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How is career planning situation in middle and high school in US?

I am from China. Now I am working to find out the advantages of adolescent career planning in the middle and high school in the U.S. I think this will benefit the development of Chinese students. Now I need some advice! (1) Does the government play a positive role in adolescent career planning? Is there any website describing the detailed information? (2) Does every middle school or high school have vocational counselors? If students go to ask for advice, what will the counselors do? Will they give personality assessment for the students? (3) Will the students and parents go to specialized institutions for further advices?

Public Comments

1. Because our country basically turns education over to individual states there is not federal program for career planning in middle and high schools. Having said that there is a wonderful initiative called Making Middle Grades Work/High Schools That Work in which a key practice is Guidance. In guidance teachers work with students during what is called Advisor/Advisee in which students do career research and other activities to help the student decide what a good choice for him/her as a vocation may be. Once a student has an idea of what he/she may be interested, the school sets up a system called Acadamies. In acadamies there are courses of study and the suggested classes that a student should take. For example, if a student knows he or she is interested in the medical field, then they should take the classes suggested for those going into a medical field. Many states, Ohio being one, have made this inititive a priority, therfore the state offers grant money to schools who implement the program. As for parent involvement, under Advisor/Advisee, parents are to come to the school and talk with thier child's advisor, along with their child, and then the parent's signature is required for the student to register for classes. Having been a part of HSTW in the past, I have knowledge of it, but you may get more information by visiting the following web site: http://www.hstw.org/index.html. However, let me just say that HSTW does not require that any school do all of the key practices, nor do they tell a school how to implement the key practices. Each school can taylor them to fit the school. Although, at workshops they give many examples of how other schools implement the different key practices.
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