NYSED Navigation •
NYSED
HOME • SEARCH • TOPICS, A-Z •
CONTACT NYSED
VESID
Navigation • VESID Home •
News •
Publications
Vocational and
Educational Services for Individuals with Disabilities (VESID)
Special Education and Vocational
Rehabilitation Services
Page 2 - Go to: Index | Page 1 | Page 2 | Page 3 | Page 4 | Page 5
The Post School Status of Former Special Education Students
In The Big Five Cities
Working Conditions: Individuals who were working at the time of the interview include those attending postsecondary education while working and those working but not attending postsecondary education. The majority of these former special education students who were working held paid, competitive jobs (85 percent), primarily in clerical or sales occupations or service occupations such as food and beverage services or building maintenance services.
-On the positive side, competitively employed former students with disabilities were:
4 Earning above the minimum wage (57 percent);
4 Happy with their job (75 percent); and,
4 Employed continuously all or most of the time since exiting school (57 percent).
-Areas of concern include that competitively employed special education students were:
4 Working part-time, i.e., less than 37.5 hours/week (53 percent);
4 Receiving paid leave benefits for 38 percent of the time;
4 Receiving health insurance benefits 25 percent of the time; and,
4 Working at unskilled jobs (69 percent).
Preparation for Employment: In addition to greater participation in general education curriculum to improve the academic achievement necessary for competing successfully in the labor market of the future, students' career preparation may include training in specific occupations and overall awareness of workplace expectations. Such additional opportunities for career learning may include specific occupational education course sequences and community-based career education experiences such as School to Work, job shadowing, Cooperative Education, Special Education Community Based Instruction; and paid or volunteer work experiences.
Figure 2 shows that students with disabilities from the Big Five City school districts participated less often in career preparation activities during high school and transitioned to employment less often than did the reference group.
42 percent of former special education students who participated in any of the career preparation options were competitively employed a year after exiting school, as compared with 27 percent of former special education students who participated in no career preparation options.
Figure 3 shows that having either paid or unpaid work experience during high school contributed to higher wages, more frequent employment, more continuous post school employment and being happier with the job. This finding is consistent with the 1996 Post School Indicators findings.
Having a paid work experience was especially valuable. Students who reported having a paid work experience while attending high school were competitively employed a year after school exit at a much higher rate (51 percent) than students who did not report having such experiences (28 percent).
Finding Jobs: Former students who were competitively employed at the time of the 1997 interviews reported finding their jobs in slightly different ways from the reference group. Students with disabilities who were successful in finding community employment relied more often on their special education teachers than their vocational education teachers and more often on community rehabilitation resources than on the community employment networks used by the reference group. All students relied heavily on themselves, family and friends for assistance in connecting with jobs.
Still Looking For Work: Compared with the reference group, nearly four times as many former special education students from the Big Five Cities were still looking for work a year after school exit (5 percent versus 18 percent, respectively).
Among former special education students who had exited by dropping out, approximately one in three was still looking for work (36 percent) versus nearly one in five of all students with disabilities (18 percent).
80 percent of those students with disabilities still looking for work were minorities, compared with 69 percent of all students with disabilities who were minorities.
Former special education students who were still looking for work could find jobs but not keep them. Data show that 25 percent worked at and lost one job during the year and 21 percent worked at and lost two to four jobs during the preceding year.
26 percent of the former special education students who were still looking for work felt that neither high school staff nor high school programs had been helpful in preparing them to succeed in life.
Former special education students who were still looking for work were asked what schools could do to best prepare students to succeed in life. Their top three recommendations were to allow or help a student to find a job and work for school credit; make classes more practical and useful to students' lives; and help students address personal and other problems.
Page 2 - Go to: Index | Page 1 | Page 2 | Page 3 | Page 4 | Page 5
New York State Education Department
|