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skills. An interdisciplinary staff including a mathematics teacher, a teacher from one of the sciences, a social studies teacher, an English teacher and a vocational specialist is assigned to each curriculum family. General education subjects are integrated with skill training but, contrary to the previously cited programs, the latter is the primary objective.

A two-year post-secondary school is open to those who graduate from high school. The whole complex is housed in a modern building with all the latest features of portable partitions, audio-visual equipment and individual study carrels.

The innovative programs do not operate in a complete vacuum, and some of the ideas are creeping into the regular programs. The Great Cities Research Council, which represents the major metropolitan areas in the United States, has made vocational education a major concern. In their "Plans of Action," a number of these cities have recognized the need for earlier introduction of vocational information and exploration, and have signified their intent to begin providing such information in elementary school programs. For example, the Chicago, Illinois Plan states that: "Education designed to prepare all students for the world of work shall begin in the kindergarten and shall continue through the common school program, and shall be abundantly available thereafter for training, retraining, and upgrading out-of-school youth and adults.,,22 A number of the cities planned to analyze the junior high school programs to determine whether they were providing adequate exploratory experiences to help students understand the world of work in order that they might make more realistic decisions about their vocational choice and preparation.

In an attempt to overcome the chasm between general and vocational education, a number of school systems are moving in the direction of making vocational preparation a part of the curriculum of all students. The City of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania has made considerable progress toward this end.

22 Donald M. Brill, City Plan of Action Report, Great Cities Research Council, Chicago, Ill., October 28, 1966 (mimeographed), p. 1.

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They currently have approximately sixty percent of their students enrolled in courses which offer salable skills. The Compton, California School District has a similar goal and has made significant progress in that direction. These are exceptions, however. Vocational educators appear to be, for the most part, competent people pursuing their jobs as they see them. By and large, the objectives of the more progressive appear to be to do a better job of what they are already doing. The system is not well designed to make the need for change and adaptation apparent and attractive. Discontent and, therefore, experimentation and innovation seem to come primarily from outside the system. The need to structure the availability of public funds so as to motivate adoption of available "best practice" adapted to the needs of particular communities, population groups and individuals is apparent.

REORIENTING VOCATIONAL EDUCATION

24

23

The unguided consensus seemingly emerging from ad hoc experimentation and the limited involvement of the established vocational education structure, suggests a need for development, understanding and agreement on a basic philosophy for occupational preparation. Whether called relevant education,2 the organic curriculum, career development education25 or education for employment, 26 and despite differences in detail and application, it is clear that certain basic principles underlie much of the more progressive thinking in the field. The diverse terminology merely seeks to differentiate the newer ideas from what vocational education has come to mean in tradition and practice. Involved is recognition that any dichotomy between academic and vocational education is out

23 Marvin J. Feldman, Making Education Relevant (New York: Ford Foundation, 1966).

24 David S. Bushnell, "An Education System for the 70's," speech presented before the Aerospace Education Foundation Conference (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Office of Education, Division of Comprehensive and Vocational Education Research) September 12, 1967 (mimeographed).

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5 Arthur R. Lehne, The Career Development Concept of Education, Chicago Public Schools, February 21, 1967 (mimeographed).

26Vocational Education: The Bridge Between Man and His Work, Highlights and Recommendations from the General Report of the Advisory Council on Vocational Education," in Notes and Working Papers Concerning the Administration of Programs Authorized Under the Vocational Education Act of 1963, Public Law 88-210, As Amended, Prepared for U.S. Senate, Committee on Labor and Public Welfare, Subcommittee on Education, 90th Cong., 2nd Sess., March 1967.

93-989 O-68-pt. 5-29

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moded, that all education to be acceptable must be relevant, that adaptability to change is as important as initial preparation and that the needs and objectives of individuals should take precedence over those of the labor market. It appears to be toward these same principles that the Vocational Education Act of 1963 was groping and which it approached more closely in intent than in achievement.

Only a generation ago, education for most of the labor force was irrelevant to employment. With the exceptions of a few professionals and a few skills, the schools had objectives other than preparation for work. Many of the older half of the current labor force are products of that system. In a complex interaction, rising educational attainment has swollen the supply of talented labor encouraging development of a technology structured to use such labor, thus increasing the competition and decreasing the opportunities for the undereducated. In this environment the traditional educational skills of spoken and written communication, computation, analytical techniques, knowledge of society and man's role in it and skill in human relations are all determinants of employability. At the same time, if education is preparation for life, employability skills are essential to it. Practically every member of the population at some time participates in the labor force. Yet vocational choice, like marital choice, is a crucial decision made casually and with inadequate information.

Experience with innovative programs provides increasing evidence that vocational education has more to offer as teaching method than as training substance. Emerging from its initial role as preparation for professions, education has fostered and rewarded the verbal skills important to those pursuits, in preference to manipulative skills and problemsolving attitudes. Lecture and discussion have been emphasized in preference to learning by doing. Federal law which mandated a separate administrative structure for vocational education and defined it as less than college level did not create the separation between academic and vocational education but it has certainly perpetuated it. It is paradoxical that the very phases of education which are the most specifically vocational in nature, higher and graduate education, are held in esteem while occupational preparation at a less than college level is without prestige.

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Increasingly, both academic and vocational education lose relevance separately. The fusion of general and vocational education does not automatically create instructional content which is more palatable to the student. It is when the student perceives the information as meaningful in helping him to achieve sought after goals that instructional content becomes attractive. Molding an academic package around a core of practical skills capped with work experience provided by cooperative employers seems to offer the ultimate in relevance, particularly for those from deprived backgrounds with limited verbal skills and short time horizons.

Relevance starts with realistic objectives. Vocational goals of students, to the extent they have any, are a product of parental pressure or of supposed glamour which lead to high rates of attrition and feelings of failure. A considerable emphasis is being given to programs directed at helping students to establish realistic goals. This essential pragmatism is the motivation for earlier introduction and orientation to the world of work, improved counseling and guidance techniques, and exploratory programs. That same sense of relevance is easily recognized, but equally important, in the growing need to upgrade skills in an atmosphere of change and in the increasing emphasis on remedial help for the underprepared and victims of displacement. Once again, federal law must accept some blame for irrelevance. Though it is common to accuse vocational educators of resisting change by training for obsolete skills, it should be remembered that it was federal legislation, relevant in its day but unchanged over time, that locked the system into the occupational structure of 1917. Those with a vested interest in that structure could not be expected to strongly advocate change. That impetus had to and must come from without.

Finally, freedom can be operationally measured only in terms of the options available to the individual. Ignorance, poverty, disease and discrimination are major constraints on that range of choice; and education and training are crucial to their elimination. The responsiveness of the school system to the needs of all labor market entrants and participants--the dropout, the high school graduate, the post-secondary student, the upgrader and those in need of remedial help-expands or contracts the options and opportunities for self-realization.