美国国家公共电台 NPR Why High School Students Need More Than College Prep

Why High School Students Need More Than College Prep

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

Switching gears now, it's pretty much a given these days that high school graduates are supposed to go to college. About 7 out of 10 graduates say that's where they're headed. And yet, there's a growing concern that this push for college as the only option is missing something - job skills that employers in hospitality, retail 1, accounting 2 and marketing 3 say they're looking for. Claudio Sanchez of NPR's Ed team visited one high school recently that's sending a different message.

CLAUDIO SANCHEZ, BYLINE 4: Willamette High School in Eugene, Ore., is a big, sprawling 5 campus where on any given morning, you're likely to get a powerful whiff of freshly ground coffee coming from Willy's Cafe, the student-run coffee shop, which is actually a class that teaches students how to make a double shot latte without making a mess.

CARRIE GILBERT: You're going to want to steam the milk first, and then once you have the coffee, dump it in and...

SANCHEZ: Carrie Gilbert, 17, gets paid for helping 6 manage Willy's Cafe and training other aspiring 7 baristas. The service is courteous 8 and fast. All right. My latte's ready.

It's not bad. It doesn't have the whole milk that I usually want, but it's very tasty. Good.

Willy's is part of DECA, Distributive Education Clubs of America, a merchandising course, one of 40 vocational courses at Willamette High.

We'll come back to Willy's in a moment, but let's think about this for a minute. What if your child wasn't all that crazy about going to college and she came home one day and told you she was training as a barista at school?

ANTHONY CARNEVALE: If it were my kid, I wouldn't let it happen because the truth is the tried and true path in America is high school to Harvard.

SANCHEZ: Not Starbucks, says Anthony Carnevale. He's head of the Center on Education and the Workforce 9 at Georgetown University.

CARNEVALE: You don't tell middle-class Americans I'm going to send your kid to trade school.

SANCHEZ: Even good vocational programs like DECA are often viewed as a second-rate education, a pipeline 10 to low-wage, dead-end jobs.

JOHN FISTOLERA: These are not dead-end jobs.

SANCHEZ: John Fistolera is with DECA's corporate 11 office.

FISTOLERA: We work with business and industry to identify specific knowledge and skills that they say are required for an employee to be successful on the job.

SANCHEZ: That's been DECA's mission since the mid-1940s. But guess who else is saying that today?

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: I'm just saying, you can make a really good living and have a great career without getting a four-year college education as long as you get the skills and the training that you need.

(APPLAUSE)

SANCHEZ: President Obama's push for career and technical education as an alternative to college is well-known, but so is his administration's even bigger push for a college education for all. Carnevale says that's a message that kids and parents should take with a grain of salt.

CARNEVALE: Every year, more than 400,000 young people in the top half of their high school class go to college, and at least eight years later they have not gained either a two-year or four-year degree or a certificate.

SANCHEZ: At Willamette High, the message to students is upbeat and simple. You need to be college ready and also prepared for the world of work.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Be sure to check the career technical education options.

SANCHEZ: Every morning, students hear about DECA and the job training opportunities the school offers. The course that 18-year-old Kareena Montalvo fell in love with - graphic 12 design.

KAREENA MONTALVO: I can't tell you how many posters we've done for upcoming plays, musicals, and it lets me understand how artists need to meet clients' needs.

SANCHEZ: A talented artist, Kareena sees herself as an entrepreneur and down the road...

MONTALVO: I want to get my major in graphic design and a minor 13 in marketing.

SANCHEZ: OK. Now let's get back to Willy's Cafe and Carrie Gilbert, the 17-year-old who made that tasty latte for me. She says training as a barista may not seem like a big deal, but she's also learning about those soft skills that employers say teenagers often lack - being on time, teamwork, people skills.

GILBERT: Just the overall experience prepares you for a lot of different kinds of things. I'm not really sure what I want to do exactly, but it's definitely giving me skills to prepare here.

SANCHEZ: Teachers and administrators 14 here don't discourage students from going to college, but Dawn Delforis (ph), Willamette's assistant principal says...

DAWN DELFORIS: The thing I think does still exist is the stigma 15 that's oftentimes attached - oh, you're not going to college?

SANCHEZ: The teenagers we talked to didn't seem to care about that. What they cared about most was getting out into the real world, earning a paycheck and most of all having an option. Claudio Sanchez, NPR News.