and to expand its program beyond the confines of the classroom into the community at large, bringing educational reality to the ghetto, and to the children and youth of special circumstances who have been short changed educationally. The educational "know-how" to solve the social problem already exists.

The school of the future must operate on a full-year basis and, to a large extent, around the clock. It must reach into every facet of the community with depth of concern including the gamut of experience from early childhood education, day-care centers, summer camps, and youth projects of great variety, to prevocational instruction, workexperience education, and actual vocational preparation. The school is society's safety valve, and it should be used to serve in this capacity. Many educational problems of an internal nature can be solved by material at hand. Programed learning, educational TV, team teaching, and dozens of other devices to motivate learning and speed up the process have been demonstrated to have instructional value. Some schools have moved into an entirely new learning environment, and all must do so. Many of the deterrents to educational progress have been under critical examination, including departmentalization, school grades, nongraded classes, carnegie units, subject-matter time concepts, and educational tracks. The substitutes for the future are focused upon individual competencies developed in a flexible educational environment. The student of the future should be able to demonstrate communication competency, rather than present certified credentials verifying the fact that he has served time for 4 years in English, 3 in mathematics, and 2 in French.

Vocational education is involved in this renaissance with an emphasis that changes gradually from interest and concern to direct participation student age and development are the controlling facfors, Somewhere in the student's early educational career an interest in vocation must develop. This interest must find expression in the elementary school and the junior high school. At an appropriate time dictated by student interest more than by age and grade levelthe student must begin occupational exploration. He will need the guidance of a teacher specially trained to aid him at this point. One of the major problems is that so few students have ever had an opportunity to learn very much about the vast number of exciting ways that people earn a living- their normal growing up experiences do not provide this opportunity. Later, the student should have the opportunity of continuing his study of the occupational world by actual participation in it under the guidance of instructors in supervised work experience programs; this should be supplemented by other school work experience as appropriate. All through his formal educational career the student should be learning about work, he should be able to place value upon his total education in relation to work, he must learn much about himself and his educational preferences, and it is imperative that he sharen his identity with his occupational future Puring the major portion of his life he will be a member of

The labor form

When be finally makes his ocupational decision, vocational educaBon will provide the hand-oore essentials which will make it possible for him to find employment in a number of specific jobs related to the ama of his national preparation.

COMMITMENT

One of the major reasons why vocational education has not been more extensively developed in the public schools of the Nation is that there has been little commitment to do so. The "driving urge" to provide vocational education opportunity has been lacking in most public schools.

That a commitment must develop in relation to vocational education has become a social and economic imperative. It is a major function of American secondary education to prepare all students for the world of work by the time they finish their formal schooling at whatever level they achieve. This point of view is an extension of the concept that the greatness of America is not its tremendous wealth, but its ability to use its human resources wisely.

Wise use of our human resources depends, in a large measure, upon how we prepare our students for a world of work; wise preparation cannot move forward significantly except on the basis of a fundamental commitment to do so.

The first step in developing a commitment for vocational education must be taken by school boards, administrators, and professional associations. Such policymaking groups must see clearly that a vocational education commitment is in line with students' well being and with the needs of the national economy.

The second step in the commitment involves the total faculty of the school community. This is to say that the sixth grade social studies teacher, the junior high school physical education teacher, the high school mathematics teacher, and the junior college physics teacher, and all other teachers have significant roles to play in the vocational development of an individual in addition to the teacher who's instructional responsibility is directly related to the skills and knowledges required in an occupational setting. This is not a new concept in education, but never before have the occupational goals of students been so totally dependent upon their total education.

This is a difficult task because all members of the educational family must give up some of their cherished patterns of instruction and work together as a team to achieve one of the immediate goals-an appropriate integration of subject matter.

