Recognizing the difficult time most youths face in finding a good job after high school graduation, the Austin (Texas) Independent School District developed strategies to improve the transition. A high level of collaborative activity was already underway in Austin between the school district and the community, but most programs had been started without linkage to each other or to the curriculum or instructional practices. Recommendations were made to design a system that would do the following: (1) improve career foundations (enhanced basic skills, thinking skills, personal traits, and career awareness and exploration for all youth; to develop learning and training records and career passports to document and signal career foundations, achievements, and experience); and (2) develop learning and training paths from high school into career opportunities in the workplace. Key principles underlying this strategy are to improve communication between industry and school personnel and to link work opportunities to effort and achievement in school, thereby strengthening incentives for students to learn. A proposal was made to implement the program with one school feeder school system in the district as a model. (Contains 189 references.) (KC)

Higher Education in Texas is the first book to tell the history, defining events, and critical participants in the development of higher education in Texas from approximately 1838 to 1970. Charles Matthews, Chancellor Emeritus of the Texas State University System, begins the story with the land grant policies of the Spanish, Mexicans, Republic of Texas, and the State of Texas that led to the growth of Texas. Religious organizations supplied the first of many colleges, years before the Texas Legislature began to fund and support public colleges and universities. Matthews devotes a chapter to the junior/community colleges and their impact on providing a low-cost education alternative for local students. These community colleges also played a major role in economic development in their communities. Further chapters explore the access and equity in educating women, African Americans, and Hispanics.