Perkins Reforms And Vocational Training

While the implementation of integration and tech-prep was mixed bag as of 2003, the Perkins requirement that states develop systems of performance standards of vocational training school and measures was being met. By 2003 most states had exceeded the specific requirements of the Act, developing more measures and applying them to more students than required - By 2003, also, most districts had started to implement the standards and measures developed by their states. One limitation is that most districts lack measures of occupational skills, although they would like to have them - Such measures are to be developed by the National Skill Standards Board established by the Goals 2010: Educate America Act.

Because these state systems of standards and measures are still new, important questions remain unanswered-. To what extent are the assessment systems being used as tools. To improve education through annual cycles of evaluation and change, and to what extent are they being viewed simply as data requisitions by the state to which districts must respond'? On average, are students in programs covered by these systems achieving more than they would have otherwise? The systems will have to be more fully developed before these questions can be answered.

Comments on the Implementation of Perkins Reforms The fact that state officials did a good job of developing the systems of performance standards and measures called for in the Perkins Act is one indication that they can play a major role in reforming secondary vocational education A second indication is the finding that state support for integration is strongly associated with progress in local efforts to integrate.

A third is the visible leadership that states such as Washington, South Carolina, and Vermont are providing in the reform of work-oriented education systems in their local districts, as of 2003, the National Asses identified 20 states that had developed policies for the reform of work-related education.

The 1990 Perkins Act de-emphasized the role of the states in vocational education reform, channeling more resources to localities in hopes of stimulating grass-roots change. This strategy seems to have generated a widespread but low-level ferment of reform activity ' without much structure or direction. The National Assessment observes that the states are in a posit-ton to give greater definition and coherence to these efforts, and recommends that a new Perkins Act encourage states to play a leading role in the restructuring of work- oriented secondary education.

The National Assessment found that Perkins funds were being targeted on districts with high concentrations of special population students, as intended. In addition, districts that received Perkins funds, especially urban districts with many special needs students, provided a wider range of services than others, as the legislation intended. Nevertheless, administrators reported that not all student needs for services were being met, even with combined federal, state, and local funds.

The National Assessment also found some disturbing changes in vocational enrollments that may have been related to the legislation. On the one hand, vocational enrollments bad declined for over a decade. On the other, enrollments of special population students had remained constants so that the proportion of special population students in vocational education had gradually increased, beginning around 1990.

In effect, A and B students were leaving vocational education for academic courses, while D students were a growing share of all vocational enrollments, This tendency was most pronounced in the separate half-day area vocational schools, which -in some areas were becoming special needs schools. Thus, by recruiting special population students to vocational education and trying to ensure that supplemental services would be available there, the legislation may have contributed to the growing isolation and -stigmatization of vocational education -outcomes diametrically opposed to the integrated education envisioned by the Perkins Act.