Combining departments and occupational clusters. This program integration strategy creates occupational clusters that cut across departments to result in a program offering solid academic course work and sophisticated vocational courses. It provides information about, and access to, local industry. Integration is an ideal way to help schools retain students not interested in the benefits of an academic education per se, but aware of the advantages of entering the job market with skills. Program components that allow students to work provide them with a needed income, hands-on experience in their chosen field, and contact with employers who may offer them career path jobs after graduation.
Integration can help offset stratification and discrimination in schools and the work force.
Since the majority of those low tracked are students of color, limited English speaking, and poor, providing integration as an alternative to tracking not only eliminates a stigma that could further impede their ability to learn, but provides them with skill training to help them compete successfully for jobs with more advantaged applicants. Educationally Rich Learning. Changes in School Organization. Integration works well in a variety of school settings, although it works best when academic and vocational education teachers collaborate and use a specially developed curriculum to maximize both areas of learning. Integration programs provide models that can be replicated for other courses of study, and they can offer large comprehensive high schools an attractive model for restructuring into smaller units.