DOCUMENT RESUME

ED 127 428 CZ 007 533

AUTHOR Bohenshil, Thomas H., Ed.TITLE New Dimensions in Placement Services. Annual

Conference for Career Counseling and VocationalEducation (5th, Blacksburg, Virginia, February 6 6 7,1976).

INSTITUTION Virginia Polytechnic Inst. and State Univ.,Blacksburg. Div. of Vocational-TechnicalEducation.

SPONS AGENCY Virginia State Advisory Council on VocationalEducation, Blacksburg.

PUB DATE Jun 76NOTE 176p.AVAILABLE FROM Harry L. Smith, Publication Information and

Publications, State Department of Education,Pichmond, Virginia 23216 (Order Number CP-5,$3.00)

ELBS PEICEDESCRIPTORS

MF-$0.83 HC-$10.03 Plus Postage.Career Education; *Conference Reportl; EmploymentCounselors; *Employment Problems; *Job Placement;Rural Schools; Secondary Fducation; *StudentPlacement; Urban Schools; *Vocational Counseling;Vocational Education

AEDIRACTThe general purpose of this conference was to examine

the current views and programs regarding new dimensions ineducational and job placenent services. Participants from five statesattended the conference, held at the Virginia Polytechnic Instituteand State University, Blacksburg, Virginia. The report reproduces thecomplPte texts of speeches presented at the conference, includingreferences, bibliographies and handout materials. The major addresseswere: "Education, Work, and Placement Services in AmericanEducation," Mr. Willard Wirtz, National Manpower Institute;"Imperatives Regarding Placement Services in Secondary Schools," Mrs.Lucy Crawford, Virginia Polytechnic Institute; "The Provision ofPlacement Services: Roles for Educational Personnel," 2r. DeanHummel, Virginia Polytechnic Institute; "To Place or Misplace: ThatIs the Question?", Dr. Carl McDaniels, Virginia PolytechnicInstitute; "Placement Services: How to Get Started in Urban and RuralEducational Institutions," Mr. Raymond Wasil, Ohio Division ofGuidance and Testing. Selen special interest sessions were availablefor participants. Texts oA. these ac-:ivities are presented withreferences and bibliogaphies. Personnel of five exemplary placementprojects in Virginia described their programs. Conference agenda andlisting of participants are appended. (TA)

Documents acquired by ERIC include many informal unpublished materials not available from other sources. ERIC makes evecyeffort to obtain the best copy available. Nevertheless, items of marginal reproducibility are often encountered and this affects thequality of the rnicrofithe and hardcopy reproductions ERIC makes available via the ERIC Document Reproduction Service (EDRS).EDRS is not responsile for the quality of the original document. Reproductions supplied bj EDRS are the best that Ian be made from

the original.

FIFTH ANNUAL CONFERENCE FOR

C0NSELING AND VOCATIONAL rDUC;TION

NEW DIMENSIONS IN PLAC_:.MENT SERVICES

February 6 & 7, 1976Blacksburg, Virginia

Edited by

Thomas H. Hohenshil DEPARTMENT OF ALT..f VUCATiON & WELFRENATiONL /.11,ITUTIE OF

E:JUCATiON

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The College of EducationVirginia Polytechnic Institute and State jniversity

Blacksburg, Virginia

in cooperation with the

Virginia State Advi:4ory Council on Vocational EducationBlacksburg, Virginia

June 1976

1

FOREWORD

Approximately 250 teachers, counselors, administra-tors, university personnel, and graduate students fromfive states participated in the Fifth Annual Conferencefor Career Counseling and Vocational Education. The gen-eral purpose of the Conference, conducted February 6 & 7,1976, at the Donaldson Brown Center for Continuing Educa-tion, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University,Blacksburg, Virginia, was to examine the current views andprograms regarding new dimensions in educational and jobplacement services. Nationally recognized speakers wereselected for expertise in their respective fields, as wellas for their research and leadership in professional organi-zations. Seven special interest groups were available forparticipants, and five exemplary placement projects in theCommonwealth of Virginia described their programs.

Special appreciation is extended to the VIRGINIA STATEADVISORY COUNCIL ON VOCATIONAL EDUCATION which financiallysponsored the publication of these proceedings and assistedin the development of the conference itself. Appreciationis extended to local and State career development personnelfor sharing their placement programs with conference par-ticipants. A special tahnks is also given to the programplanning committee for its assistance in the development ofthe conference.

Thomas H. HohenshilConference Director

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FOREWORD

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

MAJOR ADDRESSES:

Pace

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Education, Work, and Placement Services inAmerican Education

Mr. Willard WirtzNational Manpower Institute

1

Imperatives Regarding Placement Services inSecondary Schools 16

Mrs. Lucy CrawfordVirginia Tech

The Provision of Placement Services: Roles

for Educational Personnel 29

Dr. Dean HummelVirginia Tech

To Place or Misplace: Thai_ is the Question? 36

Dr. Carl McDanielsVirginia Tech

Placement Services: How to '..;et Started inUrban and Rural Educational Institutions . 45

Mr. Raymond WasilOhio Division of Guidance and Testing

SPECIAL INTEREST GROUPS:

.2ontemporary Community College Placement

Services 76

Mr. Ridgely Haines, Jr.Piedmont Virginia Community CollegeMr. Edwin MorseVirginia TechMr. Howard Taylor, Jr.Thomas Nelson Community College

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Page

Special Placement Problems of theHandicapped 87Dr. Alan SheppardVirginia Tech

Special Placement Problems of Wolien 96Dr. Ruth HarrisDr. Sally TschumiDr. James McNeelyVirginia Tech

7Jaching Job Interview Skills in theSecondary School 105Dr. David HutchinsVirginia Tech

Placement Problems of the Disadvantaged . . 111Dr. Johnnie MilesVirginia Tech

Exemplary Student Job Placement Programs 119Mr. Lloyd Jewell, Jr.State Department of Education

Status of Employment Counseling and PlacementServices in Virginia 123Mr. John CookState Department of Education

Cooperative Relationships between the VirginiaEmployment Commission and School PlacementServicesMr. Norman BoswellVirginia Employment Commission

PLACEMENT PROGRAMS IN VIRGINIA:

126

Job Placement and Career Education atWytheville Community College 132Mr. William JenningsWytheville Community College

Job Placement as a Component of CareerEducation 134Mr. Randy WrightRadford City Schools

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Jb Placeen'_ Services in Scott CointySr.noolz 138Mrs. Joyce 0 borneScott County Vocational Center

An Exemplary Job Placement ProgramMr. James CrumleyAlexandria ',Eity Schools

Legal and Ethical Considerations of SchoolPlacemen.,.. for Exceptional ChildrenDr. Benjamin SillimanDr. David AlexanderVirginia Tech

APPENDICES:

141

144

Appendix A Conference Program 155

Appendix B - List of Conference Participants 160

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Conference Plannina Committee

Dr. Dewey A. AdamsDr. Rufus W. BeamerDr. Ruth D. HarrisDr. Thomas H. HohenshilDr. Dean L. HummelDr. David E. HutchinsDr. Carl O. McDaniels

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KAJOR ADDRESSES

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EDUCATION, WORK, AND PLACEMENT SERVICESIN AMERICAN EDUCATION

Willard WirtzPresident

National Mantower Institute

Introduction

It's my unders,:anding that the arrangements are that Ishould talk only long enough to hopefully arouse your in-terest to the point where we can make this a dialogue in-stead of a monologue. I'd like to talk the last part of mytime about those things which are on your minds rather thanon mine, with the hope that there will be some coincidence.

Any consideration of placement services has simply gotto start From a context of at least responsible conjectureabout what the future is with respect to this matter of work,or whatever it is we're talKing about putting people in.We know that right now that prospect is of unusual propor-tions. There is a temptation to be quite gloomy about thefuture of work That is partly because the facts right noware a little discouraging. It's also partly because we al-ways have a larger fascination with our fears than we havewith our hopes. The temptation is to make all puliticalcommentary a type of "more apocalyptic than thou" sweep-stakes and see if you can come out ahead by saying someth'_ngmore dismal than you did yesterday or than anyhody else didtoday. I hope not to disregard those facts and to reviewthem here very briefly, and to say here that I perceive themajor remarks quite deliberately with a considerable reli-ance on faith in the future. I happen to think that thefuture continues to be a good idea in this country and thatit is legitimate to think about its possible improvement inthose terms. But, we.don't responsibly do that witnouttaking a check on just where we stand today.

