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$100 to $4,500 and averaged nearly $1,200 annually for the courses offered by the members of NATTS in 1966.

Aspects of Instruction

The instruction in private vocational schools is highly specialized, with a view to the final employment objective. Therefore, the schools maintain close but informal contacts with employers. Course content is readily modified to reflect pertinent changes that are reported to school officials by employers. Decisions to add improved facilities can also be made rapidly and directly. This differs from the delays often encountered by public schools and colleges that must seek approval from school boards or legislatures.

Training is provided in a job-simulated setting. Visual aids and operative equipment of all types are typically more important than textbooks. Classroom or lecture instruction is usually followed immediately by supplementary training in the school shop, laboratory, kitchen, or "department store" in order to demonstrate the practical application of theoretical concepts. Most schools also arrange student visits to plants and offices. Modest home assignments are required for many courses because only those theoretical concepts which are relevant to the performance of a job are taught.

The emphasis upon the functional phases of instruction represents more than an adaptation to the actual requirements of an ultimate job. It also reflects the minimum level of formal education that is required for admission to the schools. A substantial percentage of all schools accept students who have not completed high school. At least 10 percent of the business schools offer a minimum of one course that calls for less than a high school education for admission. Approximately 40 percent of the trade and technical schools provide at least one course that does not require completion of high school. Educational requirements for admission to barber and cosmetology schools are lower still; less than 10 percent of these schools require high school graduation or its equivalent.

The private vocational schools have also devised methods for motivating many of their students who found the general education program in high school unstimulating. Hence, course materials are presented in short, sequential units which reinforce previously learned materials. A sense of achievement is experienced by the typical student because he is informed of his progress on a continuing basis rather than at the conclusion of a

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Another significant aspect of the instruction offered by many of the schools is the provision of training at various levels of accomplishment within related occupations. For instance, in one school students may shift their concentration from a radio-television repair course to a more advanced course in electronics technology, or vice versa, depending on their demonstrated aptitudes and interests. Some schools even provide courses in different occupational fields and permit students to alter their specialty course. These options are, of course, advantageous to students who would otherwise fail their course or else be compelled to accept the dissatisfactions of employment in an occupation that is not their first preference.

A final feature of the instruction is the result of course selectivity among the generally self-financing students. Since the students select occupational courses which they prefer, they are much more likely to be motivated than they would be in the absence of such free choice. Concomitantly, the previously mentioned components of the instruction have such a strong appeal for the students that they contribute per se to rather high student motivation. Dr. David P. Ausubel is authoritative in supporting this type of instruction:

Psychologists have been emphasizing the motivation- learning and
the interest-activity sequence of cause and effect for so long that
they tend to overlook their reciprocal aspects. Since motivation
is not an indispensable condition for short-term and
limited-quantity learning, it is not necessary to postpone learning
activities until appropriate interests and motivations have been
developed.7

Evaluation: A Continuing Need

The ultimate value of instruction in private vocational schools is demonstrated both through the graduates' success in finding training-related positions, and in their occupational progress during their working careers. Only partial assessments of student achievement have, however, been made.8 In any case, since schools change their curricula and teaching staffs or simply fail to adopt important changes initiated by other schools, a continuing means of evaluating the training schools must be available.

7"A Teaching Strategy for Culturally Deprived Pupils," in Miller and Smiley, eds., Education in the Metropolis (New York: The Free Press, 1967), p. 293.

8Dr. Kenneth B. Hoyt's Specialty Oriented Student Research Program at the University of Maryland is virtually the only source for such findings.

Accreditation or evaluation of most private vocational schools is voluntary, as it is for all types of education in the United States. States do establish hygienic rules for barber and cosmetology schools; and state and federal laws determine the scope of training for a limited number of technical occupations, including certified pipewelder, commercial pilot, ship radio officer, and tractor-trailer driver. Generally, however, business, trade, and technical schools are evaluated by private accrediting organizations.

Accrediting teams evaluate a school on the basis of its success in achieving the purposes and objectives the school has set for itself. About 500 out of an estimated 1,300 business schools are members of the United Business Schools Association (UBSA), sponsor of a recognized accrediting body which has accredited about 250 schools. Schools that are not accredited by September 1970 will no longer be eligible for active membership. In contrast, only about 10 percent of all trade and technical schools are members of NATTS, which received its accrediting status from the US. Commissioner of Education in 1967, two years after the Association's establishment.

A "visiting team" from NATTS or UBSA is the principal effective body for evaluating private vocational schools. The team, consisting of technical specialists (industry representatives, educators, and school owners) who are not affiliated with the school under consideration, verifies the school's claims regarding its courses or programs. A check is made of a school's business practices, including job placement records and student recruitment procedures, especially when the school's recruiting representatives work on a commission basis. Student impressions are secured through random interviews.

