rams. One such program was a School to Work Act. In the 1958-1959 school year, the Soviet Union passed new reform laws that required all pupils in the three senior grades of the secondary schools to work in Soviet factories or farms for one-third of their school time (Noah). In other words, every two days out of six, the students would go to work in area businesses instead of going to class. The students were required to acquire qualifications in two different trades before they could obtain their school-leaving certificates. Soviet enterprises had to provide and pay for special clothing, materials, machine time, training, tools, and space used by the students (Noah).Unfortunately, there were some major drawbacks to this project. In order to meet the extra demands made on curriculum by labor-training, secondary education periods were increased by one year. This increase raised the direct ruble costs of education for the State budget. Also, the invasion of factories and farms by young trainees caused many disturbances in regular routines. Managers wanted to either cut down on training costs by keeping the students working at a particular job or to use pupils for jobs where regular workers were hard to find. The educational staff wanted students to enjoy the highest level and most variety of work experience available. The students wanted either easy assignments or high paying jobs and did not want to change duties. Even the money that funded the program was wasted because the training turned out hundreds of thousands of poorly-skilled students who had no intentions of ever going into the field in which they had been engaged. In 1964-1965, the Soviet Minister of Education announced that the program would be cut from three years to two years (Noah).Meanwhile, in the United States School to Work ideas were beginning to flourish. A Nation at Risk broadcast in 1983 announced that schools were not adequately preparing students for...