Let's start with the statistics. It is a reflection ofthe extraordinary competence of COhnie Blackwood and theVirginia Tech Information Service that I am in the positionto report to you at 10:35 a.m. what the Bureau of Labo:Statistics (BLS) released just a few minutes ago as the Jan-uary unemployment figures. I dare sa..1, this is the onlything I'll say in the whole hour that comes to any of youfor the first time. But there are only two of us, Connieand I, in the room at the moment that know.what happened tounemployment in January, and it's an interestMg story.According to that release from the BLS a half an hour ago,unemployment dropped by a half of one percent in January,

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and that's an extraordinary drop. It's been above eightpercent for quite awhile. Now it has dropped in January to7.8:t. In every sense that is a significant change and onewilith entitles us to move to the next hour with perhaps alittle more encouragement than might otherwise have been.

With one exception that gain was over a very broadfront. The unemployment rates went down last month forevery category except one. They did not go down as far asthe youth are concerned. This means that rate stays atabout 20%, and about 40% for those who suffer the twin dis-advantages of being young and black. This constitutes aterribly, terribly serious problem. It is one which, ofcourse, is probably mot.e important to us in our consider-ation of at least part of this placement question than theoverall statistics.

I can't take too dismal or too concerned a view of thefuture of the youth unemployment situation. You said at theoutset of this meeting, Tom Hohenshil, that the buck stopswith you, and you used an unfortunate passage; "If somebodywon't let you in someplace where you wantL to go, just let meknow and I'll take care of it." I've got a candidate foryou. He was the young man who took me to my room here lascnight. That's just far enough away frcm the elevator thatthere was a little time for conversation. I asked if he wasin school and he said yes. I think hc was a senior in thebusiness school. I asked what he was going to do next, andhe said he didn't know. He said they don't seem to have anyplace for him. I said maybe that's a fairly general situ-ation. He said at least they should have let him know.That boy has been working hard for three or four years withmore direction of purpose than used to be the case, and hehas a growing feeling of resentment of one kind or another.He's not a resentful kind of person. There are an awful lotof people that are going to want to gat into someplacepretty soon, Tom, and that was a pretty broad invitationthat you put out.

It'c not only the youth who want to get in, but alsothree other groups, including women and the disadvantaged.You talked at your last two conferences about those two par-ticular groups. There is another group, the older group,on which there aren't unemployment figures of any signifi-cance. We're only beginning to realize that the oaly waywe're keeping our unemployment figures down as far as we areis by forcing more and more people ont to pasture earlierand earlier in this country. This is a point on which I'mbecoming more sensitive every single year. It's a matter ofvery, very serious concern and unfortunately that averagewhich I gave you at the beginning is one of those averagesthat conceals so many different things. It's very hard to

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count very much on it even though, in a way, I used to beresponsible fc- that figure. I used to get to the pointwhere every month when it came out I was somehow reminCledof somebody saying that "facts are enemies to the truth."Those are facts all right. That 7.8% is a fact, but ithides the truth, part of which is that youth unemployment is20 to 40%, and that there are a lot of other serious prob-lems among particular groups.

So, we've got to st-ixt from a recognition of an extra-ordinarily, unattractive, factual situation which is pro1)-ably the most unattractive in all of the 35 years sincethese figures have been kept. Of cource, the more importantquestion is whether there is any particular yeast at work

at ftle moment. I guess we'd have to recognize that if thereis, it's not very apparent so far. It's a little discour-aging that the political debate reaches its height today in

an argument about public service employment programs. Thefurthest proposed reach of these programs is the possibi?itythat they will employ some 600 to 800 thousand additionalpeople, while unemployment is at eight million. All of thattalk is aboLt a possible improvement in the situation of 10%

of the 8%. I just feel increasingly that all of this con-centration of political dialogue on public service employ-ment is a COP out as far as the leaders of both parties ofthis country are concerned. Until we're willing to startfacing up to the harder economics that are involved, it's apretty superficial kind of approach.

Unfortunately, there's really no protest yet to this

unemployment situation. You ask why that is? I used to

think that if unemployment ever again went above 5% in thiscountry all political hell would break loose. It went to8%, 9%, and is still at 7 1/2%, and there doesn't seem tobe anything like the kind of protest we were anticipating.I suppose there are two reasons for that which we didn'tfactor in. One of them is that there have been extraordinaryshock absorbers built into the economy as far as the impactof unemployment is concerned. Those take the form of statu-

Lz,ry provisions for unemployment insurance and other things

of that kind. It's also a very relevant fact tnat there

are now a good many situations in which two people in afamily are working. The real bite doesn't come when only

one of them becomes unemployed.

Therr is another factor. That 7.8% figure isn't goingto have very strong impact on the public which is made upvery largely of people who are trying to find help of onekind or another and aren't able to find it. You can't get

a woman very excited about the unemployment situation if

she has been trying to get help around the house or the yard

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for a long time and can't find anybody who wants to do it.You can't get a man very excited about the unemploymentsituation if he's been trying to find help of one kind oranother in connection with the business, and hasn't beenable to do it. If there are chauvinistic implications andovertones in my selection of those two examples, just re-verse the facts around. The point remains the same. Thereare just trio many situations in which people are affectedby the fact that they can't get the help they want to letthem get as excited as they ought to be about the unemploy-ment sitqation. It's a goo:1 deal more serious than it hasbeen before. I think before it has been properly ide.lti-fied, given the approach to things we were taking as cycli-cal. This time I don't think it is cyclical. I think it'sa consequence rather of the fact that we've been dependingcn an economy which has been based essentially on the con-version of the raw materials which you fiAd inside the rela-tively :hin r_fe sustaining crust of the planet, and thoseare in diminishing supply. It's d consequence too, of theimpact of a proliferating population which we have not takenproperly into account. It results also from the developmentof a technology which has o good sense of its own. It istotally wreckiess because we have not yet learned how toguide it along lines thac rrmit it to contribute to tneamount of work which can and should be done, instead ofdiminishing the immediate opportunity for that kind of work.

So, there's an extraordinary confluence of these variousdevelopments. If you add to that confluence of forces thepresent pessimism in the country as a whole, both about !Theeconomy and about the instituticns on which the whole sys-tem depends, I suppose you would find that confidence is atthe lowest ebb in at least the last 100 years. You find asituation w:lich is certainly not encouraging as we turn tothe matter of placement. However, the other side of theseprospects seems to be at least sufficient to attract reasonand to depend not entirely on a reliance :7Nn faith.

I will only sketch out quickly what seemed to me theelements of possible hops here. I a'ssume that, althoughthere is not presently strong consciousness of it, the un-employment picture is going to become a very major issue inthis Year's elections. I rather think it will be a criticaland almost deturning point. I expect to see the economybouyed up in one If.ay or another through the election justbecause of its political implications. After that, I expectto see a facing up to this situation in one way or another.I don't mean to make this political, and therefore onlysuggest that the real showdown on this will probably occurnext year. I think there is also reason to identify theemergence of a new concept of economics which is based not

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on the conversion of natural resources, but on the use ofthe human resource which is obviously in limitless supplyIf I could improve this occasion as far as any of you areconcerned, I would try to do it by asking you to read E. F.Shumacher's book which is subtitled, "Economics as if PeopleMattered." It is unfortunately entitled, Small is Beauti-ful. That is a good title for those who don't really needthe message anyway, but is a bad title for those who doneed the message. It is the development by a card carryingBritish classical economist of the proposition that somechild is very soon going to get and say that the EmperorKeynes has no clothes on, and the premises we've been rely-ing on are no longer working. We're going to have to startdeveloping an economics as if people mattered, and it makeseminent good sense.

I think that we are about at the point of putting tech-nology under sufficient control so it will expand employmentopportunity instead of diminishing it. I think too thatthere is today, despite the national discouragement in thiscountry, a force developing at the community level whichI'd like to call the "yeasting" of community in this country.I can read the papers or live in Washington and find aworld, or the reflections of a world, which if it werereally like that, I would resign from tomorrow. Then I cango to any community in this country and find there growingsigns that people have had it to the point that they areabout to again take a larger part in the handling of theirown affairs at the local community level. I find an in-stinct to move the direction of their force toward the im-provement in the quality of life rather than toward theexpansion of those things which make up the grossest nation-al product in history, and I come away from a day such asthis one quite encouraged about the future.

When you get all through talking about what work thereis for next year or the next year after that, just come backto a full appreciation of the fact that there is plenty tobe done in this country. There is nothing in the economicgenes of the situation which keeps us from doing it. Ithink this country's problem is simply unsurmountable oppor-tunity. Well, it just is, and you just don't question whenyou get all through with it whether there is enough to bedone to keep everybody busy. You only question whetherwe've got the political guts, or whatever it takes, to makethe right decisions. I realize that to rest the case herewould mean the negative obviously wins as far as the presentsituation is concerned because it has some bad statisticson its side. I simply say that I do rely on a faith in thefuture. That isn't the subject of this conference. I'vesimply tried to lay a sufficient basis for going ahead to

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talk about the particular subject that brings us here. Ipoint out to you that that subject is totally inconsequen-tial unless we proceed on the assumption that there is goingto be a viable future.