A NATTS member school must seek accreditation for any newly acquired affiliate, and an accredited school must apply for evaluation of any new course.

An accrediting body examines graduate placement records at the time of accreditation, upon receipt of detailed annual reports, and at five-year reevaluation intervals. In general, practically all schools provide a placement service for their graduates, and a great majority offer the service "for life." The placement ratio (percentage of a school's graduates placed in jobs by a school) has, however, not been determined with any firm accuracy. Of course, many of the students are indirectly helped by the schools to find jobs: more or less formal sessions are conducted on how to prospect for work, and visits to schools by recruiters from industrial concerns afford students an early and convenient start in job-searching.

School followup of students after graduation is a crucial means of determining the percentage of students who secured training-related jobs and their occupational progress over the years. Most schools follow up their graduates for one year; but only about 20 percent of the schools gather information on their graduates' employment progress after the first year. It would seem, therefore, that private vocational schools-as well as most other educational and training institutions-could improve their followup procedures and, in turn, provide accrediting teams with additional important evidence for evaluating the schools.

In the absence of dependable data on the employment experiences of private vocational school graduates, only indirect and qualified impressions are possible. In the first place, the utilization of the schools under numerous government-financed training programs represents a measure of the confidence placed in the courses, teachers, and managements. Second, close contacts between the schools and employers are likely to ensure the presentation of "relevant" training. Third, graduates recommend the schools to others, and in fact they are a principal source of new students; thus they must have been pleased with the training and employment received.9

In addition to the practical advantages of accreditation, such as detached evaluation and suggestions for improving a school's functioning, accreditation draws attention to competent schools and strengthens their competitive position with counselors and prospective students. Also, poor schools may be forced to improve their teaching standards, purchase necessary equipment, and generally raise their capital base.

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The importance of voluntary accreditation is especially apparent when it is noted that less than half of all states license the operations of private vocational schools and that a considerably smaller percentage of the states carefully evaluate instructional courses.10 Principal interests of the regulating states include: financial structure (e.g., requirement to post bond), teacher qualifications, course outlines, adequacy of equipment, student contracts, and advertising claims.

9Belitsky, op. cit., p. 125.

Eighty-five percent of about 1,100 surveyed students gave their schools at least an "average" rating.

10"Licensing is nothing more than a permit to do business, having regard generally to safety and commercial standards. Certification, on the other hand, is generally related to curriculum, instructional staff, facilities, etc...." See R. Fulton, "Proprietary Schools," Encyclopedia of Educational Research, 4th ed.

In general, the inspection of private schools by most state supervisors is less thorough than that of a NATTS accrediting team. Each state supervisor in even the larger states frequently must oversee a sizable number of schools. New York and possibly a few other states utilize subject specialists in their evaluative inspections when a school introduces a new course. According to New York law, each course must be reevaluated every five years; this is similar to a NATTS provision.

Most of the 20 states that regulate private schools require instructors to have work experience, ranging from two years in Colorado to eight years in Massachusetts, in the vocation that they are teaching. Usually work experience is an alternative to formal education, and no state requires more than a high school education. However, a survey of instructors in the member schools of NATTS disclosed that about 60 percent of the instructors actually had some college education and more than one-third of the total had at least four years of college education.11 The larger independent schools, plus those operated as subsidiaries of corporations, often pay the tuition of their instructors enrolled part time in college courses that are related to their teaching fields.

Instructors' Roles

It is noteworthy that numerous policies regarding instructors in private vocational schools are still exceptional cases or experiments in other schools. For instance, most private schools consider a sizable number of student failures in one instructor's course, or in several of his courses over time, an indication of the instructor's failure.

Instructors in private vocational schools are urged to consider their students as "clients," not "charges." An important financial accountability, therefore, resides with the school and its instructors. The supervisor of a school for electronics technicians once observed that each prospective instructor must be critically evaluated, since the referrals of former students account for at least 50 percent of a school's student body. The schools are convinced that creditable teaching performances can be ensured by making teaching capability the main criterion for reward and advancement; and instructors are not usually given tenure.

11Seven hundred and twenty-six full-time and part-time instructors were included in the 65 schools responding. See E.L. Johnson, A Descriptive Survey of Teachers of Private Trade and Technical Schools Associated with the National Association of Trade and Technical Schools, doctoral dissertation submitted to The George Washington University; reproduced in part by Griswold Institute Print Shop, Cleveland, 1967, pp. 57, 70.

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