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OCR for page 63
4
Strengthening Vocational
Education: Conclusions and
Recommendations
VOCATIONAL EDUCATION AND THE CHANGING ECONOMY
Human capital is this country's greatest natural resource. At a time when
many newly industrializing countries are upgrading the capabilities of their
peoples at an unprecedented rate and when older industrial nations, now
fully recovered from the effects of World War II, are challenging the
technological predominance of the United States, the qualities and capaci-
ties of the American work force cannot be allowed to deteriorate. In this
chapter we call on the nation's public education system to do its part to
strengthen the U.S. economy and its position in the world economy. We
present conclusions and recommendations derived from our analysis of the
material in the preceding chapters.
Underlying our analysis and recommendations is the belief that vocation-
al education has characteristics that distinguish it from other kinds of
education in fundamental and important ways. Vocational programs are
often conducted in settings different from those of academic or general
education. Vocational education teachers frequently gain their occupational
training and experience in industry, not in schools of education, as do most
academic or general education teachers. The funding requirements of
vocational programs may well be different from those of other programs.
Our recommendations derive from these and other distinctive characteris-
tics of vocational education and are intended to accommodate and to use to
advantage these differences.
We believe that vocational education suffers from being conferred gener-
ally lower status than academic education, particularly at the high-school
63
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64
EDUCATION FOR TOMORROW'S JOBS
level. The status problem affects vocational education at the federal level,
in state governments, and in the administration of vocational programs in
local school districts. The detrimental effects of this inferior status are
nowhere more apparent than in comprehensive high schools everywhere, in
which vocational education is often overlooked or slighted in favor of
college preparatory education. Some of the problems are overcome in
special vocational high schools and postsecondary vocational programs, in
which many programs are of relatively high quality and their status is
generally higher and more conducive to effective operations. All of our
recommendations are intended to improve the quality of vocational educa-
tion programs and thereby to begin to raise their status.
As we saw in Chapter 1, the challenges to vocational education posed by
a changing world economy are complex and numerous. New entrants into
the labor force require a level and range of skills different from those needed
by past generations. Older workers in fading industries must develop new
skills or accept lower wages, sometimes both. Productive members of
society will increasingly be expected to modify, upgrade, and update their
knowledge and skills in response to a pace of technological change at least
as rapid as occurred during the great industrialization of America a century
ago.
The proportion of the American work force employed in manufacturing
occupations has been declining for nearly four decades, and employment
growth has been concentrated in service jobs. While there is disagreement
as to the future growth in output of the manufacturing sector in the United
States, there is agreement that employment opportunities in manufacturing
industries will not increase. Any growth in manufacturing output will be
due to the adoption of a more capital-intensive technology. As a con-
sequence, not only will there be fewer jobs in manufacturing in the future,
but also those that exist are likely to require different skills than are needed
today. Moreover, the skills necessary for the service, financial, and other
growth sectors are obviously different from those traditionally necessary in
manufacturing. The problem of designing vocational education programs to
meet these changing skill requirements is that there is no agreement on what
these skill requirements will be or even on the general direction of change.
The precise direction this change will take is even more difficult to
specify. For example, while it is clear that the revolution in information
processing has just begun, we cannot predict precisely the range of applica-
tions, the speed with which they will be adopted, and the skills that workers
will need in the new industries that this revolution is generating. Given the
uncertainty regarding the skill requirements of the economy, it is essential
that the education of America's young people is designed to enhance their
abilities to adapt as necessary to these changing requirements.
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Conclusions and Recommendations
65
When change is rapid and its precise direction is difficult to predict,
institutions that must adapt to these changes should be flexible. They
require multiple channels through which information about economic,
technological, and educational change can be processed. The decision
points regarding how and when to implement change should be as decen-
tralized as feasible, but local administrators or decision makers need in-
formation from national and state levels. Adaptation at the local level can be
encouraged through the supply of sufficient information for decision mak-
ing. Decentralization allows for flexibility and adaptation in some parts of
the system, even if others remain sluggish and slow to respond.
As Chapter 2 noted, vocational education institutions in the United States
on the whole are highly varied, contain an extraordinary range of points of
decision, and have a considerable capacity to adapt to change. Just to name
the types of vocational educational institutions is to emphasize their diversi-
ty. Vocational programs in comprehensive high schools are perhaps the
most numerous and best known. At this level there are also specialized
vocational high schools, regional technical institutes, and area vocational
centers, which high-school students attend on a part-time basis.
Postsecondary vocational education is even more varied and complex.
Junior and community colleges provide an extensive, varied, and highly
flexible set of vocational programs. In addition, there are proprietary
schools; regional occupational centers; on-thejob training provided direct-
ly by industry, CETA, or JTPA centers; trade schools; and apprenticeship
programs.
The mix of these institutions and their mode of operation vary greatly
among states and among regions within states. In some parts of the country,
postsecondary schools play the dominant public role. In other states,
regional technical schools are key. In still others, specialized vocational
high schools make especially valuable contributions.
While some policy analysts may object to the variety and overlapping
responsibilities of vocational education institutions, the committee believes
that the complexity of the system contributes to its strength. To the extent
that vocational programs compete with one another for students, for teach-
ers, for public resources, and for contacts with local business and industry,
these institutions have incentives to modify and adapt their training to the
changing labor market. The revolution in word and data processing, for
example, has generated a strong market demand for workers with skills
relevant to the operation of computers. Actions to supply training programs
came first from industry. Postsecondary schools and proprietary institutions
and now the more advanced high-school programs are upgrading their
offerings in these areas. Those parts of the country in which program
innovation was most rapid are reaping the economic advantages. Other
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EDUCATION FOR TOMORROW'S JOBS
states and localities are now making their own assiduous efforts to catch up,
usually through state or regional economic development plans. Even
though sluggishness may be found in some places, it is doubtful that a more
centrally planned vocational education system would have responded to
technological change more quickly.
As decentralized and flexible as the American vocational educational
system is, however, many of its components have become rigid and stag-
nant, and it is in these areas that institutional reform is especially needed.
The greatest problems are found at the secondary level, particularly in
comprehensive high schools. Here public vocational education across the
country began some six or seven decades ago, and here past practices have
become so deeply embedded in an institutional framework that flexibility
and responsiveness are more the exception than the rule. Requirements
governing the recruitment, certification, promotion, compensation, and
retention of teachers are so well defined that adaptation to new technologies
is costly and slow. Also problematic are rules governing the allocation of
resources, the acquisition of equipment, and the use of facilities.
The Role of Vocational Education in Economic Development
In economic terms, vocational education can be viewed as an investment in
human capital to the extent that it contributes to the future earnings (and
thereby increases the productivity) of its graduates who are employed.
Some people enroll in vocational education programs while they are work-
ing in order to upgrade their skills, thus increasing their productivity and
attractiveness to their employers. Other students, particularly those in high
school, are not working in jobs they will continue to hold after they graduate
and will look for jobs once they graduate from school. Obviously, vocation-
al education programs can improve the job productivity of their students
only if there are ultimately job openings for those students to fill. Therefore,
a healthy local economy clearly increases the returns to vocational educa-
tion programs.
But can vocational education programs actually create a healthy local
economy? While it is true that strong economies have skilled work forces,
that firms consistently rate the presence of a skilled work force as an
important determinant of their location decisions, and that vocational edu-
cation programs increase the skill levels of their students, it does not follow
that vocational education programs can create a pool of skilled labor in an
economically depressed area. Because the skilled graduates of vocational
education programs most often leave distressed areas that cannot provide
employment opportunities, a skilled labor pool cannot be developed and
kept in place for any period of time. A strong vocational education program
OCR for page 67
Conclusions and Recommendations
67
can nonetheless be an important component in local economic development
initiatives. If a local vocational education program has the capacity to
provide the training required by particular employers considering an area
for relocation, the vocational education program itself can be a strong force
in attracting them. It is the capacity of the program to meet or adapt to
specific needs of employers, not the number of students trained or the pool
created, that has the potential to attract jobs.
Responsibilities of the Public Education System
We have noted the critical need for young adults to master the basic
educational skills and work habits required to achieve employability,
whether college bound or not, and to attain more specific vocational skills
and experiences. We also have noted that far too many high-school gradu-
ates are deficient in basic or vocational skills, work habits, or all of these.
The complex array of individual, family, and community factors that
contribute to such socially unwanted results notwithstanding, we believe
that the public education system must take responsibility for ensuring that
young people are effectively prepared for both employment and further
education. Every young person must be prepared, upon graduation from
high school, for employment, further study, or both. All too often prepara-
tion of college-bound high-school students has in the practices of high
schools taken precedence over preparation for employment, with the un-
happy result that vocational education students have inadequate basic and
occupational skills. We believe that providing an effective array of voca-
tional education opportunities is a role of public high schools equal in
importance to their role of preparing students for college.
While we do recommend expanded efforts at collaboration between
vocational education and the private sector, we do not believe that employ-
ers should assume greatly increased responsibility for education and train-
ing. The economics of the private sector would work against employers
assuming major responsibility for educating and training their employees.
Probably only large firms could afford to do a substantial amount of
training. Once trained, the workers would become a marketable commod-
ity; firms would compete to hire them. The trained employees would be
hired away from the firms that paid for the training, thus eventually
removing their incentive to train. This situation is full justification for
keeping the responsibility for employment training or vocational education
in the public sector, where it is now.
The diversity of educational institutions, which we support in general,
makes it all too easy for each school or program to avoid assuming the
responsibility for ensuring that students have adequate grounding in basic
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68
EDUCATION FOR TOMORROW'S JOBS
and vocational skills. Paradoxically, the fragmentation seems most severe
in comprehensive high schools, which house academic, general, and voca-
tional education programs. The teaching of basic educational skills is
problematic both because of their importance and because of the ill-defined
nature of the responsibility for teaching them. Vocational education teach-
ers and administrators can shift the responsibility for failing to teach
students who are not competent in the basic skills to other parts of the school
system; in fact, teachers of academic and general education most often have
not wanted vocational teachers to assume responsibility for teaching basic
educational skills.
The primary responsibility for teaching basic skills should be borne by
elementary-school teachers and administrators. Introducing occupational
information in the elementary grades can, we believe, help to motivate
some students who are otherwise uninterested in learning school subjects.
Remediation at the high-school level is a more difficult problem, one that
often has ill-defined responsibilities. Issues to be resolved include who
should bear the costs of remediation in high schools, how to motivate
students, and which teachers are the best equipped to teach basic skills at
this level.
VOCATIONAL EDUCATION AND THE PRIVATE SECTOR
As we have seen, collaboration between educators and business or labor
leaders is not a new idea. The Vocational Education Act of 1963 established
the policy of involving the private sector in vocational education planning
through national, state, and local advisory councils. Employers and unions
have been involved in the activities of vocational student organizations for
many years. There are national organizations for people who carry out
collaborative activities, such as the National Association of Industry-
Education Cooperation and the National Work-Education Consortium.
Close ties with business and labor seem to be typical of high-quality
vocational education programs. The committee believes that collaboration
between education and employment is needed in far more settings. We
believe that collaborative ventures should be extended to other programs
and situations and that a wide variety of options is open to those who want to
improve their vocational programs through collaboration with employers.
Why should businesses use their resources to help public schools prepare
students for work? When most businesses are dealing with difficult eco-
nomic conditions, incentives to collaborate with schools must include more
than an appeal to their sense of civic responsibility. Collaborative efforts
must be demonstrated to be advantageous to them.
The availability of a trained work force may prove incentive enough to
OCR for page 69
Conclusions and Recommendations
69
firms that otherwise would have difficulty hiring qualified workers. Thus it
is rather easy to see why there are already links between such employers and
high-quality vocational education programs. In such situations collabora-
tion works to the advantage of all involved. However, using collaborative
efforts to improve weak programs may require that educators be induced to
improve their programs and change their administative procedures and that
businesses be induced to use their resources to help improve the qualifica-
tions of program graduates.
The benefits of collaborative efforts accrue principally to employers,
who gain access to better-trained potential employees, and to students, who
receive better training and occupational experience. Schools benefit in that
they can provide better training. Teachers benefit if they receive training or
work experience from private-sector employers. Insofar as collaboration
improves the education and training of future workers, it benefits society by
increasing the workers' productivity and enhancing economic growth.
Education and training are improved by collaboration with private-sector
employers in four ways. First, with aid from the private sector, schools can
gain access to better, up-to-date equipment and can then modify their
curricula accordingly in order to train students in up-to-date job skills.
Second, through collaboration and the sharing of information, schools can
prepare students for jobs that are likely to be available when the students
graduate. Third, students who have contact with employers through their
school programs are likely to develop positive work habits and may find it
easier to get jobs once they graduate. Fourth, through their supervised work
experiences, students establish an employment record that may help them
get jobs.
Characteristics of Successful Collaborative Efforts
Most successful collaborative efforts are initiated locally, but some are
organized at the state or regional (within the state) level, and some success-
ful local ventures expand to the state or even the national level. The types of
projects that are successful in local situations vary greatly. Collaborative
efforts are created in response to a perceived local need or problem. What
works in Boston may fail in Houston. And a work-study arrangement that is
effective for the Continental-Illinois Bank in Chicago may not work for a
graphics firm in the same city. From this enormous diversity we can draw
generalizations based on studies of collaborative projects that have been
judged successful.
Collaborative projects are like any other human endeavor in that their
success depends on the individuals involved. The personal commitment of
top leaders on all sides is critical. And, of course, the competence of the
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EDUCATION FOR TOMORROW'S JOBS
people actually running the project is essential. The best way to initiate and
sustain a collaborative project may be through a "catalytic agent," that is,
one key individual who is committed to the project, who can effectively
communicate with the essential parties on all sides, who has a sense of what
will generate success and what will fail. The catalytic agent may come from
the school, from the business firm, from a labor union, or from a
community-based organization, but he or she must understand the roles of
all in the joint effort. Collaborative ventures, by their very nature, are
voluntary and will be effective only if all the individuals involved are
committed to the endeavor and are active, contributing participants. In such
projects there are only active participants; none of the principal parties
serves in a purely advisory role.
The locus of the initiative for any particular project does not determine its
success or failure; schools and businesses are equally likely to start success-
ful partnerships. Some projects involve only one program or school and one
business firm, perhaps also with the participation of a labor union or a
community-based organization. A vocational education program may, for
example, modify slightly its curriculum to adapt to advances in an occupa-
tion with the assistance of industry in the form of borrowed equipment,
borrowed personnel, supervised work experience for students, or summer
internships for teachers. In other instances, several firms needing employ-
ees with the same general skills may band together to work with several
schools in a district. The impetus for either type of project may come from
any one of the participants. Reviews of collaborative efforts reveal that
most start on a rather modest scale, perhaps involving only one vocational
program or a few student workers. Once the project is under way, opera-
tions can be modified as necessary, and the endeavor can be expanded.
