Challenging Our Communities: Purposeful Action for Youth Transition from School to Work

Factors such as the widespread corporate restructuring of the 1980s, international pressures, and technological advancement have created a youth employment crisis. Schools cannot single-handedly educate students for the new jobs of the 1990s because they lack the understanding of today's workplace needs, technology, and funding. Employers, community agencies, and schools must pool their resources and work together to develop effective youth transition programs. The experiences of four cities with demonstrated commitments to education reform (Boston, Massachusetts; Miami, Florida; Louisville, Kentucky; and Portland, Oregon) were studied to identify strategies that could be replicated by other communities interested in addressing their youth employment problems. Hearings in the four cities established the following elements as crucial to successful community-based school-to-work transition programs: community collaboration, school effectiveness, school-to-work transition services, and measurements and credentials. A blueprint for action was proposed that calls for collaboration at the community level and the formation of two bodies: coalitions of concerned citizens to shape the vision of and monitor the effectiveness of their community's youth transition program, and an office of youth transition services to facilitate long-term implementation of the youth transition program.