New Dimensions in Placement Services

What are the new dimensions as far as the placement ser-vice is concerned? I assume that we identify those newdimensions properly from a consideration of the context inwhich this function is exercised. I'd like to suggest threenew dimensions of placement which seem to me to emerge froma consideration of the present context as far as educationand work are concerned. They aren't very closely related.Perhaps their only interrelationship is that they will seemto be essential elements of a strategy of change which willbe enough to give placement the kind of effectiveness itought to have.

The first of these dimensions involves the institution-alization of the placement process. I'll argue particularlyfor the development of a relationship, as it affects theplacement function, between `he schools and the rest of thecommunity which probably goes substantially beyond thepresent existing relationship. The second dimension seemsto involve the concept of what it is that we are talkingabout placement in. It seems to me that we have used thisword "work" in a way which inhibits our thinking about it.We've got to recognize a changing concept of work for whichwe are trying to find placement measures. The third dimen-sion will have to do with the object of placement. HereI'll argue that, in both functional and political terms, thesubject of this conference is too narrowly perceived if itis thought of as involvimg a loan of children who are leav-ing school and that we are going to find the right answersand the programmatic answers only when we link togetherthe placement problems as they affect youth and adults.Now a little more about each of those three.

First, I'd like to ask a question. How many in thisroom are not on some academic payroll? I see there areabout ten. I point out the relevance of that to the firstsuggestion about the development of a new process of collab-oration within the community. My assigned subject, I real-ize, is education, work, and placement in American education.I ask, Mr. Chairman, to be paroled temporarily from the lastpart of that sentence. I don't believe that the meaningfulanswer as far as placement is concerned is going to be foundby askLng about the role of placement in education. I justthink that's the wrong question. I thiHk the most critical

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element in the strategy of change which will be effectiveto meet the present situation, and to give counseling andguidance and placement the effectiveness it ought to have,is the development of a new form of collaborative relation-ship between the schools and the rest of the community.When we talk about its being in education or we think of itentirely in terms of its being part of the educational pro-cess, I think we've already tied our hands behind our backs.I'd like to suggest rather, an approach to it in terms ofwhat I would call a partnership concept, recognizing theabrasive implications that are involved, but also recog-nizing that a partnership does need a managing partner tobe effective. On that basis I'd like to talk about the pos-sibilities of new forms of collaborative working relation-ships between the schools and the rest of the community asfar as the placement and guidance programs are concerned.

First a word of history and then a word of caution. Theplacement function was not originally institutionalized inthe schools. It was institutionalized in another of thesets of institutions in this country, mainly the family. Idon't know how many Masons, Shoemakers, Carpenters, andFarmers there are in this room, but when you think of it anextraordinary number of our names reflect that placementwas once entirely a family responsibility. Then, historic-ally what happened was that during an extended and in retro-spect in many respects quite unhappy period, the period ofthe industrial revolution, the placement function was dis-charged to the unrestrained exercise of the appetite of theindustrial revolution, which was interested in getting justas many bodies working on those machines just as quickly aspossible. There was a kind of institutional gap there andwhen we picked it up again we didn't know quite what to doabout it. We played around superficially by turning it over

to a federal-state employment service under circumstanceswhich almost precluded from the beginning any real attentionto the matter of youth placement. That wasn't working andit also happens that about 20 years ago the family coppedout, or dropped out, as far as the discharge of this func-tion is concerned. Historically, we're talking about aquestion of institutionalization which has a bad trackrecord and from which you would draw the answer that wedon't really know we ought to institutionalize the placementfunction in this country.

Let's don't make the mistake that I have put into Tom'smouth by taking his perfectly grand statement and broaden-ig it out. Let's don't make the mistake of holding out an

offer here at just the time that the placement function isbound to be a loser. I don't know that we ought to look asfavorably as we do on the possibility of an expansion of the

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schools' role as far as placement is concerned. I know theSenate Bill 647 of the Virginia legislature that is hailedas one of the most advanced steps of its kind in this coun-try. I also know that there isn't an appropriation yet andthat some of you are now being charged with the responsibil-ity for working out guidelines for the no-cost developmentof a placement function in the schools. Have you got holesin your head? Why don't you tell the rest of us in thecommunity that you're not about to assume any placementresponsibilities unless you're given the authority and thecapacity to discharge those responsibilities.

You've already made the mistake once as far as guidanceand counseling is concerned. The family used to do thattoo. Then about 20 years ago the family stopped doing thatand we looked beyond for somebody to turn to. In the highschools we found a few people who had been giving guidanceand counseling for college, and so we said let's give it tothem. We've all been doing it. Every parent in the countryhas been doing it. Let's give it to those people who haveincidentally been spending half their time already on pro-bationary duties or paroling the corridors, but they arecounselors. The family has quit, so let's go ahead and turnit over to them. Now you're about to do the same thing withplacement. I say you're doing it at a terribly bad time asfar as history is concerned. Society, as a whole, is play-ing Catch 22 with you and the sooner you call it, the betteroff we're all going to be. I'm talking as a teacher, thegrandson of a teacher, the son of a teacher, and the fatherof a teacher.

As teachers I think we should take a very careful lookat whether we think we can expand into this new set offunctions. I don't believe the placement function is goingto work unless there are new forms of effective collabora-tion developed between the schools and the communities in avery broad sense. I think there ought to be a communityeducation-work council in every local community in thecountry. It ought to have the responsibility for movingpeople from one world to another. It is the worst mistakein che world to talh about building bridges between the twoworlds of education and work in complete disregard of theimplications of that figure of speech. Educators are tryingto build bridges from one shore alone and no bridge was everbuilt that way. I don't think it will work. There oughtto be some form of community organization which assumes theresponsibility for the placement function. If that's toobroad a concept, let me suggest a narrower one. I wouldn'ttouch the placement responsibility in any school or commun-ity in this country without saying first, wait just oneminute. You tell me, before you want me to undertake the

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placement function, what work, service, and training oppor-tunities are going to be in this community during the next

five years. If you ask me to provide counseling and guid-

ance for your children, you tell me what it is that I'm tocounsel and guide them toward. Don't give me any of thisstuff about not knowing what the situation is going to bein the next five years. There is available in this commun-ity all of the information which is necessary to provide areasonably reliable community opportunity inventory tocover work and the training opportunities over the next five

years. It can be done. It isn't being done for reasonsthat are very hard to understand. I wouldn't touch thisresponsibility without demanding of the community that itgive me that picture of what it is that is involved here.

Then there is the counseling and guidance and placement

personnel front. You know better than I the problems ofwhich I referred before of as underpersonij. You know theproblem of underperscning of the guidance and counselingprofesion in this country. As far as the high schools areconcerned, I don't get into the figures. You know it'sgoing to be worse if they now add the placement function.I suggest that there is only one opportunity for meetingthis problem, and it is not by getting larger appropriationsbecause you're not going to get them with the country inits present state of mind. There is another possibility.Shortages as there may be as far as personnel in this areais concerned, there is in every community in this country atotally adequate supply of guidance, counseling, and place-

ment services. I'm right on the edge of the credentiallingquestion and I dt,n't know whether to go into that territory

or not. But, I believe that if you're aoing to meet thepersonnel needs as far as the placement and guidance andcounseling services, you're going to have to develop a new

set of credentialling principles that recognizes not onlythe value, but the necessity of some other kinds of train-ing and experiences as far as these functions are concerned.

We're going to have to get over our hang up about vol-

unteer work. Part of the future of work in this countrydepends upon getting over that hang up. We've run volunteer

work into the ground. We look down our noses at it and now

it has become identified with chauvinism and a lot of other

things. We're all mixed up about it in disregard of the

fact that most of life's satisfactions come from what youvolunteer to do instead of what you're paid for doing.We've got to start out working out some kind of new relation-

ship between the professional function, which is absolutelyessential but which is in short supply, and the volunteerfuncticn which is available in great simply and can be

worked into this system. In one form or another there's got

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to be the develo?ment of some new relationship between theschools anc: the community. Some of you here are from com-munity colleges. The community college comes the closestto exploring this new horizon of community relationships ofany institutions we presently have. Whether it makes senseor not from your standpoint to develop new forms of workingrelationships with the community, it's going to happen forsure one way or another.

