Congress finds that -

(1)

three-fourths of high school students in the United States enter the workforce without baccalaureate degrees, and many do not possess the academic and entry-level occupational skills necessary to succeed in the changing United States workplace;

(2)

a substantial number of youths in the United States, especially disadvantaged students, students of diverse racial, ethnic, and cultural backgrounds, and students with disabilities, do not complete high school;

(3)

unemployment among youths in the United States is intolerably high, and earnings of high school graduates have been falling relative to earnings of individuals with more education;

(4)

the workplace in the United States is changing in response to heightened international competition and new technologies, and such forces, which are ultimately beneficial to the Nation, are shrinking the demand for and undermining the earning power of unskilled labor;

(5)

the United States lacks a comprehensive and coherent system to help its youths acquire the knowledge, skills, abilities, and information about and access to the labor market necessary to make an effective transition from school to career-oriented work or to further education and training;

(6)

students in the United States can achieve high academic and occupational standards, and many learn better and retain more when the students learn in context, rather than in the abstract;

(7)

while many students in the United States have part-time jobs, there is infrequent linkage between -

(A)

such jobs; and

(B)

the career planning or exploration, or the school-based learning, of such students;

(8)

the work-based learning approach, which is modeled after the time-honored apprenticeship concept, integrates theoretical instruction with structured on-the-job training, and this approach, combined with school-based learning, can be very effective in engaging student interest, enhancing skill acquisition, developing positive work attitudes, and preparing youths for high-skill, high-wage careers;

(9)

Federal resources currently fund a series of categorical, work-related education and training programs, many of which serve disadvantaged youths, that are not administered as a coherent whole; and

(10)

in 1992 approximately 3,400,000 individuals in the United States age 16 through 24 had not completed high school and were not currently enrolled in school, a number representing approximately 11 percent of all individuals in this age group, which indicates that these young persons are particularly unprepared for the demands of a 21st century workforce