§ 16-80-2. Findings.
The general assembly has found and declares that:
(1) Three-fourths (¾) of adults in the Rhode Island workforce lack a baccalaureate degree,
and many do not possess the academic and entry-level occupational skills necessary
to succeed in the changing workplace;
(2) Twenty-eight percent (28%) of youths, ages sixteen (16) to twenty-four (24) in Rhode
Island, especially disadvantaged students, students of diverse racial, ethnic and
cultural backgrounds, and students with disabilities, do not complete high school;
(3) Unemployment among youths, ages sixteen (16) to nineteen (19) in Rhode Island averaged
eighteen and six-tenths percent (18.6%) in 1994, an intolerably high percentage, and
earnings of high school graduates have been declining in relationship to earnings
of individuals with post-secondary degrees;
(4) The workplace in the United States and especially in Rhode Island is changing in response
to heightened international competition and new technologies, and these forces, which
are ultimately beneficial to the nation, are shrinking the demand for and undermining
the earning power of unskilled labor;
(5) Rhode Island lacks a comprehensive and coherent system to help its youth 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 Rhode Island can achieve higher 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 Rhode Island have part-time jobs, there is infrequent linkage
between:
(i) These jobs, and
(ii) The career planning or exploration or the school-based learning of 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 1990, approximately sixteen thousand seven hundred forty-one (16,741) individuals
in Rhode Island, ages sixteen (16) through twenty-four (24), had not completed high
school and were not currently enrolled in school, a population representing approximately
twenty-eight percent (28%) of all individuals in this age group which indicates that
these young persons are particularly unprepared for the demands of the twenty-first
century.