentives that suggest a good "climate" to relocating businesses...

...But it is unclear whether the resulting programs have had a national impact or whether they have merely heated up the inter-regional competition for the jobs generated by industrial growth...

...You have to have a program like this [publicly financed industry training] to survive...

...Thus, jobs are created only from a local, not a national, perspective, and vocational education is relegated to the role of just another gimmick in the competition among states and communities for new plants and new jobs...

...Program administrators, to justify program expansion, also exaggerate the benefits...

...In reality, much of what passes for payroll expansion is an illusion because people elsewhere are losing potential or existing jobs...

...It could—and should— support a more democratic concept of work and broaden the range of individual opportunity...

...And big business, glad to be relieved of some of the burdens and costs of recruiting and training employes, is responding with a fraternal arm around the shoulder of government and embracing publicly-funded vocational education...

...There is an imbalance between the costs to the taxpayers for the support of customized job training programs in the schools and the alleged economic benefits to the broader community...

...What is it that big business hopes to gain from the vocational education push...

...It's all very inviting, and in many cases, the scheme is tailor-made for the target businesses...

...Union education, with few exceptions, has been limited to a smattering of sedate "who are we...

...Most equipment, materials, and facilities used for training are furnished by Kentucky at no cost to you...

...Vocational education is not yet so firmly set on its course that it cannot be nudged in another direction...

...As Stuart Rosenfeld is a senior associate at the National Institute of Education...

...The made-for-industry training programs still represent a small part of the vocational education field, but almost every state now offers large concerns some customized job training...

...Today's vocational education prepares people for jobs in the traditional hierarchical and autocratic organization, where workers are told what to do and when to do it...

...And it would be sadder still if public funds earmarked for schools were diverted to programs that can barely be called "education," for companies that are not particularly interested in anything but higher profits...

...Organized labor, too, has largely ignored these educational programs that, probably more than anything else, will affect the future of the American worker...

...A recent survey of businesses in Maine, conducted by the State Employment Service, illustrates industries' priorities...

...Classes and instructional units on organized labor or on workplace safety are not as a matter of course included in vocational education curricula, but "free enterprise" lessons are...

...And there is an imbalance between specific skills training for placement in a particular company and more generic occupational skills for future entrepreneurs...

...One report by a Congressional coalition recommends "dropping the 'social consciousness' approach" to job training, which presumably takes student needs and desires too much into account...

...From the moment your industry makes the decision to locate in West Virginia," a glossy brochure from the Bureau of Vocational Education in Charleston promises, "the New Industry Training Services swings into action, training the work force you need to be productive from the first day, and at no cost to you...

...It makes [employes] so much easier to work with...

...Much of the attention has turned to the training and retraining of adults in specialized schools...

...In rural districts, boys took agricultural training...

...Instruction of the nation's workforce has largely been left in the hands of vocational educators, who are shunned by the rest of public education and tend to be defensive about the low status accorded their work...

...Skills and "good" attitudes are not the only benefits for business...

...Yet an administrator in Minnesota's economic development agency concedes that the special industry training programs his state finances are simply "fluff," and hardly a significant factor in plant location decisions...

...it is taken for granted by more and more businesses as a "public service" due them in the natural course of things...

...This leads one to ask whether such skills couldn't be learned more efficiently on the job, as they once were...

...Some materials under consideration for an electronics program offered by a public technical institute were rejected when they were found to have a lesson on labor relations that was "union-oriented...

...they are less marketable, and therefore of limited value to them...