Beyond College for All: Career Paths for the Forgotten Half (review)

In this highly readable volume, James Rosenbaum compiles an impressive and diverse array of empirical analyses to argue that the school-to-work problems facing "the forgotten half" of high school students stem from a combination of the actions and perceptions of students, educators, and employers. Misinformation, student disengagement, and lack of trust between schools and employers are all responsible for the problems in the youth labor market. The author contends that fostering trusted and reciprocal linkages between schools and employers, some of which exist informally today, is key to resolving these problems.

After discussing the shortcomings of segmented labor market, human capital, and signaling theory, Rosenbaum maintains that network theories are most productive for explaining problems of the school-to-work transition. Thereafter, several chapters provide a detailed examination of the actions that American students, educators, and employers take to affect the youth work-entry process.

Chapter 3 focuses on students. Using survey and interview data for Chicago-area high school students and High School and Beyond data, it reveals that: (1) youth believe that school achievement is not relevant to their future, (2) many students who think they are college bound are really work bound, and (3) students' "no penalty" beliefs are wrong — high school grades are strong predictors of educational attainment and earnings. Thus, the "college for all" norm that is prevalent in American high schools today is confusing and deceptive for many youth in that it encourages students to plan for college regardless of their past achievement.

Chapter 4 investigates guidance counselors' inability to address the problem. As counselors have lost authority (to structured curriculums and proactive parents), they have increasingly promoted the "college for all" norm, to the detriment of non-college-bound students.

Using interviews with 51 Chicago-area employers, chapters 5, 6, and 7 focus on employers' perceptions and hiring practices. Results indicate that most employers need youth with skills and go to great lengths to recruit and retain skilled workers. Nonetheless, employers tend to disregard grades and other information from schools in their hiring decisions. This greatly reduces students' incentives to put forth effort in high school. Rosenbaum contends that employers do not use information from schools because there are few social networks through which employers can access trustworthy and relevant information about students.

The remaining chapters focus on high schools. Chapter 8 demonstrates that students' noncognitive behaviors in high school matter for their subsequent educational attainment and earnings. Chapters 9 and 10 report on informal "hidden" linkages between some schools and employers that help non-college-bound students get jobs. These chapters reveal that vocational teachers and job placement offices in some American high schools do help students, especially disadvantaged students, get good jobs. By recognizing and encouraging such informal school-employer linkages, all interested parties — schools, employers, and work-bound students — stand to benefit.

The book claims to "explore new questions about American work-entry practices and makes new discoveries about students, employers and high schools." No doubt the findings reported here are important, but they are not necessarily new, as 7 of the 12 chapters have appeared elsewhere as published articles in the past decade. In and of itself, this is not a serious flaw, but many of the chapters remain structured like articles and are not as integrated as they could be. Though each chapter can stand on its own, this format diminishes the force of the book's main thesis and makes for some repetitive reading from cover to cover.

This shortcoming does not diminish the main contributions of this book: its sweeping empirical scope, innovative theorizing, thought-provoking policy implications, and focus on a neglected segment of American youth. The writing is accessible for a broad audience. Most of the chapters are based on qualitative interview and survey data; the three chapters that use quantitative, statistical data are presented clearly...