It pays to restructure education

As we head for the 21st century, only some 66 months in the future, we hear a great deal about the rapidly changing world of the future. We wonder how we will deal with the seeming chaos that the future world promises to bring; we worry about how people will cope with that world and express our concern about how our educational institutions will prepare our young people to deal with impending change.

To ease our minds a bit on the educational concern, there are two activities that are going on in our local public schools that have the potential to significantly increase the effectiveness of education at a very nominal cost, one supported by a federal grant and the other supported mostly by Maine businesses.

Both activities are actively restructuring our educational system, one quietly on the inside and the other more obviously on the outside. Both work hand-in-hand for the benefit of our young people, our community and the state. The two programs are tech prep and the Maine Youth Apprenticeship Program, the “termite” and the “woodpecker.”

The behind-the-scenes restructuring, tech prep, was the brain child of Dale Parnell, former president of the American Association of Community Colleges, who wrote “The Forgotten Majority” in the mid-1980s. The book showed that high school students who were not part of the “college prep” track were, in fact, being educated and trained for no obvious future. The age of low-skill, high-paying jobs was over in the United States and high schools needed to change what they were doing for young people and the future of the country.

The book made such a strong case for change in high school education that many states began in the late 1980s to develop tech prep programs. Although other states have been developing tech prep programs for seven or eight years, Maine has been involved for only three. In the past two years the Greater Bangor area has seen 29 high schools become involved to some degree with the program.

What is tech prep? First, it is an applied method of teaching at the high school level. Educational researchers find that everyone does not learn in the same way. Although the lecture-discussion method succeeds well with traditional college-bound students, research shows that other teaching methods emphasizing hands-on instruction, team learning, group problem solving, the teacher as manager; in other words, a system of applied learning, works better with many students.

Second, tech prep provides a four-year pathway of courses in high school that leads toward a career. The high school experience includes investigation into “life after graduation in the world of work.”

An interesting side effect is that high school teachers using an applied method of instruction become more interested and informed of needs of business and industry, what changes they are going through, and the speed at which the hcange is occurring. That information helps teachers make the tech prep courses more relevant to the world of work.

While the tech prep changes in educational methodology are happening behind the scenes in schools in the Greater Bangor area, another restructuring is happening that is more obvious, the Maine Youth Apprenticeship Program. This program is aimed at having young people experience the workplace much earlier than they do now. Only a generation or two ago many of us grew up working with our parents. The work ethic values were literally passed on from parent to child. Today that is much more difficult and often impossible.

Here the Maine Youth Apprenticeship Program can play a crucial role. It will provide opportunities for our young people to work directly in local businesses for three years, two while they’re still attending high school and one at the technical college. The businesses involved payed an annual amount that pays the apprentice for his or her work and education at the technical college. Businesses agree up front to help the student meet certain competencies and to provide them with a broad breadth of experience in the business. The program begins when the student is a junior in high school and continues for three years through the first year of college.

At the end of the students’ senior year, they receive a high school diploma and, at the end of the year at the technical college, they receive a certificate. If they wish to pursue a degree at the college, their course work at the college level will count toward graduation.

Last year a pilot program was initiated in Portland with 15 students. This year the program expanded to most of the state with an enrollment of 90. Here in Bangor there are 19 apprenticeships provided by Lemforder, Key Bank, the Department of Human Services, the Department of Transportation, Eastern Maine Maine Medical Center, Eastern Maine Technical College, Bangor Mental Health Institute, the Banor Daily News, Bean and Conquest, Fleet Bankk, Morris Yachts, the University of Maine System, and the University of Maine at Orono. Already a number of other businesses in the area have expressed genuine interest in the program for next year.

Six high schools have students currently involved in the program: Bangor, Brewer, Ellsworth, Hampden Academy, Nokomis and Old Town. Others are interested and are ready to join. In the future, the state expects the program to serve about 20 percent of the high shcool population in Maine, approximately 4,000-5,000 apprenticeships annually. By comparison a number of states are preparing school-to-work programs, similar to the MYAP, targeting up to 50 percent of high school students.

At work in the Greater Bangor area today, there are two very effective programs restructuring our schools to meet the challenge of the future. Both help students learn more effectively, encourage them to see the importance of learning, give direction to their future, and offer viable alternatives for their futures. Tech prep and the Maine Youth Apprenticeship Program, two inexpensive restructurings preparing today’s young people for the world of tomorrow.

Darrel W. Staat is president of Eastern Maine Technical College.