ENROLLMENT LOSS IN VO-ED IS WAGE LOSS FOR MANY

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, January 2, 1992                   TAG: 9201020110
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B1   EDITION: METRO  
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: RICHMOND                                LENGTH: Medium
ENROLLMENT LOSS IN VO-ED IS WAGE LOSS FOR MANY
Tracay Lewis learned the hard way what college preparatory courses are worth when you don't plan to go to college: a job at a fast-food restaurant earning minimum wage.
She took no high school vocational courses, so she wasn't qualified for higher-paying vocational jobs. Lewis ultimately tripled her salary, but not until she enrolled in a four-year work-study program at Newport News Shipbuilding's Apprentice School.
Lewis said her guidance counselor had pushed her to take academic courses to prepare for college. Educators say too many students are being directed toward college when a vocational education would be more appropriate. And tougher academic standards have made it more difficult for students to find time for vocational courses.
As a result, enrollment is dropping at many of the nation's 225 all-day vocational high schools and 1,395 vocational centers. The vocational centers, including the 44 in Virginia, offer half-day programs for students who spend the other half of the school day at their high schools.
"There are just a lot of kids out there better off not being lawyers," said Lee Stroud, school psychologist and vocational evaluator at the Portsmouth Vocational Evaluation Center. "There are a lot of bright kids who would be better off in auto mechanics."
Enrollments in vocational school are dropping in 32 states, even though vocational students make more money than their counterparts with no vocational education, said Kenneth Gray, professor in charge of vocational and industrial education at Penn State.
Contributing to the drop is the perception of vocational and college education, educators say. The Council for the Advancement and Support of Education said 73 percent of the people it surveyed earlier this year agreed that a college degree is very important in getting a job or advancing a career. That's up from 58 percent in 1986.
Sam Gomez, one of Lewis' co-workers at the shipyard, said teachers and administrators often look down on vocational students.
"I think they're put in a different category," he said. "I think they think people who take vocational education aren't looking to further their education."
Educators and business leaders say more students should take advantage of the many vocational education programs across the country. They also say professional standards are needed to ease the transition from work to school.
A bill introduced in Congress in October calls for more work-study programs such as the one at the shipyard, but beginning during instead of after high school, said Betsy Brown Ruzzi. Ruzzi is a senior associate at the Washington office of the National Center on Education and the Economy, which is pushing the bill.
She said students also could pursue a broader field of study, such as medical technology, which could lead to jobs ranging from nurse's aides to radiologists.
"There is no school district in the United States - whether in public education or vocational education - that is operating at a standard that equals the best competitors we have internationally," said Bill Brock, former U.S. senator and former secretary of labor.
Brock co-chaired a commission of educators, businessmen and government leaders that recommended last year that the education system and companies invest in America's future workers.
"If our best are not good enough, I think that is evidence that we need to rethink the ways we educate our youth," Brock said. "I don't think the present system works. It is fundamentally and fatally flawed - not in terms of what it may have done in the past - but in terms of providing the skills necessary to compete in a global market."
Richmond-based Circuit City Inc. interviews high school graduates to fill positions such as cashiers and in its warehouses although some have ended up as vice presidents, said company Chairman Alan Wurtzel. But Wurtzel said his company has to interview up to a dozen applicants to find one qualified to do the job.
"What used to be an adequate education to do a job 25 years ago is no longer adequate," he said. "We have a very good school system that was designed to produce people to work on production lines."
Gray, Wurtzel and others say there are too few programs like the one that led Lewis to her position at Newport News Shipbuilding, where she makes $12.35 an hour installing bulkhead insulation on aircraft carriers. But Lewis wishes she had started sooner.
"The on-hands experience of vocational class would have helped a lot," she said.

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB