Vocational and Liberal Education

1
Vocational and Liberal Education

• Historical Perspective
• Division
• Goals
• Results
• Perkins Act Amendment

2
Historical Perspective

• 1917-the beginning of the federal governments
  involvement in funding
• 1917-7 million per year
• 1946-36 million per year
• 1960s revival of vocational education
• 1970s-research suggested that vocational
  education programs were not meeting their primary
  objectives
• A. Keeping students in school
• B. Making students more employable in the
  workforce
• C. Providing higher wage opportunities for non
  college bound students
• 1980sAllen Weisberg review indicated that
  approximately 17
• million were involved in vocational
  education, 7.3 of them in programs that
  prepare students for specific occupations

3

• mid 80s almost 9 billion per year was spent
  on vocational education
• -50 female
• -23 minority
• -12 low income groups (disadvantaged
  students

4
General Division of Vocational Programs 50 are
enrolled in only two categories 1. Business
and office education (majority female) 2.
Technical trades and industrial education
(majority male)
Agriculture Distributive Health
Occupational Home Economics Business and office education Technical trades and Industrial ed.
Vocational consumer education Homemaking education Marketing
5
Vocational Education Results

• Some help keep students in school longer
• Reduced likelihood of post secondary training
• Not well matched to the needs of the labor market
• Labor markets require strong general education
  skills or job specific post secondary training
• Among males, vocational education graduates are
  twice as liely as non-vocational graduates to be
  working in craft occupations which require no
  specific skills and training
• Females seem to do better in the labor market as
  a result of their vocational education
• Graduates do not have the verbal and intellectual
  tools to do productive work

6
Perkins Act Amendment of 1990

• By law, funding is required to be concentrated in
  low-income school districts
• Requires that vocational education initiatives
  must come from local school districts instead of
  state governments
• Rejects high school training for specific job
  skills in favor of tech-pep approach that
  provides academic skills to prepare high school
  students for postsecondary technical education
• Emphasis on integrating academic and vocational
  studies. Vocational activities are to provide a
  strong academic education for all students who
  choose that approach
• Vocational Education as a Teaching Method
• See list beginning on p. 345
• Excellent example of integration of vocational
  and academics on p. 346 (bottom)