Clinton Boosts Proposal for Youth Job Training : Education: He links better preparation of young people for the work force to improved economy. ‘School-to-work’ plan is before Congress.

Visiting an innovative program that teaches high school students the basics of aviation, President Clinton warned Friday that none of his initiatives to improve the economy will be successful without dramatic improvements in the way the United States prepares young people for the work force.

Clinton chose to plug his “school-to-work” initiative--now pending in Congress--at the Sussex County Opportunity Skyway program here, which trains high school students for careers as pilots, airplane mechanics, air traffic controllers and airport managers.

“Every student in America needs the opportunity to be in a program like this,” Clinton told a crowd of students, local residents and officials gathered at the tiny airfield in the southern Delaware town.

His proposal would provide money to states and localities to develop and implement programs that offer students--especially the 75% who do not earn college degrees--on-the-job training to help them develop valuable skills.

“If we are going to prosper in the world toward which we are heading, we have to reach out to every one of our young people who wants a job and don’t have the training to get it,” the President said.

“We don’t have a person to waste,” he said. “And believe you me, when we waste them, the rest of us pay. We pay in unemployment. We pay in welfare. We pay in jail costs. We pay in drug costs.”

As the only industrial nation without a comprehensive program helping young people make the transition from school to work, the United States stands to lose ground to its economic competitors, the President said. He added that too many American young people flounder from one low-paying job to another throughout their 20s because they do not have the skills necessary to get good jobs.

A determination to change that fact of American life, Clinton said, was one reason he ran for the presidency and it remains an essential part of his plan to reinvigorate America--along with health care reform, efforts to improve government efficiency, new crime legislation and open trade with Mexico and Canada.

“But none of them will work unless we maintain a steadfast determination to educate and train our people at world-class standards,” he said.

Programs like Skyway are one key to keeping the “American Dream” alive for young people, Clinton said. Such programs will prepare the nation’s youth for “a world of instant communication, supersonic transportation, worldwide technologies in global markets and a veritable explosion of knowledge and invention.”

Skyway is one of a small but growing number of career-centered vocational education programs, which are designed to provide students with on-the-job training, professional mentors and clear job prospects.

Under the President’s proposal, students who complete a program would receive skill certificates to aid potential employers in assessing their abilities.

Another piece of Administration legislation making its way through Congress would create a national board to determine skill standards in various fields so that certificates would be transportable.

To cover costs of the first year of the school-to-work initiative, the Administration is expected to get $68 million of the $270 million it has sought to provide grants of about $200,000 to each state to develop school-to-work programs and more sizable grants to four to six states to implement their programs, according to Administration officials.

The Administration’s goal is to get $300 million in 1995 to launch programs in 25 states and $600 million in 1996 to help install programs in the remaining states, officials said.

The Clinton school-to-work proposal has been heartily endorsed by business and education leaders who have acknowledged the need to build a better bridge between school and work.

Lawrence Perlman, chairman of the Business Roundtable’s Working Group on Workforce Training and Development, said that programs like Skyway are “exactly what America must do on a broad scale to meet the technological challenges” of the future.

Other similar programs include:

* Oakland, Calif., Health and Bioscience Academy, which offers 200 students a three-year program for a wide-range of careers in labs and hospitals.

* ProTech in Boston, a four-year, work-based program starting in 11th grade, which provides students permanent placement with employers who offer tuition assistance benefits for additional postsecondary education.

* Craftsmanship 2000 of Tulsa, Okla., which combines academic, technical and work-based training in a four-year program. Graduates receive a high school diploma, an associate degree in metal-working and certification for skilled employment in the metal-working industry.

Indicating his faith in such programs, Clinton had one of the students at Skyway prepare the flight plan for his return trip to the White House.

“Three or four hours from now, if I’m wandering out over the Atlantic somewhere . . ,” Clinton joked with the crowd.

But after his helicopter took off, Susan Adams, a student wearing gold airplane earrings who personally prepared the President’s flight plan, said that he need not worry.

“I’m totally confident,” Adams, a senior who hopes to attend the Air Force Academy after getting her pilot’s license through Skyway, said. “He won’t end up over the Atlantic.”