Education-To-Careers Builds Career Awareness Within Students
By: Yolanda Y. Harris

Linking school to the real world of work and making students more aware of career options are key goals of a statewide initiative called or ETC. The construction expo is just one example of the types of projects ETC partnerships support. ETC helps students understand the relevancy of what they’re learning in the classroom," said Mary Bates, ETC education specialist. "If you start very young in a child’s education and get them thinking about ‘What do I want to do when I grow up?…’ maybe something in the classroom that wasn’t as interesting might make more sense," she said.

Education-To-Careers is a product of the national School-to-Work movement to better prepare students for an increasingly competitive workforce by integrating career preparation into elementary and high school curriculums.

The School-to-Work Opportunities Act of 1994 provides seed money to states and local partnerships to develop school-to-work systems that allow students to explore different careers and obtain skills and valued credentials for careers. The Act was implemented based on findings that most high school students in the United States entered the workforce without bachelor’s degrees, and that many did not have adequate skills to succeed in the workplace.

The federal government is committing $54 million over a four-year period to fund the Illinois ETC initiative, now in its second year of existence. Thirty-nine local ETC partnerships, consisting of employers, educators, parents, labor representatives and government agencies are stationed throughout Illinois. The ETC partnerships serve as regional links to schools, businesses and communities and provide the connections that link students to career opportunities in their local areas through a variety of methods, including career counseling, job shadowing and internships. For example, the Central Illinois ETC Partnership funded the construction expo with a $10,000 grant. DuBois, special populations coordinator for the Peoria Educational Region for Employment and Career Training Center, collaborated with the ETC partnership and several other organizations to organize the expo.

Another product of an ETC grant is a statewide workforce information website developed by the Illinois Department of Employment Security’s Economic Information & Analysis Division. The website contains labor market information, such as current and future employment for more than 700 jobs in Illinois as well as data on wages and education requirements. The site, now under construction, will also feature videos showing people doing their actual jobs. By the end of June, the CD videos will have been mailed to Illinois schools and other ETC partnerships. Visit the website at:  http://www.workforceinfo.state.il.us .

Reports show that the national School-to- Work initiative has had a positive impact on student performance in school. For example, Philadelphia high school students involved in the program had higher GPAs, higher graduation rates and lower drop- out rates than students not involved, according to a 1997 Philadelphia School District Study. No formal report on the impact of the school-to-work movement in Illinois was available. But officials say the initiative is making a difference. "They [students] tell you how much better it is to take what they’re learning in the classroom and apply it in business," Bates said.