As we have seen, the advocates of school-to-work programs (Steinberg, 1998; Stern et al., 1995) make many claims about what sorts of learning students can accomplish. In Chapter 5, we addressed the claim that work experience reinforces academic learning-and found mixed evidence for that claim. Other proponents (see Hamilton, 1990; Pauly et al., 1995) argue that students can explore and plan careers through school-to-work programs. We looked at that possibility in Chapter 6, and discovered some support for it. In the preceding chapter, we reviewed claims about the impact of work-based learning on adolescent development, and generally found that, although the issue is more complex than popular rhetoric suggests, the program has significant potential in that realm.