Frequently employers who have once worked with the schools seek further
involvement, perhaps in new areas such as basic skills or in elementary
schools when they had previously worked exclusively with high-school
vocational education students.
Some people believe it is easier to sell collaborative projects, that is, to
gain continued or increased support or to initiate such an effort in a new
setting, if their success can be demonstrated. Documentation may be
facilitated if the goals of the undertaking are clearly stated and if modest but
usable records of progress toward meeting those goals are maintained. In
this way, all concerned parties business people, educators, labor leaders,
community leaders, students, and parents-can judge the value of the
projects.
We have noted before that there are many examples of successful
collaborative efforts, but many more are needed. Why have they not arisen
spontaneously? Some require relatively small investments of money or
OCR for page 71
Conclusions and Recommendations
71
equipment, but all require a sizable investment of people's time and energy.
Public-school teachers or administrators are logical ones to reach out to
business for assistance in various forms, but they are exceedingly busy,
sometimes overburdened, with the daily work of operating their programs
or schools. Sometimes, too, school personnel do not know how to make
contact with employers in the private sector. Community-based organiza-
tions, labor unions, or employers themselves could assist in such instances.
Presumably, when enough vocational education teachers gain work experi-
ence in industry, this barrier can be overcome more easily.
Attitudes toward education and training are also critical to collaboration.
Educators must acknowledge that they do not have a monopoly on teaching
and that the traditional arrangements of teaching may need to be altered to
suit the needs of students, employers, and educators. Students and workers
should look forward to periodic retraining throughout their working lives.
Education should be viewed as an open process, one that encompasses all of
a person's life, not just the hours spent in school and not just the school
years.
Legislation has been proposed in the U.S. Senate that would offer tax
incentives to corporations to encourage them to contribute equipment and
other forms of support to schools. One such bill, S. 1195, the High
Technology Research and Educational Development Act of 1983, would
include secondary and postsecondary vocational schools as well as
elementary schools in its provisions. Corporate contributions that would
carry tax advantages ("enhanced deductions") include computer equip-
ment, software, and related orientation, maintenance, and repair services;
scientific and technical equipment not more than three years old for use in
education, research, and research training; and financial supplementation
of faculty salaries or the loan of instructors from business and industry
personnel.
Recommendations
Collaboration with Employers Mechanisms and incentives should be
established to induce educators and employers to work together in the
planning and provision of occupational education and training. Incentives
for teachers could include releasing them from teaching and administrative
duties, giving bonuses for establishing links with private-sector employers,
and awarding internships in business. Education administrators should give
consideration to awarding school credit to students who take courses taught
in collaboration with employers-in the workplace or by corporate person-
nel. Tax incentives may be appropriate to encourage firms to donate
equipment to schools and to allow schools to use the employers' equipment
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EDUCATION FOR TOMORROW'S JOBS
for training purposes in the workplace. The equipment used for training
need not always be new, but it should not be obsolete. Tax incentives may
also be used to encourage employers to lend personnel to teach or to help
support vocational education teachers in the schools.
Coordination of Vocational Education and Employment Training There
should be as much overlap as feasible in membership on local vocational
education councils and private industry councils and on the state vocational
education advisory committees and the state coordinating councils required
by the Job Training Partnership Act. The committee endorses the provisions
of the JTPA intended to ensure coordination among employment training
organizations and the public school system.
In urging better coordination between JTPA and public vocational educa-
ti-on, we do not wish to remove all apparent redundancy. As noted at the
beginning of this chapter, we believe that a diverse and decentralized
system can better serve individuals' educational needs and respond more
quickly to changes in the economy than could a monolithic education
system. We recommend coordination in order to ensure the existence of an
appropriate array of schools and training centers with different approaches
necessary to meet the educational and training objectives of a diverse
population.
Supervised Work Experience rOr Students
As we described in Chapter 2, there are three main types of work-
experience programs in which vocational education students can partici-
pate: cooperative education, work-study, and apprenticeship programs.
While each of these tends to have distinctive characteristics, good programs
share certain traits. The following comments apply least of all to work-
study programs, however, since their primary purpose is to give economi-
cally disadvantaged students paid employment rather than work experience
as an adjunct to training.
The two components of any supervised work-experience program the
education and the employment should be closely related to one another.
This principle is obvious, but it is not always followed. The importance and
relevance of the skills taught in school should be made evident to the
students both while they are in school and while they are working. Like-
wise, the work required of the students on the job should be as close as
possible to that required once the training program is completed, that is, in
regular full-time jobs.
The best programs with work-experience components are ones in which
completion is determined on the basis of mastery of certain knowledge and
OCR for page 73
Conclusions and RecommendFatzons
73
skills, not simply on the passage of time. The objectives of the training and
the work should be clearly stated before students enroll in the programs.