There is an increasing insistence in this country cn thepart of the membership of the local communities to take alarger part of the handling of their own affairs. I believethe yeasting of community is the most powerful force in thiscountry today. People have had it and are ready to take partagain in the handling of their own affairs. Thy are goingto insist on a larger role in the kind of thing we're talk-ing about. Now yeast has got no good sense of its own.The process of fermentation can work constructively or itcan work corruptively. I'm suggesting that this is happen-ing in the communities and it's probably a question ofwhether you're going to align yourselves against the devel-opment of this new course in the community, or whetherwe're going to take an active role of leadership in the de-velopment of it. It seems to me that all the other ques-tions about programs are secondary to the question of howwe work out a more effect'ive relationship between theschcols and the community as far as the placement functionis concerned.

I've talked so much about the first dimension that I'lldeal much more briefly with the other two. The second newdimension whish appears to be likely and worth affirmativedevelopment is a brcader conception of what we're trying toplace people in, a broader conception than is usually im-plied by what we normally think of when we say the word"work," and certainly "manpower." That's a terrible phrase.I say to You it was the worst phrase that was ever invented.I was present at the creation of a manp-ower policy in thiscountry in 1961 or 1962. We didn't realize the Chauvinis-tic blunder as far as the first syllable is concerned. Weshould have realized the mistake we were making if we wouldhave simply looked it up in the dictionary to find manpowerdefined as being a unit of energy normally considered to bethe equivalent of 1/10th horsepower. That's what the wordmeans. The problem is very closely related to what I havein mind when we say "work." We start thinking about a unitof production instead of about a human value. Until westart thinking about work as a human value and go on tothink about the rest of what it includes, we're going tomisconceive the placement function.

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I don't know what I'm talking about. As far as I'm con-cerned when I try to figure out my philosophy I can carry itto four or five end words which I can't define and which Ican't justify as values. These words are love, which comesat the top, and then I guess the other three are learning,beauty, and work as human values, not as in the case ofwork, a unit of production. I don't know why this is. Icnly know that as I think back over things, most of the pro-fessional satisfactions are some way associated in my mindwith having been terribly tired at the time. Work has gotto be conceived of as a human value as well as a unit ofproduction. We've got to start working on that word to make

it serve our purposes better. Service in some way has gotto be written into it. The advantage of the hard sciencesis that when they run into a problem of this kind they finda new word, or a new symbol, then all of the particles ofthinking get sluffed off and you can move ahead with a new,clean word. We don't do that because we have to depend upon

persuasion. You need old words to persuade and so we getinto this terrible bind.

We're still talking about work. When we say that wordwe think of men working on an assembly line or somethinglike that. But yet by 1980, two out of every three peoplein the work force in this country are going to be in serviceoccupations rather than in production occupations. We'veskewed all of our thinking by that word, work. We've got torebuild back in the value of work which is outside the labor

force. Let's say that two people go to a hospital one morn-ing at 8:00, one to work in the parking lot for $2.50/hour,and the other to work all day on a volunteer basis. Whatone dt becomes part of the gross national product, whilewhat the other does doesn't count at all. What's gotteninto us? We count as work only those things that go intothe computation of that statistic which has great value tothe working of the economics of the country, but doesn'thave any relationship at all to the human values that areinvolved in what we're talking about.

We've got to start talking about careers as well as

vocations. We've got to include leisure into what we'retalking about in this whole picture. I would go on to domore about that except Carl McDaniels made this the subjectof his speech two years ago to this conference. I rathersuspect he may came back to it tonight for he said that itis his thesis that career development must be involved with

a person's total life, including work and leisure. If we

are talking about placement, we're going to have to takeinto account a good deal more than the traditional thingsthat we've talked about when we have used the word work.

1911

The third new dimension is a coupling of adult withyouth placement in guidance and counseling functions aspart of a new concept of a lifetime continuum of interclhangesbetween education and work; between learning and earning aliving; between developing and using our talents. This ismore than just a placement question, but placement is verymuch a part of it. We have gotten into the most ridiculoussituation in which we have divided fife into three timetraps by counting youth for education, adulthood for work,and older age for the denial of the opportunity to indulgein either of these two occupations. It has become realitybecause at least in part it first became custom. There mayhave been reasons for it before, but there's no reason nowfor dividing life into these three time traps and saying totake them in order. Is this a direct part of the placementproblem? It certainly is. It's a very important part ofthe placement problem. It is simply absurd that we stillpersist in the notion that all cf education should be takenat one long uninterrupted sitting. It's only a matter of afew years now until a considered break becomes a standardoption as far as the education of kids is concerned. A yearor two will be taken out to, among other things, greatly im-prove the value of subsequent educational opportunities.That's very close, but it won't work unless it is a con-sidered break with institutional provision for their comingback in as well as for their going out, and for whateverthey are to do while they are out. It's a function whichthe schools will not properly perform alone and which oughtto be performed on some kind of community respcnsibilitybasis.

It's a ridiculous reflection of something that there are51 million adults in this country without a high school edu-cation. We ought to make provision forthose adults in oneway or another to pick up that high school education if theywant to. We talk about our social contract in this country;a contract with each other to provide twelve years of freeeducation. We didn't write it in, b-lt it's there in thefine print. I don't really think we meant that it is all tobe taken when young, or not at all. That's ridiculous.There ought to be full opportunity for those people whodidn't do this when they were young, to do it now.

When you start thinking through the equal rights forwomen, you've got to move pretty quickly past the importanceof a constitutional amendment and go on to a recognition ofwhat equality of opDortunity means as far as women are con-cerned. I'm talking about adult women. At the risk ofchauvinistic misstatement, I can make a better case for oneor two years of free public education in connection withmaternity service than I can for such education in connec-

.12

tion with military service, and for about the same reasons.Somebody is required tomove out of what he/she was doingto serve the public good, and now he/she wants to move backin. We say to the soldier that we'll give him super senior-ity. You can pick up right where you were before and wewill also give you two or three years' training to pick upwhere you would have been otherwise. Wa ought to wolk outthe same thing as far as the amalgamation of o7:eers andmotherhood is concerned.

I can make a better argument for a year of free educa-tion at age 60 to 65 than I can for another year of freeeducation at age 16 to 20. We aren't qoing to go on muchlonger on these twin fallacies that security is life's ulti-mate door prize and retirement is an unskilled occupation.That is just nonsense. We ought to move very quickly to theimplementation of the course that many people at mid-careerdefAre to do something diffent from what they have beendoing. In West Germany and France two years leave of ab-sence is part of the employment contract. It's paid for at75% of the individual's current earnings. It's paid out ofthe unemployment insurance fund. How much more sense itmakes to pay somebody to take one or two years of retrainingwhen a machine is about to take his/her job than to wait andthen have to pay the individual unemployment insurance.There is every argument to be made for at least a year ofdeferred educational opportunity being built into the wholesystem. Then, when you start thinking about the placementand the counseling and guidance functions that go along withthis, it seems that the argument almost becomes self evidentthat what we're talking about is misperceived or miscon-ceived of if we talk about it only in terms of problems ofmoving youth from education to work. If I am wrong func-tionally, I am sure I am right politically.

I don't think that we are going to get an effective coun-seling and guidance and placement program for this countryas long as we think about it only in terms of kids and theyouth problem. Mrs. Wirtz and I, like everybody else,dropped out of PTA the minute our youngest child finishedschool. Sure we are in favor of doing everything we can for

the next generation. We aren't going to do anything aboutit until we build in the need for this kind of thing as faras adults are concerned. We need a coalition constituencyfor change if we are to have an effective placement andcounseling and guidance program. The kids don't vote andthe parents stopped being interested in them at the parents'age of about 40. At that point at which we start building

a coalition of educators, of youth, ot women who face thisparticular problem, of older people who are increasing innumber and in percentage control every vear, and then start

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building in those who have an interest in mid-career change,we will get an effective pl:cement and counseling ead guid-ance program. I don't think we will before then. So as amatter of political pragmatics rather than in terms ofhumanism or anything of that kind, I say that we betterstart talking about a placement and guidance and counselingprogram which covers all of us.

Summary and Conclusion

Now in conclusion, summarizing very tx.7iefly, I have sug-cested that the three dimensions of placenent involves,first, the development of a collaborative school-communityprocess at the local community level. Second, they involvethe development of the recognition of a broader concept ofwhat it is we are placing in or for, and the substitutionof some new thinking in place of what that word "work'brings to our minds. Third, we must think of the placementand the counseling and guidance problem as part of the de-velopment of a continuum, a lifetime continuum of constantinterchange between learning and earning a living, betweeneducation and work.

