ABSTRACT
During the 1990s, the United States economy enjoyed an unprecedented period of growth and low unemployment. Although the economy began to cool off at the turn of the century, even during the height of the boom, large sections of the nation’s educational system remained in deep trouble. Increasingly, young people without some post-secondary education could not expect to earn enough money to support a family; yet large numbers of people still failed to finish high school, and another third who earned their school degree did not acquire any additional education (U.S. Department of Education, 2000a). Moreover, many high school graduates did not have high school level skills-hundreds of thousands of students entering post-secondary schools had to take remedial instruction to prepare them for college-level work (U.S. Department of Education, 1999). Beyond these well-known problems, researchers found that most high school students were not engaged in their schooling and made an effort only so that they could get into college (Johnson, Farkas, & Bers, 1997). Learning was often far down their list of priorities. Yet almost all students who finish high school can gain access to some post-secondary institution. Therefore, many students do not see strong incentives for working hard in high school (Rosenbaum, 1997).
