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Home > Blogs > Get on the Bus > Archives > 2008 > January > 30
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
America’s worst jobs (and the kids who work them)
(Young workers at the counter of an A&W American fast food restaurant in Bellbrook in a 2002 DDN file photo.)
I’ve written here before about how Americans romanticize teen-age jobs and fervently believe they build character and work ethic while several studies suggest after school jobs lower grades and result in bad behavior. No other county expects its teenagers to work the way we do. Elsewhere around the world teens are expected to commit themselves to study in those years and avoid distraction.
I was thinking about this earlier this week when I came across a list of the 10 worst jobs in America. Some examples — restaurant hosts, food concession workers, ticket takers, waiters and life guards.
What do all those jobs have in common? Oh yeah — those are exactly the jobs many of our kids slave away at for hours each week.
As I’ve written before, I am not against jobs for teens. I think the right after school job can have great benefits. But it’s these bad jobs — low pay, bad working conditions and physically exhausting work in some cases — that most teens end up in.
If the choice is between a bad job and no job but more study time, are millions of kids making the wrong choice to work at fast food restaurants and movie theaters?
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A science high school for the Dayton area
In Monday’s paper I wrote about an effort locally to open a specialty high school focused on science, technology, engineering and math that would open on the campus of Wright State University in 2009 if the proposal gets funding from the state.
The conventional wisdom is that Dayton has a strong plan and a very strong science and math organizational structure thanks to EDvention, a collaborative of universities, school districts and private industry trying to improve math and science instruction. It’s school proposal seems likely to earn funding.
It’s interesting that only a few school districts have signed on to be full partners in this effort. The downside for districts is they lose students — and the state aid that follows them — when kids choose the science high school. Some districts may fear losing money and top students.
But those kids can leave anyway. Under state law, the school can enroll any students from Montgomery, Greene or Clark counties, regardless of whether their home districts agree, and the state money goes with them — much like a charter school. And under state rules the districts have to provide transportation and allow students to participate in sports and activities in their “home” districts. And the science high school will enroll a maximum of 600 students in grades 6 to 12 from three counties, which doesn’t seem like enough to hurt any one district too badly.
The plans for the school are very ambitious. Developers hope that college faculty will join classroom teachers to instruct the students and build curriculum that can be spread to interested school districts. They hope the school’s students will study and work (thourgh internships) at science-based companies in the area, in Wright State’s science labs and at the highly regarded Wright-Patterson Air Force Base research labs.
West Carrollton Superintendent Rusty Clifford says in the story that he is thrilled his kids could get this opportunity and enthusiastically signed up as a partner. But other districts — notably big suburbans like Centerville, Kettering, Northmont, Oakwood, Beavercreek and Bellbrook — are missing from the partner list.
So is Dayton, which is developing a science-oriented career technical school in partnership with Sinclair Community College. Superintendent Percy Mack told me the district hopes to forge partnerships between that school and the proposed school at Wright State. But Dayton’s school will have more of a techinical training focus and the district has been asked — and so far declined — to join as a full partner with the school at Wright State.
Developers of the science high school hope more districts will come along if the school gets state funding and moves closer to launching.
What do you think of this idea of a specialty science high school for the Dayton area? Would you consider sending your children to such a school?
(Image credit: PBS.org)
Permalink | Comments (22) | Categories: Teaching and Learning