The rationale concerning the integration of subject matter is less controversial than the methods and procedures of achieving the goal. It seems obvious that an approach to implementation requires that a number of changes occur in both the so-called general part of the curriculum and the vocational part. The nature of the resulting mix should have more of the characteristics of a mechanical mixture rather than a chemical combination; the first retains the identity of the elements mixed, the latter produces a new substance with characteristics quite foreign to the original elements.

The desirable goal is a situation in which the total educational effort can contribute to the total vocational education of students, and at the same time leave enough room for the hard-core instruction in vocational education which leads to employment.

It is relatively easy to develop a program of studies that tends to provide liberalizing forces, which are at the root of every student's learning experience. Similarly, it is relatively easy to organize a

program of studies leading to employment in a single occupation or a cluster of occupations. The difficult task is to develop a program involving both of these essential aspects of education, and to get the right combination of these to meet the needs of each individual student. This is not wild theory; it has already been carried out by some schools and with considerable success. The students like it because the flexibility of the system makes it possible for education to "fit" them, rather than the necessity that they "fit" the system. Such a commitment negates the old description of the curriculum as a race to be run by the bright, the dull, the lame, and the blind, and those that finish on time are educated. Teachers like the system because it provides so many opportunities for teaching to become the exciting profession that it

should be.

The third group to be identified in the general realm of commitment for vocational education consists of the public at large-the community. A renaissance in public education cannot be achieved without a commitment, and actual involvement, of the total community.

Education changes, and the community is not always up to date with such change. The parental conception of education is frequently patterned after their own experiences and not upon the experiences of their children. This suggests that the "new education" of the future can be successful only to the extent that the public at large becomes involved in the change. It can continue to be successful only to the extent that public information is flowing generously in two ways-from the community to the school, and from the school to the community.

An additional commitment, which in some respects is a major controlling commitment, is represented by the action of Congress in matters related to vocational education.

During the past decade, a number of acts of Congress, passed in response to urgent social and economic need, have had vocational education provisions. These acts have provided extensive amounts of money and are administered by several agencies other than the Office of Education.

The diversification in responsibility for vocational education and training complicates the problem of vocational education because (1) it creates competition, in some respects, for the same group of students (for example, a school administrator frequently has the choice of funding a vocational program under one act with 90-percent Federal funding, under another act with 73-percent Federal funding, and under the Vocational Education Act of 1963 with 50-percent Federal funding), and (2) it produces a critical need to coordinate the functions of all agencies involved.

The commitment of Congress, over the years, to vocational educational has caused to be developed in each of the States well-organized stars to plan and conduct vocational education programs. This existing and effective pattern for implementation of vocational education proges in relation to national needs should be utilized to the fullest excome.

SUMMARY

Cats social esi rachnological feces make it clear that the Veron must serve its abiny to provide vocational preparation for

the labor force for the first time, and also for

those persons who are members of the labor force, both the employed and unemployed. The scope of vocational education is sufficiently broad to encompass these requirements. Included within the total context of Vocational education need are a number of special groups of persons. In addition to a basic educational commitment to provide vocational preparation in the mainstream of public education, there are three major areas of concern.

First, starting early in the student's formal education he must learn more about work, its dignity, and his relationship to the occupational world. Actual work experiences need to be included as an integral part of the student's educational program.

Second, the subject matter of the school and vocational requirements need to be realigned so that education becomes more meaningful in terms of its occupational potential. This involves a high degree of flexibility and a definite movement toward individualization of instruction.

Third, the hard-core content of vocational education-the part that makes a person employable-must be adjusted to accommodate a wider range of occupational opportunity and a larger number of students. The renaissance in education must develop new relationships between the school and the community at large to the end that education, with its vocational component, reaches into every facet of the community to provide for youth and adults now not being served.

In order for education to exert its full impact upon the social and economic needs of the Nation, the Congress must recognize the longterm potential of the existing system of vocational education and utilize this potential to the fullest extent. Although the need for "crash" programs in vocational education and training may occur from time to time, it is neither economically sound or educationally feasible, as a matter of national policy, to promote the development of an additional system of education outside the realm of the public educational

structure.