I realize that perhaps it will seem that I have talkedt.:x: much about what are actually horizons rather than newdimensions and have paid too little attention to what youand I all know are the chores which are so large a part ofthe placement offices of the counselors, guidance officersfunctions. I don't think so. It is a mean job. It seemsto me that placement officers are somewhat peculiarly en-titled to remind themselves of the three stone masons ofShart who were asked what they were doing. The first oneanswered that he was cutting stones. The second answeredthat he was makina a living. The third responded that hewas building a cathedral. It does make quite a differencehow we think about what we are doing. I believe quite sin-cerely that the guidance and counseling and placement func-tion is today the most seriously underdeveloped function inthe whole human resource delivery system. I mean that, withthe possible exception of the kindergarten, first, andsecond grade teachers, it seems to me that the placementofficer is in a position to make a larger difference at aparticular point in a life than any of the rest of us whoteach, or anybody outside education. I mean that quite sin-cerely. I think the largest improvement in the whole humanresource development and delivery system will come fastestif we do something better about the placement and the coun-seling and guidance functions. I believe furthermore thatthose in this profession are particularly positioned, stand-ing between what we have been calling the two worlds of

2 214

education and work, are particularly positioned to say, twoworlds--nonsense. There is only one world and its name islife. It seems to me that you in this profession have asuperior opportunity to be architects of community, of liferand of the future. It does seem to me that the new dimen-sions as far as placement and counseling and guidance areconcerned are new horizons, and nothing else.

Thank you.

15

IMPERATIVES REGARDING PLACEMENT SERVICESIN SECONDARY SCHOOLS

Lucy C. CrawfordProfessor EmeritusVirginia Tech

How would you like tobe labeled a "practicing philos-opher"? Does that sound 1ike an "ivory tower" title suit-able for some college professors but entirely unsuitablefor the practical, hard-working, dedicated educational per-sonnel attending this Conference on Placement? It has beensaid that all of our quality leaders are practicing philos-ophers (1, pp. 16-20). Assuming that each person attendingthis conference is a leader, and assuming that if you arenot already a "quality" leader you would like to become one,I am going to approach the topic of today's discussion froma philosophical point of view. The concepts taat I want todiscuss with you represent my personal philosophy aboutPlacement Services in a Secondary School. In order for youto become a "practicing philosopher" you will have to firstseek your own philosophy concerning Placement Services andthen determine how to put this philosophy to work in thesetting in which you work.

A philosophy concerning placement services cannot beconstructed in isolation; it must be consistent with theideals of our American democ.acy, with the goals of Americaneducation, and with the purposes of Secondary Education.

Walter Hoving has defined America's purpose in thisway:

The true goals of the Americ In way of lifeis the creating of a self-reliant, indi-vidually responsible, self-disciplined,well-educated and spiritually orientedpeople. (2, p. 148)

If America is to accomplish its goals, education has aheavy burden of responsibility. The American Associationof School Administrators' Commission on "Imperatives in Edu-cation" called attention to the relationship of the schoolto society in its introductory statement:

What the school is and what it has done sincethe beginning of public education in thiscountry have been inextricably related tothe wants and needs of people--to their hopes

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and expectations, to the ideals that givedirection to their thoughts and actions, andto the circumstances in which they live. Thevalues which people cherish; the prioritiesassigned to these values; the theories thathold promise for giving a sense of order,unity, and efficiency to what peoplc do; andthe cultural climate that prevails at anygiven time in large measure shape the edu-cational program. (3, p. 20)

The goals of secondary education have been restatedseveral times since they were originally presented in 1918as "The Se.:en Cardinal Principles of Education." Each unitof the secondary school and each individual within the unitmust consider the question, "What is my responsibility forcarrying out the purposes of secondary education?"

The goals of secondary education have always includeda goal concerning vocations. For rawly years, secondaryschools have demonstrated the belief that they had responsi-bility for guidance of students regarding their continuingeducation. A serious study of the philosophical conceptstD which I have briefly referred brings me to the conclusionthat the secondary school has the same responsibility forthe guidance and placement of students in the world of workas it has for the guidance and placement of students in edu-cation beyond high school. In this discussion, I am defin-ing placement to mean the placing of a stndent in a job(part-time or full-time) for which he or she is paid. Itshould also be pointed out that in this discussion I amreferring to organized placement services.

In order to carry out this responsibility, I believethat five imperatives should be considered: (1) clearlystated goals; (2) qualified personnel; (3) adequate timeand facilities; (4) cordial interpersonal relationships;and (5) advisory groups.

Goals. The difference between a philosophical approach toa problem and a pragmatic approach lies in the statement ofgoals and objectives. In a philosophical approach, goalsare stated in terrs of "what ought to be" instead of "whatis." It is at a later time that short-term objectives mayhave to be stated in terms of realistic conditions. In ryown philosophy, these are the goals related to placementservices that I feel are essential:

1. Placement of graduates in full-time or part-time jobs

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2. Placement of early school leavers

3. Placement ot students (other than coop.students) in part-time iobs

4. Coordination of pre-placement t7-aining forhigh school students and graduates seekingemployment

5. Advising students of occupational opportun-ities available through continuing education

The only one of the above goals that needs discussionwith this audience is Goal #3. It is my personal beliefthat unless priority is given to cooperative students forplacement in part-time jobs this goal should be deleted.My belief is based on the theory that students receivingtraining concurrent with on-the-job experiences are morelikely to benefit from those experiences. We will discuzsthis problem further when we consider the imperative, "in-terpersonal relationships."

Personnel. The second imperative is that personnel who pro-vide placement services must have the personal and profes-sional qualifications to carry out the above goals. Theindividual or individuals who provide these services willwork with personnel in business and industry; with studentsand parents; with vocational educators, particularly teach-er-coordinators; with guidance personnel; and with variousadvisory groups. They must be mature individuals with therecognized ability to work well with both young people andadults. They must be able to command the respect and con-fidence of employers and other business and professionalleaders in the community. They should be knowledgeableabout vocational education, about occupational adjustment,and about occupational advisement. They must have theamount, the variety, and the quality of occupational experi-ence that will make it possible for them to analyze theneeds of business and industry. They should have demon-strated competence in both oral and written communications.

Time and Facilities. The thirf: imperative has to do withadequate time ii713Tacilities. A close look at the tasksthat must be performed in order to carry out the goals in-cluded in my philosophy will show that placement servicescannot be provided without adequate funding for personneland for facilities. The innumerable tasks that are essen-tial to successful job placement cannot be tatked on to

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another 7u11-time job without detriment to the quality ofthe fullLime job as well as to the quality of the placementservices. Philosophically, critical tasks are derived fromgoals. Let's look at the critical tasks related to thegoals I proposed earlier. I have grouped the tasks aroundthe five goals and two important aspects of placement:administration and public relations.

1. Placing Graduates in Full-Time or Part-Time Jobs

a. Determine job needs

(1) Survey seniors prior to graduation todetermine job needs

(2) Prepare file of seniors seeking employment

(3) Interview seniors who indicate need forfull-time jobs

(4) Interview seniors who indicate need forpart-time jobs

b. Refer seniors to jobs

(1) Arrange pre-employment training for seniors

(2) Contact potential employers regardingplacement of graduates

(3) Prepare news article regarding placement

(4) Before graduation publicize job openingsvia public address system, bulletin board,and school newspaper

(5) Provide card of introduction to each seniorwho goes for job interview

(6) Obtain report from employer following eachinterview with graduating senior

2. Placing Drop-outs

a. Identify drop-outs

(1) Set up system of communication with guid-ance office, attendance officer and otherstaff members

(2) Seek assistance from students in schoolregarding drop-outs

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b. Analyze problems of drop-outs

(1) Analyze school records

(2) Study juvenile court records if appropriate

(3) Determine reason and problem areas whichcaused student to drop out of school

c. Advise drop-outs

(1) Mail brochure to drop-outs

(2) Encourage drop-outs to come for individualconferences

(3) Encourage parents to come for individualconferences

(4) Have drop-outs complete interest survey

(5) Provide interest and ability testingservices to drop-outs

(6) Make drop-out aware of psychologicalservices available in school and pUblichealth divisions

(7) Make drop-out aware of career opportunitiesin the military service,.police cadet pro-grams, and other government work programs

(8) Explain GED and other ways to obtain highschool diploma

d. Prepare drop-outs for job placement

(1) Arrange individual and/or group pre-employment training

(2) Provide advice concerning occupationaladjustments

e. Place drop-outs

(1) Contact business and industry leaders whomay employ drop-outs

(2) Seek assistance of Advisory Committee inplacing students with special problems