Progression toward competency in both components of the program should
be determined at reasonable intervals throughout the program.
The work-experience component of the program should be carefully
supervised by the employer and also by a teacher or coordinator from the
school. While this is standard practice in high-quality programs, it is not
universally done. By saying that teachers or education coordinators should
monitor the work of students, we do not mean that school personnel should
be given authority over employees in the workplace. They should visit the
students on the job periodically to see the work conditions, the work
assignments, the type and extent of supervision, the nature of contact with
other employees, and the like. This coordination by school personnel is
essential to the meshing of the components of the program and also to the
assignment of school credit for the work portion of the program when it is
applicable.
Wherever feasible the employers and education coordinators should
make arrangements that enable students to work alongside other employees
so that they see what full-time paid employment is really like. In this way,
the students have the best opportunity to observe practical and effective
work habits. It is important for them to see which of their habits or
expectations are at variance with the behavior employers wish to see in their
employees. In some industrial settings it may not be possible for students to
be totally integrated with the regular work force. Concerns for security or
occupational safety or constraints imposed by the students' limited skills
may militate against their being incorporated into the regular work environ-
ment. In such cases, and we hope they are few, extra efforts should be made
to give the students routine exposure, albeit on a limited basis, to regular
employees and their work.
Remediation of deficiencies in basic educational skills should be separate
from the work experience. It is not reasonable to expect employers to
remedy these deficiencies or to employ students seriously in need of
educational remediation. However, the schools can and should provide
remediation to students who need help in mastering the basic skills before
they participate in work-experience programs. Lack of competence in the
basic skills contributes to the problem of access to high-quality vocational
programs, which is discussed later in this chapter. The committee believes
that to burden the employment component of such programs with remedia-
tion is to doom them to failure. Similarly, to expect employers to hire
students who have not mastered the basic educational and occupational
skills required on the job is unrealistic; employers must be allowed to set
reasonable criteria for selecting students for work-experience programs.
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74
Recommendations
EDUCATION FOR TOMORROW'S JOBS
Competency-Based Work-Experience Programs Unions, educators, and
employers should work to change the requirements for the completion of
cooperative education and apprenticeship programs; they should be based
on competence rather than time. This change will be fraught with difficul-
ties and will require the expenditure of considerable money and time, but
we believe it is extremely important. Currently the most common arrange-
ment requires that people participate in apprenticeship programs for a
specified period of time, after which they become journeymen. In coopera-
tive education programs, high-school graduation signifies completion.
Some unions are working to modify apprenticeship systems, but progress is
slowed by competing demands for the personnel and financial resources
necessary to make the required changes. The difficulties in trying to revise
programs along these lines are analogous to those in instituting minimum
competency tests as the basis for awarding high-school diplomas. The
difficulties in deciding what competencies should be included, deciding
what levels of skill are required, and determining how to measure these
abilities are not to be underestimated.
Apprenticeship Programs The Office of Vocational and Adult Education
in the U. S. Department of Education should work with the Federal Commit-
tee on Apprenticeship and the Bureau of Apprenticeship Training in the
U.S. Department of Labor to revise the criteria for completion of appren-
ticeship programs. Completion should be based on competence rather than
the period of participation in the programs. These groups should take the
lead in developing appropriate training curricula and competency tests for
apprenticeship programs. The Department of Labor should fund work by
unions to develop criteria for completion and competency tests.
IMPROVING VOCATIONAL EDUCATION PROGRAMS
We have identified three main areas in which we think public vocational
education needs improvement. Our general approach is to recommend
methods or policies that work in some settings and to apply them to the
institution with the greatest need for improvement-public comprehensive
high schools.
Our first concern is vocational education teachers, particularly at the
high-school level. We recommend changes in their pre-service and in-
service training, in their certification, and in the policies governing their
hiring and pay. Our second concern is the funding of public vocational
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Conclusions and Recommendations
75
education programs. We highlight problems and make recommendations
based on our collective experience about what works in other situations.
Our third concern is access to high-quality vocational education pro-
grams, particularly for economically or educationally disadvantaged stu-
dents. In this case we take a different tack. A significant part of the problem
is the deficiencies in basic educational or occupational skills or work habits
of disadvantaged students. We believe it would do no good for us simply to
recommend stronger basic education and more effective socialization of
these students. Therefore, we have chosen to recommend experimentation
with a radically different way of improving access to programs and also
remedying deficiencies in the basic skills of students. We acknowledge that
our approach will meet with immediate and strong opposition from some
quarters. We are willing to take the risk since more conventional means
have not proved effective. We want to urge, however, that these particular
recommendations be used to supplement and not to supplant current efforts
in remediation and improving access. In other words, the funding of regular
programs should continue at no less than the current levels and should not be
diminished by experimentation.
Strengthening Teaching
The primary place of training and certification of vocational education
teachers is in colleges of education, which seem to operate primarily to
prepare teachers of academic subjects. By and large they have not paid
special attention to vocational education and the differences in teaching
methods required for vocational in contrast to other education. Occupation-
al experience in industry, which can be extremely valuable for those who
teach vocational skills, is often not awarded college credit, nor is it con-
sidered in the certification process.
