High Schools ‘Guaranteeing’ Grads : Education: Warranties let employers ‘return’ those with poor job skills. Further training is free.

This year’s seniors at Ft. Zumwalt high schools will go into the world with more than just a diploma. Each graduate will be backed by a three-year warranty.

A small but growing number of schools now add an extra stamp of approval to their products. It says, “satisfaction guaranteed.”

“The diploma used to be the guarantee,” said Ft. Zumwalt Supt. Bernard DuBray said, “but now we need to go above and beyond.”

Such warranties typically guarantee that a graduate has learned the basic skills necessary to an entry-level job. If not, the school promises to provide additional training free of charge.

“It’s accountability,” said Bernard Sidman, superintendent of the Plymouth-Carver Regional School District in Massachusetts, which was the first to include a three-year warranty with its diplomas last spring. So far, none of its graduates have been sent back.

“You hear an awful lot about the quality of public education and about public institutions of education not meeting their responsibilities in preparing students for entry into public life,” Sidman said.

“We felt that if we were going to be asking the community to support us, maybe we should put ourselves on the line.”

But let the buyer beware: The training behind guaranteed graduates may vary. Some schools warranty all their graduates. In others, the warranty program is designed mainly for students who want to get jobs straight out of high school.

At Prince Georges County School District in Maryland, students who want to be under warranty take a semester course in marketable skills. The class has been developed with the help of business and industry leaders.

In Blue Springs School District, Missouri’s largest, the graduate guarantee is printed on the back of a laminated, wallet-size diploma.

“We’ve got some tremendous young people coming out of our system,” Supt. Charles McGraw said. “The nation’s educational system is getting a bad rap, and we wanted to make a point that our graduates had the skills to be good employees.”

Yet it is not enough to warranty students if there is no recognition of what is needed to do entry-level jobs in today’s business world, said Fritz Edelstein, a senior fellow at the National Alliance for Business in Washington.

The demands of such jobs are much more complex in the 1990s than ever before, and the curriculum should reflect that, Edelstein said.

McGraw agreed.

“I think we went through a time when the curriculum was out of date,” he said. “The curriculum has been slow changing--it hasn’t kept up with the progress of technology that the business world required. So this is an attempt to be up to date.”

For instance, McGraw said, mechanical drawing is out and computer-assisted drafting is in. At the junior high level, an exploratory course in industrial technology introduces students to robotics, broadcasting, electronics and computer science, he said.

Educators say guarantee programs have helped to open communications between schools and businesses.

“It’s a feedback system,” said Gary Marx, associate executive director of the American Assn. of School Administrators in Arlington, Va. “It’s a way for the schools to say to an employer, ‘It’s all right to come back and let us know if there’s something missing here.’ ”

In the Harlem Consolidated School District, outside Rockford, Ill., seniors this year will be able to earn a “certificate of employability.”

The idea came about through meetings between school administrators and corporate leaders from the community, Assistant Supt. Wayne Musholt said.

During the discussions, executives expressed concerns about the employability of some of those graduating, particularly those not going to college.

“Their concern was that some of the students didn’t always have the best work habits and attitudes, and we decided there ought to be a way of certifying them,” Musholt said.

To be certified, a student will have to earn the required high school credits and be absent no more than six days in a school year. In addition, work “attitudes” will be rated by teachers.

The program at Prince Georges County schools has received high marks from business and industry leaders, said Bonnie Jenkins, director of public affairs.

“The response has been overwhelmingly positive so far,” she said.

Employers prefer to hire young people who have completed the special semester course, which emphasizes good habits and attitudes about work, reasoning, problem solving and oral communication.

“So it’s giving them an edge,” Jenkins said.

Last year was the first for the project, and no student has been sent back for further training, Jenkins said.

The guarantees rekindle employers’ interest in high school graduates and encourage potential dropouts to stay in school, said Thomas Shannon, executive director of the National School Boards Assn. in Alexandria, Va.

“This is adding a new dimension to the diploma,” he said. “It’s a gimmick--it’s right out of Madison Avenue--but it also sends a powerful message to the school staff that your work is really on the line.”