distinguished from the overall secondary school population. There is little data n the economic value of vocational education or on the relevance of vocational education to the labor market.
The authors discusses the Four Pillars, the main assumptions that have been made about current secondary school reform. These are: longer school days, longer school years, more rigorous standards for high school graduation, and heightened requirements for entrance to college. These represent the most common elements of reform across the states. They follow certain assumptions about school reform, and from the assumptions one can move to policy prescriptions of longer days and longer school years.
The author applies the four pillars to high schools and offers an alternate approach he calls "high schools with
character" or HSC. A consideration of the needs of high schools lead
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