Certification requirements are set at the state or local level, so there is
variation across the country. Public-high-school teachers vocational and
other are usually required to hold teachers' certificates earned through
work at teachers' colleges. Certification requirements often specify particu-
lar courses or particular teacher training institutions requirements that
reduce flexibility in hiring and eliminate the possibility of discovering
whether other types of preparation are effective. Requirements are not as
stringent at the postsecondary level, so administrators have more flexibility
and a potentially larger pool of teachers from which to choose. The single
most important difference in vocational education at the two levels is that
postsecondary schools can hire people who have gained their occupational
training in business rather than in the classroom. This is generally viewed as
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76
EDUCATION FOR TOMORROW'S JOBS
an option that should be available to high schools, a view that the committee
shares.
The committee is not convinced that the benefits of certification require-
ments for vocational education teachers outweigh the costs. We do know
that the requirements limit the pool of potential teachers, some of whom
might be talented and effective. We believe there should be university-
based training for teachers, but we believe that allowance should be made
for other types of training, particularly occupational training or experience
in the workplace.
We believe that the best way of determining the most effective means of
preparing teachers is to let education administrators choose those people
who appear to have the requisite occupational and teaching skills. Adminis-
trators' choices will be made harder and riskier because of the difficulty in
trying to predict who will be effective teachers. Such choice currently exists
at the postsecondary but not generally at the secondary level. Nevertheless,
we believe the risk is worth taking, at least on a trial basis, in order to
improve the preparedness of vocational education teachers. If administra-
tors select teachers who have no formal training in teaching, they should
provide and require in-service training in these skills. Taken together, these
provisions would allow greater flexibility in hiring teachers while giving
some insurance against potentially harmful deficiencies in teaching abili
ties.
Awarding tenure to teachers is often thought to remove some of their
incentives to adapt to change. This is of particular concern for vocational
education, given the constantly and rapidly changing world of work to
which vocational programs must adapt. The problem of keeping programs
current is especially severe at the high-school level, in large measure
because of the high proportion of tenured high-school teachers. Seniority,
especially as a factor in deciding who is fired in a reduction in the teaching
force, contributes to the problem of keeping vocational education teachers
current in their occupational fields.
Pay structures for high-school teachers vocational or other generally
do not differentiate pay levels by field or competence. This makes it
extremely difficult for schools to attract and retain teachers in subjects that
are in high demand (such as computer-related or technical fields) or to
reward especially effective teachers. While there has been widespread and
vehement resistance to changing pay scales, experiments or new policies
are being instituted in several places across the country.
The level of teachers' salaries is an extremely sensitive issue. As noted at
a convocation on precollege science and mathematics education held at the
National Academy of Sciences (National Academy of Sciences and Nation
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Conclusions and Recommendations
77
al Academy of Engineering, 1982), opinions vary about how to raise the
quality of high-school teachers. Some think pay for all teachers is too low to
attract qualified people. Others think differential pay should be instituted so
that market forces can work to adjust the salaries of teachers. Houston and
Memphis are experimenting with differential pay scales, but the projects are
still under way and the effects of the experiments have not been determined.
Others think that low morale is a more severe problem than low pay and that
recognition for outstanding performance and freedom from noninstruction-
al duties would improve the quality of teaching.
Recommendations
Certification of Teachers Requirements for the certification of vocation-
al education teachers should be modified to reflect the needs of vocational
education-in particular, the importance of occupational training or experi-
ence in industry. Certification should be based on judged competence in
both teaching and the relevant occupation rather than on completion of a
bachelor's degree in teacher education, which may be largely irrelevant to
vocational education programs.
Training of Teachers To serve adequately the needs of vocational educa-
tion, teacher training institutions should develop, in addition to the standard
curriculum, special curricula for people who have gained most of their
occupational knowledge and experience through employment and not in
college. The curricula for vocational education teachers should be short,
effective, and aimed at teaching practices in a wider variety of instructional
settings than curricula in many other education programs. They should
allow people trained in the workplace to demonstrate their occupational
skills and be exempted from some occupational courses.
In-Service Training of Teachers In-service training programs for voca-
tional education teachers should offer a variety of opportunities for teachers
with different strengths and weaknesses. Effectiveness in teaching should
be stressed for those teachers (most often those who learned their occupa-
tional skills in industry) who have little experience in teaching. Internships
in business should be made available on a regular basis so that all vocational
education teachers can periodically sharpen their occupational skills and
knowledge. Such work experience should be considered part of in-service
training for teachers and should be awarded appropriate credit in a system
that requires such.
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EDUCATION FOR TOMORROW'S JOBS
Part-Time Vocational Education Teachers Once certification require-
ments are changed appropriately, high-school administrators should take
advantage of opportunities to hire part-time teachers for vocational educa-
tion programs. Recruitment efforts should be focused on employees in the
private sector who are competent both in their occupations and in instruct-
ing others in their areas of expertise. This practice has been effective in
postsecondary institutions, and we believe it could be used to ease the
problems in high schools as well.
