EDUCATION AND WORK

Comprehensive public education is the cornerstone of American democracy. Open access to an education that provides breadth of learning, depth of under- standing and equal opportunity should be the right of every child and adult. Education programs which enlarge the learning experience have the effect of increasing opportunities for students and expanding their life choices. Education and work programs should also cause this result. The effect of such programs should be to raise aspirations and increase prospects for upward mobility.

The American Federation of Teachers believes that the purposes of education are both broad and varied. While an adequate education should provide students with the general intellectual skills to begin pursuing a variety of careers, career orientation is only part of this larger function. Education must prepare students to enrich themselves throughout their lifetimes. It must enable them to function as citizens who make basic economic, political and social choices well beyond the choice of a job. There is no such thing as being "overeducated."  Job performance alone should never provide the total measure of the value of an education.

The efforts to relate education to job preparation are commendable. But they should not be built on false as­sumptions. High unemployment is not a result of educational failure. Those concerned with unemployment should look first to economic and job policies to solve unemployment problems. These might include support for public works and other job creating programs, tax policies which stimulate the economy, federal support for housing and construction programs, and an expanded federal role for education, health and welfare services, among others. As part of the AFL-CIO, the AFT recognizes that economic problems need economic solutions. The education sector should never accept blame for a youth unemployment problem it did not create.

The idea that there is need for a closer relationship between schooling and job preparation has recently grown in popularity. "Education and work," as the concept is termed, may refer to a broad range of programs including "career education," "lifelong," "recurrent," "continuing," and even "competency-based" education. In recognizing the potential misdirection of some well intentioned education and work programs, the American Federation of Teachers urges locals and state federations to participate in the development of such programs and adopts the following guidelines with regard to their implementation:

Expanded guidance, counseling services and career education must be provided to all students. Teachers may wish to use job resource persons in these programs, but such persons should be chosen by the teacher, and be under his or her supervision. Non- professionals should not be used in professional roles.  Such programs should include accurate treatment of the role of labor unions and should deal with unions as well as employers in making job placements. In fact, such placement services should be expanded.

Alternative programs may be provided for students who cannot function in, or who do not obtain benefit from, regular school programs. While some of these may involve work experience, they must be carefully constructed so that they are clearly the responsibility of the public school system and are aimed at broadening rather than narrowing youth's educational experience.

Where career education programs involve any kind of experience at the job site they should be tried only where no adult workers will be displaced after agreement with the local union in the particular industry. These programs must supplement a basic education and not act as a substitute for it.

The AFT will resist the creation of programs which involve watering down child labor laws, providing for subminimum wages, lowering the school-leaving age, or weakening health and safety laws related to work.

The AFT strongly opposes career education programs that involve turning over some of the responsibility for public education to the private sector. Cooperative "education and work" community councils should in no way undermine the authority of publicly elected or appointed school boards. We oppose voucher plans that would subject both education and its consumers to the whims and prejudices of the marketplace.

The American Federation of Teachers believes that the most hopeful education and work programs have not yet been tried and urges those already involved in career education-as well as many others who may recognize the importance of expanded adult opportunities to support the following proposals:

• Job training programs which build upon a basic education by combining further academic experiences with on-the-job experiences should be expanded. These might include internship programs for teachers, career ladder programs for paraprofessionals and others as well as apprenticeship programs.

• More information should be made available on job availability, occupational projections, job access, etc. Information which is available should be compiled and disseminated in some useful form.

• Adult education programs must be expanded.  Such programs should service all adult educational needs whether they be for job training or retraining or for personal enrichment. They may take the form of worker sabbaticals, paid educational leave, deferred educational opportunity and the like. Programs that provide workers with recognized credentials should be available to them. Programs now offered by institutions of higher education and educational institutions at all other levels that provide for career training should not be cut simply because they are expensive.

• Restrictions against the use of public schools by adults must be reexamined. Special programs which allow adults to return to school to complete a high school program should be implemented.