Debate Heats Up Over School-to-Work Funds

Another tussle over a federal career guidance program known as “school-to-work” broke out this week at the Orange County Department of Education.

In a news conference and public hearing at the Costa Mesa-based agency, critics on Thursday renewed their assault on about $4.7 million in funds earmarked over five years to help kids in scores of Orange County schools get a taste of the working world.

State Assembly members Scott Baugh (R-Huntington Beach) and Steve Baldwin (R-El Cajon) led the protest. Critics charged that the program is a burdensome federal mandate that will curtail traditional academics in high schools.

“Any effort to expand the role of the federal government with respect to educating our children is seriously misguided,” Baugh said. “The simple fact is that any time the federal government gets involved, they screw things up.”

The hearing drew more than 100 people. Opponents of the program wore buttons saying, “School to work--a formula for failure.” Supporters of school-to-work also wore buttons, these saying, “Kids need vision.”

The county board of education began collecting and distributing the federal money to local school-business partnerships last spring amid little controversy.

Backers include a wide array of Orange County business and education leaders who say the program, created by Congress in 1994, helps students hone their career and academic goals. The idea is twofold: to bring students into the workplace for seminars that are much more intensive than a class field trip and to bring professionals onto campuses to teach how schoolwork is relevant to their jobs.

“There are those out there who would have you believe that the federal government is trying to take over our schools through school-to-work. . . . Frankly, that’s not true!” John F. Dean, county superintendent of education, wrote in a recent newsletter. “School-to-work is an exposure to the kids of careers ‘out there’ in the real world. Nobody is pigeon-holing anyone!”

Debate over the program arose after conservative activists Ken L. Williams Jr. and Eric Woolery won election last year to the five-member county board. They persuaded another board member, Felix Rocha, to hold a series of hearings investigating the program. Thursday’s was the second of three scheduled hearings. The first was held in February.

Unlike Woolery and Williams, Rocha has said he is not seeking to undo the program. That means a three-vote majority still supports it.

Even if the county board voted to back out of the career program, which is known here as Vision 2020, proponents say they would carry on. They say Vision 2020 could incorporate as a nonprofit organization and collect the federal funding itself--bypassing the controversy at the county agency.