Pay Scales for Teachers Pay systems that reward the excellence of indi-
vidual teachers and permit differentiation by field should be instituted
wherever possible. Such arrangements should be included in collective
bargaining agreeements.
Strengthening Financing
For funding purposes vocational education might well be viewed as more
similar to university research programs than to other secondary education.
Vocational program costs are highly variable and depend on equipment
costs to a greater degree than many academic programs. The costs of
keeping programs current with changing technology and of initiating new
programs in reponse to the demands of the economy often exceed available
funds. These costs for any program, while not incurred annually, need to be
accommodated by the annual budgets of local and state education agencies.
As we have seen, capitation financing formulas for school programs limit
the ability of education administrators to allocate funds according to chang-
ing priorities or differences in program costs. Capitation funding is a
disincentive to schools' allowing students to attend classes in other schools.
Funds available to accommodate changing priorities within vocational
education and to improve or update programs are limited. The problem is
particularly acute at local levels, where programs are modified and
collaboration with the private sector is undertaken. Funds for program
improvement tend to be spread thinly over many purposes, with little
opportunity to assemble a critical mass of funds to achieve needed change in
any one area.
Finding funds to purchase or lease expensive capital equipment is often
difficult, especially in local school districts, and arrangements to exploit
fully the available equipment among different programs or schools are
sometimes difficult to implement. The need for expensive equipment is
often short term, offering the opportunity for several programs or schools to
use the same equipment if barriers to sharing can be overcome.
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Conclusions and Recommendations
Recommendations
79
Funding Formulas In addition to enrollment figures, vocational educa-
tion program funding formulas should include factors that reflect determi-
nants of program cost, such as the educational disadvantage of students
(requiring remediation), the costs of capital equipment, the salaries of
teachers and administrators, curriculum revision, and the like. Formulas
should permit a phased shift in funding for students who are jointly enrolled
in two schools or who shift from one school to another.
Pooling Equipment Statewide and regional pools of expensive equipment
that reasonably can be shared should be established. At the local level
capital equipment resources, both public and private, should be identified,
and means for scheduling their use among several programs should be
established. Opportunities for leasing equipment, particularly for short-
term training programs or economic development efforts, should be in-
vestigated. Similarly, opportunities for borrowing equipment from busi-
nesses should be sought.
Funding for Program Improvement If public schools are to accomplish
the goal of providing up-to-date and effective vocational education for all
students who want it, they should have sufficient resources not only to
maintain the good programs they have now but also to modify existing
programs and initiate new ones to teach the skills required by employers.
They will also need additional money to provide remediation for education-
ally disadvantaged students.
improving Access to Vocational Education Programs
Young people who live in economically depressed rural areas or inner cities
frequently find it difficult to gain access to high-quality education and
training programs. Where high-quality programs are available, students
with deficiencies in basic skills may be denied access because there are
more qualified applicants than places in the programs. In such cases, there
is virtually no incentive for schools to provide remediation for the basic
skills deficiencies of the students who apply for admission to the programs.
Administrators of superior programs have little incentive to seek out inner-
city or rural young people as students or to help them meet quickly the
academic requirements of admission.
A second barrier to enrollment for disadvantaged students is the simple
undersupply of sound vocational programs in many but by no means all
depressed inner-city or rural communities. There may be few high-quality
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EDUCATION FOR TOMORROW'S JOBS
programs that are located within commuting distance of inner-city or rural
residents. If economically disadvantaged young people from these areas
move to an area in which there are better training opportunities, they
generally do not have the financial resources necessary to enroll in the better
programs.
The committee has considered two plans, which seem to merit ex-
perimentation, designed to ameliorate the problem of access to high-quality
vocational education programs. The first is a system of vocational incentive
grants, patterned after basic education opportunity grants. Such a system
would provide grants to institutions on behalf of students between the ages
of 14 and 18. The size of the grant would be scaled to the student's economic
resources, generally including family income and economic obligations.
The grants could be used to obtain vocational training in public or private
schools anywhere in the country, without regard to the previous residence
of the student. The grants would provide for training for each eligible
student at maximum value equal to 100-120 percent of national average
expenditures per student in secondary vocational education programs.
Students could use their grants any time during their four years of eligibility
and for sufficient time to complete their programs.
We believe that such a program would encourage the development of
good training programs in geographic areas inhabited by low-income fami-
lies. The funding mechanism would provide a stronger incentive than
currently exists for training institutions to enroll low-income youth. Such a
program should supplement existing programs and efforts to improve
access. The amount paid to an institution would be independent of other
resources public or private-available to the accredited institution. Public
vocational schools would have some advantage in competition with private
schools because they would receive not only the vocational incentive grants
but also the usual public funds. We have deliberately suggested a relatively
high maximum amount for each grant to ensure adequate attention to basic
skills as well as to vocational education needs. A vocational incentive grant
program could give low-income students a larger choice in vocational
programs than they currently have.
