Bridging alternative and regular education: a look at how the state standards link the career and academic worlds shows educators how other key linkages could be created in our schools.

This year, our California State Board of Education approved a group of about 5,000 Career Technical Standards covering areas as varied as E-commerce, animal science, food purchasing and wardrobe planning.

Someone--most likely many "someones"--with a stroke of farsighted as well as sound thinking, connected California's academic content standards to the career technical standards. The result is that each section of the career technical standards is built on a foundation of academic standards

For example, the English Language Arts standard, "Generate relevant questions about readings on issues that can be researched," serves as a foundation standard for the Fashion and Interior Design pathway standard,

"Know how such resources as periodicals, mass media, and the Internet are used in the [fashion] industry." It's a powerful linking of the "career" and "academic" worlds.

Linking alternative and regular education

This got me thinking about the link between "alternative" and "regular" education. Obviously, there could be no "alternative" if there wasn't first a "regular," but think of what might be created if we could design the links as carefully as the bridge between the career and academic standards.

What might it do for CAHSEE pass rates if students understood not only that algebra, but also which algebra, is involved in the background when Google completes a search? What might it do for a regular education class when an alternative school student decides to earn his or her "merit badge" in science literacy by earning an "A" in a physics course?

What might it do for everyone if adult education and middle school students learned technology skills together? Could such blending create alternatives within "regular" education?

Which causes one to wonder about the need for "alternatives" in the first place. John Chubb of The Brookings Institute and Terry Moe of Stanford University are frequent spokespersons for a movement to allow the marketplace to control public education.

They explain that in our current system, the control of even a single public school is held by a formal hierarchy of federal, state and local governments and that, by design, schools are not in control of the parents and students who attend them.

Every school an "alternative"

They reason that private schools must operate from a different set of principles, because those that use them have the "exit option"--that is, they can move on if the school doesn't meet their needs. Chubb and Moe advocate that such an exit option could well serve public education, and, therefore, argue for vouchers that could be spent at the school of choice--hence, every school becomes an "alternative."

There are many, including me, who agree with Chubb and Moe up to a point. We understand the benefit of putting a local school in true control of those that it serves, but also balk at allowing the market to be the means of achieving this.

In small part this concern is due to a fear of the unknown, but in much greater measure it arises from a solid commitment to social justice and the observation that the market, when left alone, has not responded to the needs of the poor or the oppressed.

This way of reasoning leads to a commitment to alternative education with a belief that the lessons learned there will benefit every public (and private, even marketplace) school.

George Manthey is a professional learning executive for ACSA.