The trends in course taking between 1982 and 1992 were broadly consistent with the goals of education reform outlined in A Nation at Risk. Students completed more academic course work, and more advanced academic course work, in 1992 than in 1982. At the same time, course taking in the vocational curriculum declined substantially between 1982 and 1992.
Many of the goals outlined in the Carl D. Perkins Vocational Education and Applied Technology Act do not appear to have been substantially advanced between 1982 and 1992, although most of this period preceded the effective date of the Act. For example, Congress has promoted increased participation by students in vocational programs that are nontraditional for their gender; nontraditional enrollments did not increase between 1982 and 1992, although gender disparities fell somewhat due to large declines in the rates of program participation by the predominant gender group in certain fields. Likewise, participation in high technology programs does not appear to have increased over the 10-year period.
To the extent that one can measure access to vocational programs with course taking data, Congress' goal of ensuring that vocational education programs are accessible to students with disabilities appears to have been met. Disabled students consistently took more vocational course work than nondisabled students, and the disparity between these groups actually increased over time. However, nothing conclusive can be said about the quality of the programs to which disabled students have access from the course taking data presented here.
Downward trends in patterns of vocational concentration, coupled with shifts in occupationally specific course taking away from sequential courses and towards specialty courses not clearly linked to a sequential program, suggest that participation in vocational education at the secondary level is increasingly diffuse. Whether high school graduates are not pursuing sequential courses for lack of time (due to increased academic requirements), changes in course offerings, or changes in their perceptions of the educational requirements for various occupations cannot be determined from these data, but the shift itself was consistent across all student groups.
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