Reflections on the Past and Thoughts About the Future of the Transition Field

Career/Vocational and Academic Division

The national educational initiative articulated in the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB, 2002) that emphasizes academic performance on standardized tests above all other outcome indicators is connected in some way with growing efforts to increase the number of graduates from public schools to enter and succeed at some sort of postsecondary education. Oregon, for example, has recently instituted the “40–40–20 plan,” which calls for the state to have 40% of its adult workforce earning a college degree, 40% an associate’s degree, and 20% a high school diploma by 2025.

How these initiatives are to be funded, and how they fit businesses and careers of the future, is fuzzy to my way of thinking. Moreover, advanced degrees do not necessarily lead to better jobs, especially in the current economic climate (Carnevale, 2011; Carnevale, Cheah, & Strohl, 2012), not all careers demand the same level of academic performance, and many individuals with learning difficulties are able to use different strategies to address their own unique learning challenges (Murray, 2002; Rutter, 1985, 1987). These initiatives also do not seem to address our public educational system’s and society’s great strength for fostering creativity, a characteristic of the United States that allows us to lead the world in copyrights and economic prosperity despite the poor performance of our students on various international standardized tests (Zhao, 2009).

I also think that the academic initiatives run contrary to (a) the realities and costs of affecting educational outcomes in such major ways in public schools struggling to meet day-to-day obligations with ever-decreasing fiscal support and (b) the strong confidence I—and I think others—have in the power of vocational training to improve school completion for students with disabilities and prepare them for adult life. I have spoken with superintendents throughout the United States who stated that they were loath to support secondary-based vocational placement programs as the investment simply would not help their students, and their district, to meet NCLB standards. In almost the same breath, they would admit that such programs would be the best thing for their students in the long run. It seems odd to me that such a division exists, and I wonder how widespread it is, but I suspect the sentiment is more pervasive than many would care to admit, at least publicly.

Given that our field directly addresses the fundamental purpose of the educational system, to prepare students for adult life and roles, I am left to believe that we have done a lousy job selling what it is we do and the importance of the broad educational outcome with which we are entrusted and that is part and parcel of our “turf.”

Current Structure of Public Education Is Not Sustainable

Over the many years I have worked in and around public education, I have never seen fiscal support to the system increase regularly. There have undoubtedly been focused increases for particular projects or initiatives, but those acts seem to be exceptions and get swallowed up in cost-cutting movements in subsequent years. This reality has been especially evident during the recent economic downturn, the most significant since the Great Depression of the 1930s. The structure of public education was established when resources were more plentiful. The school districts I see, both in Oregon and in other states, constantly struggle to maintain buildings, offer electives and extracurricular activities, and try to keep class sizes manageable. At the same time, energy costs have exploded, affecting transportation and climate control costs exponentially, there seems to be a generally crumbling educational infrastructure, and personnel expenditures do not seem to keep up with the rising cost of living.

At the same time that states and schools are experiencing resource constraints, educators are expected to produce greater academic outcomes with increasingly diverse populations of students. Educators are being asked, rightfully in my view, to address (a) an ever-increasing population of students from cultures and with languages that are not consonant with the White, English-speaking dominant culture of years past (e.g., Povenmire-Kirk, Lindstrom, & Bullis, 2010); (b) gender bias in prevailing transition and secondary education programs (e.g., Unruh & Bullis, 2005); and (c) the truly powerful effect of socioeconomic status on learning and transition outcomes (e.g., Atkins, Bullis, & Yovanoff, 2007). Moreover, students with disabilities are being placed in general education environments in increasing numbers, greatly expanding the range of learning needs in classrooms.

There are examples of programs that have addressed issues of diversity creatively and effectively, but I think those programs are the exception rather than the rule. I simply do not see how our society can continue to maintain—and improve—the same educational structure and system with diminishing resources. Should high school be 4 years in length? Should instruction be constrained to take place only within the walls of the school building? How can community-based experiences be used to fulfill academic requirements? Should academic requirements be changed due to economic limitations? Should we pair academic and vocational programs with existing and emerging employment opportunities? Such questions must be considered in light of another reality.

