Linking School and Work

Argues that a key strategy for improving the effectiveness of schools is to set standards for what students should be able to do based on the skills required for well-paying Jobs.

Introduction and Overview Part One: Structure of an Education System for Linking School and Work 1. Certifying Competence in a School-to-Work System(Marc Tucker) 2. Policy Choices in the Assessment of Work Readiness: Strategy and Structure(Richard Elmore) 3. Signaling the Competencies of High School Students to Employers(John Bishop) 4. A School-to-Work Transition System: The Role of Standards and Assessments(Paul Barton) Part Two: Linking Assessment and Instruction 5. Quality Control for Educating a Smart Workforce(Alan Lesgold) 6. Assessment Student Performance: Three Different Views(John Frederiksen) 7. A School-Based Strategy for Achieving and Assessing Work-Readiness Skills(Henry Braun) Part Three: Technical Requirements for New Forms of Assessment 8. Work Readiness Assessment: Questions of Validity(Robert Linn) 9. Evaluation of Performance Assessments for Work Readiness(Robert Guion) 10. Open-Ended Exercises in Large-Scale Educational Assessment(R. Darrel Bock) Part Four: Lessons from Abroad 11. New Directions in the Assessment of High School Achievement: Cross-National Perspectives(Margaret Vickers) 12. The Role of Assessment in Education for High Performance Work: Lessons from Denmark and Great Britain(Davis Jenkins)