Not an Academic Question

As a high school student two decades ago, Elaine Lanz remembers sitting in her English class, wondering what reading the classics and writing term papers had to do with the workaday world.

Today, Lanz teaches English at Westminster High School, and it’s clear few of her students harbor such questions. And no wonder: Her pupils apply conflicts in novels to possible situations in life and work; they visit city hall to write proposals on police staffing needs; and they practice working in teams, interviewing for jobs and writing resumes.

Lanz’s classroom is part of the “school to work” movement--a drive to make learning in public schools relevant to jobs and careers.

The movement is gaining ground nationwide--and it is about to get a boost in Orange County. Last month, a coalition of local educators, business executives and government officials won a $1.4-million federal grant to develop such programs at schools.

The county was one of seven areas in California to receive school-to-work grants from the U.S. Department of Education. And it comes as state governors and corporate leaders, worried about maintaining global competitiveness, have become increasingly vocal about demanding more from schools.

“We are encouraged by the whole group effort” in Orange County, said Sheela Mehta, community relations director at FHP International, a health-care company in Fountain Valley.

Companies like FHP have stepped up their involvement in public schools in recent years, offering grants, internships and mentoring to local schools.

The motivation isn’t exactly altruistic.

“It’s a very selfish point of view,” Mehta said. If workers come out of school better prepared, it will cut her company’s costs for training. As an example, Mehta said, FHP recently had to send almost two-thirds of its pharmacy assistants for remedial training in math.

Some schools in Orange County, such as Westminster High, have long been on the cutting edge of gearing students for the workplace. But others are lagging, and it wasn’t until last fall that the Orange County Coalition formed to seek the federal grant.

Jane O’Grady, an Orange County Community Services manager who put together the grant proposal, said the seed money will be used to train teachers, design lesson plans and develop mentoring programs at as many as 100 public schools involving 11,000 students.

O’Grady says the school-to-work initiative is intended for all students, not just the 50% who don’t go on to college.

Coalition members also stress that it is not aimed at replacing traditional learning with vocational-type classes.

“It still allows basic education that gives [students] choices,” said Bonnie Maspero, principal at Newport Harbor High School and a member of the coalition. “School to career,” as some like Maspero prefer to call it, extends basic learning and brings career issues into the classroom.

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Newport Harbor High, for one, has done this by forming ties with companies such as Rockwell International Corp. and Allergan Inc., which have provided money, equipment, speakers and mentoring. But Maspero says it has not been easy, because “if you’re a large company, you don’t want to be meeting with 70 different schools.”

Maspero sees the Orange County Coalition as a crucial “clearinghouse” that will facilitate links between schools and businesses.

Gary Kingsbury, an Irvine management consultant, thinks more companies in Orange County are becoming involved in education. He attributes it partly to the county’s bankruptcy, which raised concerns about shortages at schools. Businesses, he said, are realizing that “they are going to have to step up to the plate.”

Moreover, corporate leaders nationwide have become more outspoken about public school education, as they did at a meeting earlier this month with state governors in which they jointly launched a drive to raise the standards at U.S. schools.

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Larry Socea, marketing manager at Ascolta, an Irvine provider of computer network services, says what’s especially lacking in Orange County and elsewhere are graduates ready to enter the high-tech field.

“We’re seeing products of academia rather than experienced individuals who can step into a job and execute,” he said.

That’s what brought Ascolta to South Lake Middle School in Irvine about a year ago. Now the company is acting as a sort of high-tech advisor to the school, helping it with curriculum planning and equipment purchases and set-up. Socea hopes eighth-graders there now will do their research not only by using the library but also the Internet and e-mail.

The federal grant, he said, “is addressing a very critical need from the business viewpoint. . . . We’re moving past theory into practice.”