We Are Members of the Global Economy

For my lifetime, and probably for that of most of the readers of this article, the United States has been the major economic power in the world. Our position was unchallenged, which allowed us a kind of insularity. Because we were so encapsulated, many citizens did not need to speak another language or travel internationally as our business base was constrained largely by our country and our interactions tended to be with other U.S. citizens.

For several years, it has been apparent that our country’s economic power has been slipping. It is all too clear that both India and China are positioned to overtake us on a number of fronts in business and as customer markets, and if there was ever any doubt about our connection to the economies of the rest of the world, watch any talk show on the stock market to become disabused of that notion (Zhao, 2009). We are part, an admittedly significant part, of the world economy, but to be successful in the future, the economy, and the specific business in which students with disabilities will be placed, will have to change to address that new reality. So what does that mean for the way transition services should be construed and offered?

If we return to the purpose of public education in general—to prepare the next generation of citizens to be successful—and acknowledge that the transition field should provide services to adolescents and young adults with disabilities, then it seems clear that schools and transition programs should be designed to prepare students to engage in the emerging world economy. Speaking another language and having international travel experiences will not just be “hip”; those experiences will be necessary for success in the new world order. What will that reality mean for specific locales and for students with special needs? Maybe a lot or maybe a little, but this world force will be something to reckon with in the future. Related to the expanded world context in which we will practice our craft is another fact of the modern world that will become part and parcel of education and transition.

Death of Distance (and Time)

I cannot take credit for the term the death of distance as in this usage it was coined by my colleague, good friend, and our Associate Dean for Global and Online Education, Yong Zhao (2009), a noted scholar on the increasing internationalization of public education. I did add the “time” part, however, as I think distance and time are joined at the hip as I use the words here. That is, given the way people are linked worldwide through the Internet and so many social media channels that I no longer recognize them all, it is apparent that staying connected across miles and time zones is becoming increasingly possible and, what is more, easy. I now have (as I am sure many of you have) videoconferences with others who are not physically in the same room and may be thousands of miles away. I always am glad to have these types of meetings as it means I do not have to travel for 3 days to some far-off place to interact, share ideas, and learn new things.

Furthermore, the interest in and proliferation of online workshops, classes, and entire academic programs are becoming increasingly prevalent. Some of the more traditional academics I know are horrified at the growth and use of online academic instruction and can cite a litany of examples that were poorly executed and of compromised quality. I do not doubt that there are many poorly executed online programs, but the interest in and market for such offerings are overwhelming. Successful online universities are making huge amounts of money and enrolling ever-increasing numbers of students for a reason. I strongly believe that universities and academicians must join this wave or be left behind.

What, then, does online instruction mean for instruction of secondary-level students in transition programs? I go back to the premise I stated earlier, that public education simply cannot afford to operate in the next 50 years as it has for the previous 50 years. I believe that in the very near future, most secondary schools will offer a substantial portion of their academic instruction to all students online to save money (e.g., it will be more cost-efficient to offer programs away from the school building than at the school building). From faculty and educators, I often hear skepticism about the quality of such instruction, but I firmly believe that in most cases, instruction can be offered more efficiently and as effectively, or perhaps more effectively, than through a traditional class-lecture approach. What will such an instructional model mean for students with disabilities, many of whom require additional support to learn and who struggle to attend school regularly?

Occupations that derive from technology (e.g., software development, web management, etc.) may complement the social and personal characteristics of a number of our students. I have been told that almost half of the jobs in our economy that will exist in 20 years have not yet been described or named (Zhao, 2009); whatever those are, the possibilities seem expansive to me, as well as challenging for the population of students in transition programs.