2820

(3) Work with employment commission in placingdrop-outs

f. Follow-up drop-outs

(1) Talk with employers about strengths andweaknesses of drop-outs

(2) Advise drop-outs concerning job problems

Placing Students in Part-Time Jobs

a. Identify students seeking part-time employment

(1) Prepare survey form

(2) Arrange with administration for survey ofstudent body

(3) Prepare application form

b. Assess student needs and wants

(1) Interview students

(2) Examine student permanent records

(3) Provide for tests when appropriate andfeasible

(4) Utilize student interest forms

(5) Identify disadvantaged or handicappedstudents

c. Identify employment opportunities

(1) Prepare occupational survey form

(2) Seek cooperation of vocational teachersin conducting an occupational survey ofthe community

(3) Become familiar with job requirements

(4) Seek assistance of Advisory Committee

(5) Determine legal restraints, if any, con-cerning proposed part-time jobs

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d. Refer student to jobs

(1) Prepare card of introduction for students

(2) Prepare form for employer to report resultof interview

4. Coordinating Pre-Placement Training

a. Arrange for ten-hour pre-employment classes forpart-time students prior to special seasonalemployment

(1) Survey to determine interest in pre-employ-ment classes

(2) Determine availability of courses providedby distributive education or other voca-tional education personnel and arrange forteacher(s)

(3) Assist in arranging physical facilities forclasses

(4) Assist in publicizing pre-employment classes

(5) Provide recognition to stidents for com-pletion of pre-employment class

b. Arrange for ten-hour pre-employment classesfor seniors seeking full-time or part-timeemployment

(I) Survey to determine interest of seniors inpre-employment classes

(2) Arrange with vocational teacher to teachclass as a part of his adult educationresponsibility

(3) Provide recognition to seniors who completea ten-hour pre-placement class

(4) Arrang mini-courses for specialized em-ployment (e.g., child care, gift wrapping)

(5) Provide individual advice to students

5. Advising Students of Occupational OpportunitiesAvailable Through Continuing Education

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a. Provide information about continuing education

(1) Obtain information about continuing edu-cation opportunities from community colleges,technical schools, and adult education ser-vices

(2) Obtain information abcnt educational pro-grams provided by business and industry

(3) Make f4.ie of above information availableto graduates and drop-outs

b. Advise graduates and drop-outs about continuingeducation

(1) Advise graduates who drop-out of collegeabout community college and adult educationofferings

(2) Advise drop-outs from high school about GEDtest

(3) Advise drop-outs from high school aboutnight school offerings

6. Administration

a. Select and train secretary

b. Develop an adequate filing system

c. Purchase equipment and materials

(1) Select and purchase file cabinets

(2) Select and purchase card files

(3) Select and purchase office furniture

(4) Select and purchase typewriter

(5) Select and purchase dictation and trans-cription machine

(6) Select and purchase audio-visual equipmentfor training

(7) Have stationery printed

(8) Procure training materials

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d. :rrange for telephone service

e. Survey job market

f. Develop appropriate forms

(1) Application

(2) Student survey

(3) Employer follow-u-

g. Develop a system of communication with

(1) Students

(2) Employers

(3) Parents

h. Participate in in-service training

i. Prepare reports

j. Prepare requisitions for reimbursement

k. Evaluate each component of the program

1. Determine immediate and long-ranrje goals

m. Llitablish priorities through developing a pro-gram of work

n. Prepare annua/ budget

0. Est.ablish and work with Advisory Committee

(1) Prepare suggested list of Advisory Com-mittee members for suixtrirtendent

(2) Prepare letter for superintendent to sendto Advisory Committee members

(3) Arrange time and place for meeting

(4) Mail announcement of meeting

(5) Prepare tentative agenda for meeting

(6) Preside at first meeting until electionof chairman

3 924

(7) Elect chairman and secretary

(8) Prepare background information for meeting:

(a) Need for Placement Service

(b) Purposes of Placement Service

(c) Relation to other Placement Efforts

(9) Identify functions of Advisory Committee

(10) Keep official records of Committee meetings

(11) Serve as ex-officio member of the AdvisoryCommittee

p. Develop cordial work-relationship with:

(1) Vocational teacher-coordinators

(2) Vocational teachers

(3) Guidance counselors

(4) Principal

(5) Faculty

7. Public Relations

a Prepare and distribute descriptive material

(1) Prepare and distribute brochure

(2) Prepare articles for local newspapers

(3) Prepare aiticles for school newspaper

(4) Prepare letter to prospective employers

(5) Prepare and utilize a business card

b. Publicize program via radio

c. Publicize program via television

d. Make personal appearances to explain PlacementService to:

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(1) Civic groups

(2) Business groups

(3) Board of Trustees

(4) Faculty

(5) P.T.A.

e. Sponsor Special Events (e.g., Career Fairs)

f. Maintain attractive physical surroundings

It is obvious that in order to perform these tasksclerical assistance will be needed. It is very uneconomicalto have professional personnel perform sub-professionaltasks. It is also obvious that suitable facilities, in-cluding equipment and materials as well as space, are essen-tial if the stated mission is to be accomplished.

Interpersonal Relationships. The fourth imperative is re-lated to cordial interpersonal relationships. Regardless ofthe way placement services are provided in secondary schools,a number of different types of people are going to be con-cerned about placement activities. Teacher-coordinators inthe various vocational areas are employed with a specificresponsibility for providing placement of students in part-time jobs that will provide on-the-job training coordinatedwith instruction received in the classroom. Other voca-tional teachers have as their primary concern the placementof their graduates. As a matter of fact, the placement ofgrduates of a particular vocational course, such as weld-ing, is usually considered a vital part of the vocationalteacher's job. Guidance counselors have a primary concernrelated /o the occupational counseling aspects of placement,but they also have a concern related to selection of highschool courses, to scheduling problems, and to personalproblems. The principal and the faculty are also concernedwith placement activities. The prIncipal has a vital con-cern because the provision of placement services is anintegral part of the total school program. Since theseservices have public visibility, there is special concernthat the quality of the placement services reflects favor-ably on the school. The superintendent and the school boardhave this same concern. The faculty concern varies withindividual faculty members. Some view placement services asa nuisance because at times students are called from theirclasses or because they feel part-time jobs interfere withthe students' school work. Other faculty members look with

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favor on the various placement activities because they feelthat the students are being helped by these services. Withall these individuals having varying concerns about place-ment services, it is easy to see the necessity for estab-lishing cordial working relationships so that cooperativelythe established goals can be accomplished.

Advisory Groups. The fifth imperative relates to advisorygroups. You will note that this says "glom with an s,"meaning that in addition to working with an advisory com-mittee, personnel providing placement services should workclosely with other groups in the community concerned withplacement of young people. It is my belief that an advisorycommittee shoule be appointed by the superintendent toassist in determining immediate and long-range goals re-lated to placement services; to assist in "opening doors"to business and industry; to identify individuals and groupsto help in making placement and counseling effective; and toassist in evaluating placement services offered by theschool. Members of the Advisory Committee should include azepresentative of the local or area Employment Commissionand representatives of business and industry known to beinterested and concerned about young people. A teacher-coordinator, a guidance counselor and the principal shouldalso be invited to serve on the Committee. The AdvisoryCommittee can identify other groups in the community thitshould be contacted. For example, some of the programsestablished to assist the disadvantaged are: (1) Work Study;(2) Neighborhood Youth Corps; (3) The Manpower Developmentand Training Act; (4) Job Corps; (5) Work Incentive Program;(6) Job Opportunities in the Business Section; (7) Vocation-al RJhabilitation; (8) Urban League; (9) Industrial WorkExperience Programs; (10) CETA.

In my opinion those who sincerely believe that schoolsshould give the same emphasis to placing students in jobsas they now give to placing studen.s in colleges of the::t-:hoice should become "practicing philosophers." I believethat your presence at this conference indicates that youhave this belief. I have presented my philosophy in termsof five imperatives. Now it's up to you to formulate yourown philosophy and to then analyze a way or ways your phil-osophy can be put into action. Very best wishes in thisendeavor!

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References

1. Orin B. Graff, Calvin M. Street, Ralph B. Kimbroughand Archier R. Dykes, Philosophic Theory and Practice inEducational Administration (Belmont, California: WadsworthPublishing Company, Inc.), 1966.

2. Walter Hoving, The Distribution Revolution (NewYork: Ives Washburn, Inc.), 1960.

3. American Association of School Administrators,Imperative in Education (Washington, D.C.: American Asso-ciation of School Administrators), 1966.

