Jobs Outside High School Can Be Costly, Report Finds

For decades, American parents have encouraged their high school-age sons and daughters to get part-time jobs--to experience life in the real world, learn the value of a dollar, and become more responsible and mature. And for those who work only a few hours a week, that advice seems to bring the promised rewards, along with plenty of spending money.

But for several million students who work 15 to 20 hours a week or more during the school year, there is growing evidence that the consequences can be far less positive.

The National Research Council, in a report released Thursday, called on parents and policymakers to reexamine popular assumptions about the benefits of teenage employment, citing evidence that working intensively in high school raises the likelihood of drug and alcohol abuse, smoking, delinquency and lower educational attainment that can blight adult lives.

“What we need to do is alert parents and kids and employers to the potential downside of working,” said Laurence Steinberg, a member of the NRC panel and a Temple University psychologist.

The research council concluded that moderate part-time work can carry many benefits. “The general view that a good work experience is part of growing up and that work serves youth well is probably true,” the report says.

Marisa Brilts, 18, a senior at Costa Mesa High School, said her 20-hour-a-week job at Blossoms, a florist shop, gives her a good balance of work experience and education. She works Saturdays and two hours after school on weekdays--and easily maintains a B average.

“It teaches you to be more responsible and causes you to do better in school because you’re better about managing your time,” she said. “My parents were against it at first because they thought it would affect school. But now they support it.”

She concedes that too much work can have a negative effect on academics: “I have a friend who works 40 hours a week at Starbucks on top of school, and she’s always tired. You can see the impact on her and her grades.”

That echoes the research council’s conclusions: that modest amounts of school-year work can be good and that longer hours lead to problems. And it is widely supported by other experts and by the everyday experiences of high school teachers, guidance counselors and students.

What educators have found to be the most effective work experience is when schools can incorporate careers with curriculum, said Laguna Beach schools Trustee Eileen T. Walsh. For example, allowing students interested in the medical field to have related reading assignments in English class and helping them get part-time jobs in a laboratory would be one way of making a link.

“It’s very beneficial for youngsters to work under two conditions: less than 15 hours a week and where there’s a connection between school curriculum and their work experience,” she said. “But absent any kind of connection with the work experience itself, the conventional wisdom about its value doesn’t hold up. A lot of youngsters work to support a car. I’m not sure they’re getting much out of work.”

Some analysts think the level of teenage work in the United States, the highest in the industrialized world, may help explain why American high school students lag far behind on such things as international math and science tests.

Teachers and counselors also express concern about the pressure many high school students feel to earn money for entertainment and other personal expenses, about evidence that many take less-demanding courses to protect grade-point averages, and that jobs can reduce participation in family or school activities.

Moreover, students are exposed to significant health and safety risks on the job.

“Every 40 seconds, a child is injured at work in this country. More than once every week, a child is killed at work. We think that is unacceptable,” said Dr. David H. Wegman, chairman of the NRC study panel and a specialist in the workplace environment at the University of Massachusetts-Lowell.

Risk of injury is high for retail sales and restaurant employees, two areas of the job market where teenagers commonly work.

Wegman’s committee recommended that the Labor Department update standards for workplace hazards and be given authority to extend protective rules to farm jobs, which are now largely exempt.

Health and Safety Concerns Cited

The committee also urged parents to be more active in checking on health and safety aspects of their children’s jobs.

Wegman’s panel worked under the auspices of the National Academy of Sciences, a nonprofit organization chartered by Congress to provide expert guidance on science, technology and health.

Underlying the broad concern about students and jobs, both in the National Research Council report and in other studies, is the fact that the world of teenage work has changed dramatically.

Before 1950, fewer than 5% of students held jobs during the school year, Steinberg reported in an earlier study. By 1980, working during some portion of the school year had become routine for the vast majority of American high schoolers.

Today, the NRC reported, there are 10 million 15- to 17-year-olds. Almost half work regularly during part of the school year.

Among 17-year-olds who worked, one study found, the average job commitment was 18 hours a week during the school year. Younger students appear to work less, older students more.

Further, the NRC concluded, with the bulk of student workers employed in retail sales, restaurant and other service jobs, positions “typically held by adolescents provide little or no systematic preparation for later careers.”

Contrary to the Dickensian image of young workers struggling to help their families overcome poverty and scrape together money for their own educations, today’s high school work force is predominantly white and middle class. And more than 80% of high school seniors said little or none of what they earn goes for family expenses, the Department of Education reported in 1996.

Longer Hours at Lower Levels

What troubles some teachers as well as some scholars about this pattern is the danger that it diverts students from more important things--especially those who need to focus harder on furthering their educations.

Ronald Axelrod, a veteran teacher at James W. Robinson Secondary School in suburban Fairfax County, Virginia, says, “Students in regular-track courses work more and longer than students in advanced-level courses.” He estimates that 65% of students in his regular classes hold outside jobs, compared with only 25% of those taking more demanding courses.

In the past, finding that less academically oriented students were drifting toward jobs might have aroused little concern, but incomes for adult workers with less than a college education are eroding.

“Today, there are no longer any students whose performance in high school we don’t have to worry about,” Steinberg said. “We have to worry about all students now.”

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Teens on the Job

Some educators see a correlation between teens’ academic difficulties and time spent at work. Here’s a look at how U.S. students measure up against those in other industrialized nations.

Average math and science test scores of students in the five highest scoring nations and the U.S.

SOURCE: THIRD INTERNATIONAL MATHEMATICS AND SCIENCE STUDY

COMPILED BY RICK SANTOS AND TRICIA FORD / LOS ANGELES TIMES