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U.S. Code as of:
01/19/04
Section 6101. Findings
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.
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