3 628

THE PROVISION OF PLACEMENT SERVICES:ROLES FOR EDUCATIONAL PERSONNEL

Dean L. HummelProfessor of Counselor Education

Virginia Tech

No step in life, unless it may be the choiceof a husband or wife, is more important thanthe choice of a vocation. The wise selectionof the business, profession, trade, or occu-pation to which one's life is to be devotedand the full efficiency in the chosen fieldare matters of the deepest moment to youngmen (persons) and to the public.(Parsons, 1909, p. 3)

As the superordinate goal f

The purpose of this paper is not to trace theeducational,political, scoial, religious, or economic reasons for theplacement crisis. We could, as many others have attempted,engage in a "witch hunt" to unravel the mystery of who theculprit is. To dispose with such an unnovel approach, weshall take a cue from Agatha Cristie's controversial book,The Murder of Roger Ashroyd (1926), in which she revealedthe killer as none other than the book's narrator. Para-phrasing "Pogo's Stick," "we have met the enemy and they isus." It may not be us in an individual sense, but rather inthe way we collectively, and collaboratively perform ourroles in placement process.

Rationale - Roles for Educational Personnel

If we take the position that placement is an act ofmoving from one place to another, and career development is

series of placement steps (process), there is a basis fordeclaring that all school personnel share placement responsi-bilities. Each person in the educatil enterprise, how-ever, has an individual role(s) to perform. Job placement,as an act without its identification to the career develop-ment steps would, indeed, require a stretch of the imagina-tion on the part of many educational personnel to accept thenotion they have a role to perform. Roles vary for educa-tional personnel as they relate their expertise and to theiridentified function in the career development process ofstudents.

A simple graphic paradigm may clarify the process as itrelates to a job placement act.

What is obvious from the graphic (CAREER DEVELOPMENT -PLACEMENT PARADIGM) is that as the individual experientedlylearns, options are narrowed to the point of choice and jobplacement. Therefore, roles can be identified in two "place-ment" categories--Career Development Placement and Job Place-ment.

The individual begins a life of learning with the entirerange of options in the world of work. Through career edu-cation and career counseling assistance, the process ofcareer development and a series of school placements occurduring the school years of boys and girls. Learners buildupon experiences and reality testing, resulting in a selec-tive delimitating of options related to personal interests,aptitudee. achievement and aspiration.... During this pro-cesses period all educational personnel with whom the learnercomes in contact will perform placement roles.

Career development, viewed concomitantly with the place-ment paradigm further suggests the series of possible choices

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and job placements (illustrated by consecutive arrows) duringa person's life. The concept illustrated is supported by thecontemporary belief in the theory of life career development(Gysbers, N. and Moore, E., 1975) . In contrast to the ori-ginal version of Parsons' vocational placement act (Borow,1975), the life career development process encompasses aseries of placements, culminating in the entry job placementchoice and act.

A second graphic (LEARNINC AND DECISION MAKING COMPON-ENTS - CAREER DEVELOPMENT) depicts the essential ingredientssupporting the school placement and career learning pro-grams. As a result of career guidance and career education,personal characteristics are developed through knowledge andexperience. Organization and management systems are struc-tured to depict the scheme of the world of i.ork and to pro-vide a logical access for students to search for accurateinformation on which to make decisions. Such a system alsoprovides a job placement servjce with a profile of the in-dividual which xs consistent with job classificatizm systems.

Ingredients contained in this second graphic, whenplaced within the hori2onta1 diamond of the CAREER DEVELOP-MENT - PLACEMENT PARADIGN, prcvides for a systematic approachto school programs (;:nd a sees of placement-learning steps)culminating in entry job placement. Thesc learning and de-cision-making components are further a?plicable beyond entryjob placement when new placements are made in the life careerdevelopment process.

Seein9 Clients Through Placement - A Note for Counselors

Just as the ultimate question in counseling is, "What doyou really want to do?" the ultimate test of a client'scareer choice is the reality of entry job placement. It isat this point where the career counseling process can soeasily break down. It is the point where the school is indanger of dioposing of their clients before success or fail-ure of career education and career counseling can be testedagainst reality. Client-centered counselors can experiencerelief from failures when clients no longer return for coun-seling. Test givers can get rid of their clients when thetest results have been interprete.l, and, the educational.enterprise can escape the reality of their own work (Hoppock,1976, p. 89). The quality of career education and careercounseling will deteriorate when career counseling is sep-arated from placement, and when directors of guidance andcareer counseling permit their counselors to escape fromthe chastening experience of seeing their own clientsthrough placement (Hoppock, 1976, p. 88).

4 032

Personal

i.haracteristic':

Known interests

School Subjects

Known Aptitudes

Lstimdted Aptitudes

Temperaments

Expressed Interests

Work Activities

Leisure Time Activities

Educational Aspiration Level

Hobbies

Spec:al Abilities

Occupational Goals

LEARNING PIE) DECISION-MAKING COMPNENTS

CAPj_.ER DEVELOPMENT

Or,;aniz,...ieh and

dn3(1:,:1 S,r,te-c)

1.1(.cupatiorial

Group

rrangement

Worker

Trait

Groups

Other

Systems

or

Clusters

School Placements Th,,,,gh Career Education

Cdreer Information

Pe!-.ources

Occupational griefs

gound Occupatcnal Information

Audiovisual M3terial

Field Trips

Classroom Experiences

Speakers

Consultants

On the Job Work Experiences

Work Simulation T,ctivities

Games

Job Placement

Follow-Up

VPIRSU

2/16/76 - DLH

Adapted from:

Occupational Outlook Quarterly, Fall, 1975, U.S. Department of Labor

Essential Roles in the Placement Process

For the superordinate goal in the career developmentplacement process stated earlier, the following essentialteaching and counseling roles would seem appropriate forpersonnel in the educational enterprise:

1. Promotion of an understanding on the part of each stu-dent, the worth and basic dignity of work.

2. Development of each student's ability to appraise one'sself and one's environment as a basis for decision-making.

3. Assisting students in understanding the meaningfulnessand value of learning as it relates to careers.

4. Assisting students through extensive career guidanceservices in the development of a career plan.

5. Providing students with accurate information about voca-tional education and other curricula as to their rela-tive importance in specific occupational groups.

6. Providing students with orientation to occupationalclusters, families, worker-trait groups, and field andlevel classifications of occupations.

7. Providing the basis for courses of study in all curricu-lar areas for the purpose of integrating school subjectswith student's occupational interests.

8. Providing exploratory experiences for students to poten-tial aptitudes related to occupational clusters.

9. Assisting students to understand how various careerchoices will affect one's future in a job market.

10. Assisting students to develop job search skills and usejob placement services in the education to work trans-ition.

Obviously, the fulfillment of the above 10 roles acquires asystematic plan, assignment of specific functions, and ad-ministrative support for personnel and resources. Theseroles would involve all educational personnel and appropriatenon-schc,A resource persons. Having effectively performedthese roles, we could expect a knowledgeable, skilled andexperienced student who would possess a readiness to utilizejob placement services.

4234

5. Advising stuaents cr occupaLioaa4.able;

6. Administration; and7. Public relations.

Identified roles in support of the above functions are de-picted in the Special Interest Group's reports to follow in

this publication of Conference Proceedings. There must be

an acceptance of specifically identified roles in the place-

ment process by all educational personnel, and there must be

a coordinated job placement service if we are to achieve the

superordinate goal of assisting students in the step from

eduation to work.

References

Chri _ie, A. (The murder cf roger ackroyd) , 1926, Time,

January 26, 1976, p. 75.

Gysbers, N. and Moore, E. Beyond career development Life

career development. The Personnel and Guidance Journal,1975, 53, 9, 647-652.

Hoppock, R. Occupational information. (2nd ed.), New York:McGraw-Hill, Inc.

Parsons, F. Choosing a vocation. Boston: Houghton Miff-

lin, 1909.

U.S. Government Printing Office. Occupational outlook hand-

book. Washington, D.C., Stowers, P., Fall ed., 1975.

3

35

comments: "Who, me? Why shou1 I be involved in =lacement?: am a counselor." Or, "I'm a DE teacher and I have aot mv12-15 kids." Then the administrator comes alona and savs,"We .Fre aoing to have olacement services cr else. And hereis hew we can work together." And that is where we musthave "idea" 'oeoole. You have to break the traditional moldand find out things that will work, like bringina people infrom business and industry, like usina some CETA money for31acement and follow ut and You can use CETA monies im that

a hz,,,,4;nr, rf 7;x7,-=i1,-=h1P rm.qt bt:1 made sc that veu

TO PLACE OP MISPLACE: THAT IS THE QUESTION?

cJirl 0, McnanielsPrc,fessor of Counselor Eucation

Virginia Tech

TO BE, OR NOT TO BE: THAT IS THE QUESTION:

WHETHER TIS NOBLER IN THE MIND TO SUFFE?

THE SLINGS AND ARROWS OR OUTRAGEOUS FORTUNE

OR TO TAKE ARMS AGAINST A SEA OF TROUBLES,

AND BY OPPOSING END THEM.

