Educational outcomes

Given the importance of education to a teenager's future, the job most important to them may ultimately not be the one that earns them an immediate paycheck, but the one that earns them a high school diploma and the chance to attend college. Do students who work in high school get better or worse grades? Are they more or less likely than otherwise similar students to graduate from high school and enroll in college?

It is easy to see why employment might lower students' grades. Almost by definition, students who work have less time left to sleep and do homework. For Emily Payet, juggling her job at the deli-bakery with her schoolwork has been an ongoing struggle. "Basically I have no free time and I never really get to sleep. I'm always tired in the morning-all of the time." Amy Kinney, a high school math teacher in an affluent Boston suburb, said that she and her colleagues often agonize over how to deal with students who show up at school exhausted and unprepared after working long hours. "It is a source of frustration for teachers. . . knowing that school comes second to a lot of kids. . . . [Do you] wake up the kid who you know didn't get home until midnight, and then tried to do his homework [and] is functioning on 4 or 5 hours of sleep?"

Yet there are reasons to doubt whether time spent at work really displaces homework or sleep for the typical student. Although it is hard to get accurate estimates, available studies find that many teens spend less than 10 hours per week on homework-so it is hardly inevitable that work time will crowd out study time. Other studies have found that neither teens' employment status nor the number of hours they work is associated with the number of hours they spend on homework. Perhaps this is because teachers adjust homework assignments to accommodate students' work schedules, or because students themselves consider their work commitments when choosing their courses. Or it might be because students who are less interested and successful in school choose to work.

The impact on grades is also hard to pin down. Some studies have found negative effects of employment (or working hours) on grades; others find no significant effect. Interestingly, the impact of working may depend partly on the particular circumstances of the employment experience. For example, employment is positively correlated with grades for teens who report saving their earnings for college. It also appears that making the skills taught in the classroom directly applicable to the workplace can enhance academic achievement, although the evidence is somewhat conflicting. Kinney's experience in the classroom seems to mirror the equivocal nature of such research findings. "I've seen it go both ways," she said. "I've seen a kid who was really not motivated in school get a job and [then] see the importance of school [and] their grades improve. But I've also seen kids who were doing fine in school and then got a job, and their grades fell off the end of the earth. I think the second case is more common. But I think they both happen."

The impact of teen employment on the likelihood of graduating from high school or college seems to be more consistent. The key factor seems to be the number of hours worked. Working long hours is associated with lower educational attainment, although which way the causation runs is hard to say. By contrast, low-intensity work (generally defined as less than 20 hours per week) over a sustained period is associated with an increase in educational attainment, especially among boys. Observes Kinney, "Working maybe 20 hours a week is O.K., but anything over 20, I think is too much. . . . They are sleeping in class, and they fall behind academically because their time is swallowed up at work and they can't study and do homework."

Date: 2014-12-29; view: 914