U.S. Department of Education
September 2002
In reauthorizing the Perkins (voc ed) Act in 1998, Congress called for an independent panel to conduct a National Assessment of Vocational Education (NAVE). This is the 22-member panel's first report to Congress, published by the U.S. Department of Education and intended to help guide next year's Perkins reauthorization cycle. This "interim" report has limited value, as the panel says its advice on the tough issues awaits the final NAVE report, which may or may not get published by year's end. But lots of information about voc ed is provided in this hundred-page tome and some of it is surprising: most interesting to me, while the total number of credits earned by high-school students has risen (from an average 21.6 in 1982 to 25.2 in 1998), and while essentially all growth has taken place in "academic" courses, still the average number of vocational course credits on student transcripts has barely changed: from 4.7 to 4.0, with that modest decline halting in 1992. It remains true, however, that students who take more voc ed classes also tend to take fewer, easier, academic courses. Also interesting: by this group's calculations, one-third of post-secondary undergraduates, "are considered to be in vocational programs." There's more. It's clear that voc ed needs attention and that it will be a real challenge for Perkins reauthorizers to chart a new course for it. Today, it's something of a policy orphan, remote from the main strand of K-12 reform (which is unabashedly academic) and fitting uncomfortably into the issues associated with higher education. It will be interesting to see what this panel recommends. For that, however, you'll have to await their next report. To download this one, go to http://www.ed.gov/offices/OUS/PES/NAVE/reports.html.