Cutting across the online movement is the pressing, critical need to conduct research and evaluation to make sure those programs and interventions are effective, efficient, and actually improve the transition outcomes of adolescents and young adults with disabilities (Cook & Campbell, 1979).

Blazing Contempt for What Is Good Enough

As the former coeditor of CDTEI and someone who served, and still serves, on various editorial boards, I am concerned about the quality of the research that is done in transition. As the dean of our college, which has a strong and long-term external funding portfolio, I have a unique perspective from reviewing work that is done here and paying attention to all segments of our college, not just transition or special education. I draw on these collective experiences in the following, brief recommendations while borrowing heavily from Kazdin (1986).

An old adage is that someone’s great strength can also be his or her great weakness, a saying that is true of transition. The goal for our field, preparing adolescents and young adults with disabilities to succeed in postsecondary education and careers, is perhaps the most important objective of special education and education in general. Those molar outcomes, however, also are hard to affect because they are predicated not only on what happens in schools and in transition programs but also, and maybe most importantly, on economic factors such as employment, access to fiscal support for postsecondary education, and so on. Somehow, we need to identify short-term, measureable outcomes that are linked tightly to broad transition outcomes and construct psychometrically strong measures of those outcomes. Such an approach is more likely to be methodologically rigorous and also fit the external funding parameters spanning only a few years and that do not extend into adult life.

In reading many articles, I often am left wondering who exactly the participants were in those studies. As a general rule, I think academicians do a poor job describing exactly who was in their studies, a problem that is long term and endemic in other segments of special education (Keogh & MacMillan, 1983). For a long time, we have thought that students with high-incidence disabilities are more similar than different and can, and should, be taught in similar ways (Hallahan & Kauffman, 1977). In general, this tack is true in considering academic instruction, but when antisocial behaviors are evident in a young person, those behaviors demand special attention and can be more powerfully linked to transition outcomes than any intervention (Bullis & Yovanoff, 2005; Doren, Bullis, & Benz, 1996). An important goal for future research in the field of transition is to identify, link, and fully describe the characteristics of students that affect their long-term outcomes as well as their receptiveness to intervention. I strongly recommend that participants are over-described rather than under-described as they too often are.

Another weakness in transition is the definition and specification of the interventions used in studies, which is a problem prevalent throughout the social sciences (Yeaton & Sechrest, 1981). I see far too many manuscripts that claim to describe programs and interventions that affect transition outcomes (e.g., employment, postsecondary education) positively, but—logically in my mind—cannot, because the interventions are too weak or short term to do so. What exactly does a “transition program” or “vocational placement experience” mean? How can those interventions be quantified? Can they be operationalized? In other parts of special education, professionals refer to “manualized” interventions, tightly controlled standardized interventions with constant monitoring so that there is reasonable certainty that “Intervention x” in one school is the same as “Intervention x” in another. I may be wrong, but I know of few structured and tested curricula in transition. This problem, I believe, calls for more focused interventions, ones that go through a rigorous development, testing, and refining process and that do result in a curriculum, coupled with regular checks of the instruction to ensure fidelity of implementation.

Finally, I believe that in research that is conducted in this field, authors should be grand in their goals and expectations, but careful in their claims. Unfortunately, I too often see the exact opposite. Studies in this field rely too much on designs with too few safeguards to point to causal relationships. For some of the current, popular transition practices that have achieved a wide following, I see too soft a research foundation to have the same faith in those procedures that some profess. Making such claims will ultimately harm our field in many ways, from federal initiatives to the learning of individual students.

The topics I discussed in this article are difficult problems to address through the erratic, changing, and hard-to-manage educational and social service systems encompassing the transition field. I do not know how you will address those issues, but I envy those of you inheriting the future as you wrestle with these problems and other challenges that undoubtedly will arise. Good luck in your respective pursuits and always do your best to teach and support adolescents and young adults with special needs as they work for their own independence and success as contributing members of our society.