Let's read directly from the School-to-Work law which was passed by Congress in 1994 and signed by President Clinton.
It states very clearly what this initiative is about.
The purposes of School-to-Work, as spelled out in the law, define the new mission of the schools as a transition to the workplace. We all thought the mission of the school was to educate the child to achieve his potential, but the mission is now to transition the student to the workplace.
The whole tenor of the bill is extremely mandatory, compul- sory, high-handed. Section 213 requires states to have a com- prehensive statewide School-to-Work plan that meets federal requirements. No two ways about it, states must conform. The state plan must designate labor market development areas to be served by Workforce Development Boards. These are boards whose members sit around a table and decide what jobs the local area is going to need in the next five to ten years... and then structuring the public school curriculum to serve the employer needs. That is what we call National Economic Planning.
Phyllis Schlafly concluded by saying, "All these man-
dates are laid out in law....and the law repeatedly uses
the words all students. This does not mean all public
school students. It does not mean all students who
choose School-to-Work. It means all students and that
is made very clear in the law....And it repeats over and
over that career awareness must begin at the earliest
School-to-Work Will Transform America's Future 151 possible age, but no later than seventh grade." She then asked the legislators...
Can you see now why parents don't like School-to-Work?
The more fully School-to-Work is implemented, the more parents don't like it. A review of STW in a publi- cation of the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Educational Research and Improvement warns that parental attitudes about their children's future poses a serious threat to STW. The study said:
Parents' attitudes about what they want for their children represent one of the greatest barriers to successful implemen- tation of School-to-Work.16
Research conducted by the influential Education Commission of the States indicates that most parents think the changes being introduced to schools are "on the wrong track." Research conducted by Public Agenda indicates that rather than vocational job- oriented training that...
...parents want schools to increase the focus on academics, teach traditional (subject-specific) knowledge and skills (i.e.
math facts, mental computation, phonics, grammar and spell- ing), increase the rigor of educational standards, base promo- tion on standardized tests, group students homogeneously (by grade ability) and prepare students for college.
As Marc Tucker anticipated in his letter to Hillary, labor unions don't like it. The Texas AFL-CIO has sued the Texas Workforce Commission which is the over- sight agency for School-to-Work implementation in the state. All five labor representatives in the agency had been fired. In filing the suit, Texas AFL-CIO President Joe D. Gunn said:
From its inception the Texas Workforce Commission has focused solely on what is good for employers, not the
workforce...the No. 1 workforce priority is cheap, compliant labor.19
State legislators don't like the Goals 2000 and School- to-Work agenda either. Legislators in Michigan, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and numerous other states have spoken out against the bypassing of legislators and their legislative control over education, health care, etc. Federal laws coupled with executive orders at the federal and state levels bypass elected state legislators to institute the STW system.
Oregon was a pioneer state in instituting school
"reform" and STW. In 1998, the sponsor of a bill in the Missouri legislature on workforce development said his bill was based on the "Oregon Model." In a February 12,1998 letter to Missouri legislators, Representative Ron Sunseri, chairman of the Oregon House Education Committee, said:
It is my hope that Missouri legislators will view this new model of education with great caution. It is clear now that many of our legislators in 1991 did not understand the scope nor the nature of our reform. Many members have acknow- ledged that had they understood what this reform was to become, they would never have voted to do this to Oregon citizens.
The bill called for academic excellence, intellectual rigor, and the best educated kids in the nation by the year 2000. That was the rhetoric. The reality was that by 1994 one of our pilot school districts went down 17 points in math and 36 points in verbal skills. One entire school (Humboldt Elementary) was shut down because none of the students could read even near level. This past week, one model School-to-Work high school released an independent report showing sixty percent of the student body had a D or less average. The report was covered up for 8 months. Parents are, of course, outraged.
The Oregon legislator's letter continued:
School-to-Work Will Transform America's Future 153 If Missouri adopts education legislation that parallels what Oregon has done, you, too, will be shifting from effective education (reading, writing and arithmetic) to affective educa- tion where the emphasis is on attitudes, behaviors, and socialization. Academic subjects become secondary. We were continually assured that these things would never hap- pen—That was the rhetoric and now we must live with the reality. Please do not be deceived or falsely persuaded.