Clearing the Air on ‘School to Career’
Ventura County schools Supt. Charles Weis assures you that “the grant criteria” for Ventura County’s school-to-career request “make it clear that the money can only be used for optional programs.”
Let me quote from the grant criteria: “[Applicants must] show how the . . . STC plan is likely to produce systemic change that will have substantial impact on the preparation of all students. . . . “ The same document describes systemic change thus: “A movement to reform the current system of public education. . . . The focus of the STC initiative is to institutionalize STC in the educational system--not to create another add-on program.”
Education Secretary Richard Riley’s fact sheet, published by the labor and education departments, declares the view that STC is not for all students a “myth.”
Anyone who says that STC is designed as an additional, optional program is at best ill-informed, at worst disingenuous. If we want to adopt STC in Ventura County, let’s at least do it with our eyes open. It will be a fundamental change in our idea of public education.
RICHARD FERRIER
Santa Paula
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