Hamlet

By William Shakespe.A-reAct 3, Scene 1

For well over fifty years placement has enjoyed some..-Aoasure of public and professional support. To be sure thesupport has ebbed and flowed at all levels--local, state andnational. There have been some consistent supportersthrough:

Thc, National Vocational Guidance Association

The Ve4-erans Administration

The U.S. Employment Service and State Affiliates

The U.S. Rehabilitation Services Administration

The National Employment AssociatiJn with its2,000 institutional members

To be sure some public school systems such as Baltimore,Maryland, ha_7e had flagship placement programs but duplicateshave been few and far between. Colleges and universities bvcontrast have demonstrated over the years a cle,ir and con-sistent pattern of support for placement programs for theirqraduates.

Special thanks is expressed tc Amel Anderson for his re-search assistance in the ;preparation of this paper.

36

4 4

There does appear to be somewhat of a general design ofinterest over the last half century. Returning veteranshave seemingly ignited a revival of interest in placementafter each World War. Also periods like the great depres-sion naturally led to more concerv for helping people tofind suitable work in a tight job market. It may well bethat the current high unemployment rate has something to dowith the interest which is clearly being expressed in theUnited States. All the signs are prese.it for emerging outof a cycle of unconcern for placement to a cycle of deepconcern. The last two decades or so have been characterized,at least from a manpower standpoint, as an employee's mar-ket, that is, unemployment has been relatively low, jobprospects relatively bi-Lght, and education reasonably avail-able and at low cost for most people. The mid-1960's was aperiod when there was much talk, writing and scale evidencethat we were well on the way to becoming a "workless soci-ety"--beset by the problems of automation. The advice bythe futurist of those days, people like Don Michael, RobertTheobold and others was that a great bulk of the labor forcewould all be automated out of their jobs. Therefore, therewasn't much need for job preparation or placement.

It In A4ard to assess the real impact of these and otherpast conditions, but there are clear signs that the realityof the labor market, economic indicators and shifting popu-lation trends have once again made it necessary to emphasizeplacement. The watch words of today are characterized by:

Equal Emi,yment and Pay Demands by Women and Blacks

" ited Work Er:Deriences Fr7q: Teel': Age Youth

The ighest Unemployment Ir. 40 Ye,-ars

Conrn for Mid-Career Job Chances

A GrDwinc N=ber of Underemployed

Tnzre.,sed Clamor for Accountability in Public andPrivate Programs

In additio:n to the general social indicators just noted,there are some rather specific calls for placement procramswhich are at various levels of influence development.

National Level

:laticnal level, bIlls introduced in both the

H.c,use and the Senate call for greater attention to placement

t7.th as part of proposed revision of Career Education and

37

4 5

Vocational Education legislation. Recently though, SenatorLloyd Bentsen (D - Texas) has introduced comprehensive legis-lation regarding the single subject of placement--S2777 TheYouth Employment Act. If enacted, this legislation woulddramatically alter placement services in schools.

Two national leaders, John Sawhill, President of New YorkUniversity, and William Norris, Chairman of the Board ofControl Data Corporation writing in the Special Career Edu-cation section of the November 16, 1975, New York Timescandidly called for more career help for people at all agesand stages throughout life. They both emphasize e-2velop-mental rather than short term "next step help."

There is continuing indication of expanding national sup-port for career education, which by definition includes theconcept of a vital placement service. A recent Gallup Poll,for example, showed public sentiment in support of careereducation at the 90% level.

The National Advisory Council on Vocational Education(1972) has since its Sixth Annual Report in 1972 called forincreased emphasis on placement in schools. Many of theState Advisory Councils like ours in Virginia have calledfor similar redirection. Collectively they represent a con-siderable nAtion-wide body of opinion.

Evidence of Student Interest

While there have been substantial indicators of organ-ized public support for increased placement services, at thesame time there is growing student concern generally abouttheir career development and specifically about placementhelp. Probably the national study which reflected this con-cern most clearly was that conducted by the American CollegeTesting Program (1973). The ACT research found overwhelmingneeds expressed by students in the career planning and jobplacement areas. Actually these came just about at the topof the list of needs students felt the schools were not pro-viding for them.

At the state level a number of studies report the sameresults--Tennessee (1973) , California ;1975), and Missouri(1975) to mention three. In a widely discussed study con-ducted in Virginia for the State Advisory Counzil for Voca-tional Education (1974) nearly identical results were found.Students wanted and needed more career pning help andspecific information about jcb intervieng and job oppor-tunities.

483S

Just today the Roanoke Times (1976) reported on the jobplacement program at William Fleming High School. In afollow-up program with graduates there were strong state-ments of support for the placement service and a clear ex-pression of need for r.ore assistance in funding employmentand additional vocationaA. counseling help.

So, the call To Place Not to Misolace seems to be sound-ing loud and clear throughout the land. The trend of recentevents point to this as well as strong support in both pub-lic policy changes on the drawing board or in action andstudent requests for placement help. It is this clarioncall for placement assistance for all people which must bethe fundamental basis for our long range humanistic re-

sponse. In short, because it is the right thing to do forthe students we serve.

Reactions from Education Community

Hicher Education

Most colleges and universities have long sensed theimportance of an active placement program. Even in the bestof times they have provided a forum for graduating studentsand employers to arrange mail contacts, interviews, and the

like (Change, 1975) . Now in the current rejuvination ofinterest in the field there is a greatly expanded placement

effort. In many instances new developmental linkages are

being forged between counseling and placement centers. A

more developmental approach is being emphasized as itsplacement need of special groups such as women and minor-

ities. The December 15, 1975, issue of U.S. News and WorldReport (1975) cited the enlarged efforts of colleges anduniversities to assist students to find the best -,7enue to

an appropriate career. They reported on over 100 credit and

non-credit type courses to aid in this process clprently in

try-out form. A Columbia University program is most often

cited for its DIG (for Deeper Investigation of Gro,...th) pro-

gram in which considerable time is devoted to serious job

hunting techniques.

Menke and Redgner (1975), both of Arizona Statc Univer-sity, report in the Winter, 1975, issue of the Jourral of

College Placement on what they see as a greatly e::::nded

role for placement in their institution a,id pr3p e a model

for others to follow. In addition to a :omp7-711,...- .ive all-

university role, they outline new ways to reip.xld and to be

responsive to faculty, students and aluani wich currentinformation concerning placement.

39

7

Another interesting effort is a consortium of smallprivate mid-western colleges which have banned together intoa joint placement service for students. Bob McClary headsthis cooperative in Sioux City, Iowa.

The role of placement in the community colleges, inVirginia and elsewhere, is somewhat less clear. There aresome indications now though of greatly increased attention.Every community college in Virginia now appears to have sometype of organized placement activity. Wytheville CommunityCollege, under the leadership of Bill Jennings, is in thesecond year of a pilot program to expand and enlarge itsentire placement service to students. Initial results ap-pe:Ir 1;romising and may well provide a model for the stateand indeed the nation.

Mary Glenn (1973) has outlined an excellent set of guide-lines en how to organize the placement and follow-up ser-vices in the community college and why. She clearly impliesit may well be the single most important institutional non-teaching function in the community college.

Secondary Schools

The reaction to an evident increased demand for place-ment services in secondary schools has been mixed at best.Placement services where they have been well done seem togenuinely show a solid public support. An outstandingexample of this was an intensive placement effort in Detroiton hard to place individuals. Another success is reportedin Oak Ridge, Tennessee (Worth, 1973) , in the Training andTechnology Program (TAT for short) . Here an extremely closerelationship developed between the teaching and the place-ment effort and a high degree of satisfaction over a six-year period is reported.

Special programs for handicapped young people of scnoolage have been reported as being especially effective. Aspecial case of close cooperation with Vocational Rehabili-tation has resulted in very high placement success in thenear-by Roanoke Ciunty Occupational School. Similar successztcries have been cited in Battle Creek, Michigan, and East-lake, Ohio. Cooperation between Vocational Rehabilitationcounseling and zchocls nas frequently yielded promisingresults (USOZ, 1975).

The bLst :esults at the loal level in Vir,linia seem tcbe in,:pir2d =ily by te of state or federal funding.Many of these prc are .need developing sone goodmodels for use thruio t state, but overall there has

A 13

40

not been a dramatic shift toward enlarged programs. Per-haps sensing this, the 1975 session of the General Assemblypassed Senate Bill 647, which directs all Virginia highschools to make available for its students beginning inSeptember of 1976 Placement Services (General Assembly,1975). The implications of this legislatioa are, of course,enormous. What has happened is that a state governing bodyhas felt so strongly about the need for a school programthey ordered it. Similar action h