The second model is adapted from the approach now used to design
education programs for students with handicapping conditions. Under this
arrangement state and local education agencies would be required to de-
velop an individualized vocational education plan for every high-school
student who sought it for any of the standard program offerings. The plan
would specify objectives for both basic skills and vocational education as
well as the programs through which the objectives could be met. To the
extent that the objectives could not be met by the local public school,
arrangements could be made with the active assistance and oversight of the
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Conclusions and Recommendations
81
state agency to make use of any appropriate resources public or private,
local or other to meet those objectives. Federal, state, and local resources
that ordinarily could be used for the education of the student could be
applied to meeting the plan objectives, and the local and state agencies
would be accountable for the quality and appropriateness of the vocational
education provided.
The primary advantages of this approach lie in the required focus on the
needs of individual students, the increased potential for recognizing prob-
lems and assigning responsibility, the increased participation of relevant
people in the education decisions, and the potential use of community-wide
resources to fulfill objectives. The primary disadvantages lie in the sub-
stantially increased cost, especially in human resources, of preparing the
plans; the disincentives to enroll more students, since they may request such
plans; and the relatively weak incentives to create new program opportuni-
ties.
The committee recognizes that these two approaches vocational incen-
tive grants and individualized vocational education plans represent signif-
icant departures from current practices and is therefore unwilling to recom-
mend national implementation of either model without substantial empiri-
cal study. We have far more confidence in the practicality and effectiveness
of vocational incentive grants, however, and frame our recommendations
accordingly. We know that such grants are likely to meet with strenuous
opposition within the education community. Still, we believe experimenta-
tion is warranted and should help to improve vocational education programs
and disadvantaged students' access to better programs.
An important and anticipated effect of vocational incentive grants is the
promotion of competition and entrepreneurship in the provision of voca-
tional education. Private and public schools alike would compete to enroll
students, presumably by strengthening their programs and by actively
recruiting to enroll students with such grants. This open competition offers
the advantage of flexibility, but it also raises the issue of consumer protec-
tion. Students should not unknowingly waste their grants and their time on
ineffective training programs. Two procedures could avoid this: One is
accreditation of training institutions, and the other is a requirement for
"truth in training." Truth in training, as outlined in our recommendation
below, is the less cumbersome procedure and, if carried out effectively, is
likely to provide a greater degree of protection overall. It would be relative-
ly easy to implement, since vocational educators are accustomed to evaluat-
ing their programs in terms of completions and placements of students and
in terms of employers' views of training. The two procedures are not
mutually incompatible and could well be used jointly.
For programs that have been in existence three or more years, the
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EDUCATION FOR TOMORROW'S JOBS
truth-in-training evaluation should include data on enrollments, comple-
tions, placements, and beginning wages. The academic qualifications of
program completers should be described. A forecast of job openings for the
next two years should be given. Upon request, potential applicants should
be given the name, address, and telephone number of the personnel office of
firms that have hired graduates. For newer programs, the materials pro-
vided to prospective students should include as much of the above informa-
tion as possible, together with a somewhat more thorough prospectus
describing the skills to be taught, the types of training and work experience,
the expected size of the job market, minimum academic qualifications
required of students, and the training and experience of faculty.
Recommendations
Vocational Incentive Grants The federal government should initiate a
substantial experiment in vocational incentive grants for high-school voca-
tional education students. The experiment should be designed to test eligi-
bility criteria, appropriate grant levels, and implementation processes and
to assess the effects on students and educational institutions. The purposes
and authorities of the Job Training Partnership Act seem appropriate to this
experiment, and the resources therein, together with those available to the
U.S. Department of Education, should be used to finance this work.
Consumer Protection in Vocational Education All training institutions
that accept vocational incentive grants or that receive Vocational Education
Act funds should be required to provide to any interested party detailed
descriptions of their programs, including courses offered, skills taught,
requirements for enrollment, and opportunities for work experience, as well
as written evaluations of each of their programs.
CONCLUSION
In this chapter we have outlined our findings and conclusions regarding the
vocational education system, its relation to the changing economy, its role
in economic development, its interaction with private-sector employers,
and its institutional strengths and weaknesses. Readers who would like to
place a vastly increased responsibility for training on employers will be
disappointed with our recommendations. We firmly believe that it is the
responsibility of the public education system to prepare students for both
employment and further education. We do not think that responsibility
should be shifted to private employers, although we do think employers can
help significantly in the ways we have outlined.
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Conclusions and Recommendations
83
We believe that some important and fundamental changes need to be
made in the vocational education system if it is to do its job effectively.
Probably the most important of those changes are intended to strengthen the
teaching and financing of vocational education. One central change that we
see as desirable seems virtually impossible to legislate or institute. We
would like to see vocational education become an equal partner with
college-preparatory education in the education system as a whole. The most
effective vocational programs are deserving of that respect now, and we
would like to see all programs raised to that level of quality and esteem.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
education teachers
