Vocational Education in the US

Vocational Education in the United States: The Early 1990s

Additional Questions for Secondary Vocational Education

How do vocational and nonvocational teachers differ from one another?

Figure 9--Characteristics of public high school vocational and nonvocational teachers, by teacher and school type: 1990-91

Vocational teachers in trade and industry, technical, and health areas were more likely to teach at vocational schools than were vocational teachers in other occupational areas (table 118).(51) For example, more than one-third of trade and industry and of technical teachers and more than one-quarter of health teachers taught at vocational schools, while 5 percent or fewer of agriculture, business and accounting, career education, home economics, and industrial arts teachers taught at these schools. Trade and industry as well as technical teachers were more likely than other vocational teachers to have earned less than a bachelor's degree and, along with health teachers, were older when they first began to teach (table 117).(52) These findings suggest that these teachers may have been more likely than other vocational teachers to enter the teaching profession after working for some years in industry.

How much do vocational teachers earn?

In 1990-91, vocational and nonvocational teachers earned similar salaries (an average of $31,595 for vocational teachers compared with $32,145 for nonvocational teachers) (table 121). Vocational teachers' salaries increased with number of years of teaching experience. Additionally, vocational teachers in suburban schools earned more than those in urban schools, who in turn earned more than vocational teachers in rural areas. While vocational teachers with a master's or higher degree earned more than their counterparts with less postsecondary education, there was no significant difference between the earnings of vocational teachers with a bachelor's degree and those with less than a bachelor's degree. This similarity in earnings may reflect the practice in some states of compensating vocational teachers for industry experience.(53)

How large are vocational classes and teaching loads?

Vocational classes tended to be smaller than nonvocational classes, and the average number of students for whom vocational teachers were responsible was smaller than for nonvocational teachers (tables 122 and 123). Specifically, vocational classes contained, on average, 17 students, while nonvocational classes contained 22 students. Furthermore, the size of vocational classes was fairly constant across school types, with vocational classes in comprehensive high schools containing only slightly more students than vocational classes in vocational schools. The average number of students vocational teachers instructed per week was lower than the number nonvocational teachers instructed (89 students compared with 113 students). However, vocational teachers in vocational schools instructed significantly fewer students per week than their counterparts in comprehensive high schools (75 students compared with 90 students). While vocational teachers in vocational schools had nearly as many students per class, they may have taught fewer classes than their counterparts in comprehensive high schools.(54)

Additional Questions for Postsecondary Vocational Education

What institutional sectors have the largest vocational education enrollments?

Public 2- to 3-year institutions (community colleges) were the largest providers of postsecondary vocational education in 1989-90, enrolling 60 percent of all nonbaccalaureate postsecondary students reporting a vocational major (table 61). Private proprietary institutions were the second largest vocational providers, serving about 22 percent of all nonbaccalaureate vocational students. The remaining 18 percent of vocational students were served by public 4-year; public vocational-technical; private, nonprofit 4-year; and private, nonprofit less-than-4-year institutions (figure 10). Four-year institutions together served about 11 percent of all postsecondary vocational students.

Figure 10--Percentage of nonbaccalaureate vocational majors attending different types of postsecondary institutions: 1989-90

How do students reporting vocational majors differ from those reporting academic ones?

There were marked differences between students reporting vocational and academic majors (tables 89-93). Vocational majors were somewhat more likely than their academic counterparts to be male and to be from a racial-ethnic minority. Vocational majors were also older and were more likely to be economically independent from their parents. However, contrary to some widely held beliefs, vocational majors were also more likely than academic majors to be enrolled full time and to be working toward a formal degree or certificate rather than taking individual courses. Vocational majors were less economically well off than their academic peers and were more likely to be unmarried with dependents. They were also more likely to be receiving financial aid, perhaps because of a combination of factors, including their greater full-time attendance status, greater economic independence, and poorer economic background.

How much financial aid do vocational students receive?

Among 1989-90 nonbaccalaureate postsecondary students, almost one-half of those who reported majoring in vocational education received some sort of financial aid (table 94). In contrast, one-third of students reporting academic majors and one-quarter of those reporting other majors received financial aid. Of those students who received financial aid, almost three-quarters (73 percent) of vocational majors received some sort of federal aid, compared with about two-thirds of academic majors (66 percent). State and institutional financial aid sources funded fewer students--22 percent and 25 percent of vocational majors, respectively.(55)

On average, aided students majoring in a vocational area received about $3,000 in federal aid in 1989-90, in comparison with about $1,200 in both state and institutional aid (table 95). Vocational majors were also more likely to receive federal grants than federal loans, with the largest federal grant source being Pell grants, and the largest loan source being Stafford loans (table 94). More than one-half of all vocational financial aid recipients received a Pell grant. However, the average Pell grant to vocational majors was smaller than the average Stafford loan ($1,400 compared with $2,300).

Conclusion

Vocational education involves a broad range of activities, including occupationally specific, general labor market, and consumer and homemaking coursework; school- and work-based experiences; and integrated academic and vocational curricula. While participation in the traditional high school vocational curriculum has declined somewhat over the 1982-1992 decade, efforts to reform vocational education in both high schools and postsecondary institutions have expanded in recent years.

The data presented in this publication are many and varied. They provide a fairly detailed picture of vocational education, particularly at the secondary level. Several broad themes recur and are summarized below.

Participation of Special Populations

At both the secondary and postsecondary levels, economically disadvantaged students were more likely than their advantaged counterparts to participate heavily in vocational education. Among public high school graduates, those from families in lower socioeconomic quartiles were more likely to complete three or more courses (to "concentrate") in a single occupational program area and to complete two or more advanced courses (to "specialize") in that program area (tables 35 and 38). Among nonbaccalaureate postsecondary students, those from families in lower socioeconomic quartiles were more likely than their higher socioeconomic counterparts to report majoring in a vocational program area (table 60).

Economic disadvantage aside, the participation patterns of special populations differed at the two educational levels. While academically disadvantaged students and students with disabilities were more likely than their counterparts to concentrate and specialize in vocational education in high school, they were not more likely to major in vocational education at the postsecondary level. Furthermore, unmarried postsecondary students with dependents were more likely to report majoring in vocational education, while high school graduates who were parents or were expecting while in high school were no more likely to concentrate or specialize in high school vocational programs than other graduates.

Academic Preparation of Vocational Coursetakers

A number of findings presented in this report describe the academic preparation of vocational coursetakers. Taken together, they paint a troublesome, but potentially improving, picture. To begin with, as public high school graduates earn more vocational credits, they tend to earn fewer academic ones (table 41). Given the limited number of class periods available during the school day and year, such a tradeoff may be necessary to enable students to participate in the vocational curriculum. Moreover, graduates who complete large numbers of vocational courses tend to give up more foreign language courses than other academic courses.(56) However, the remaining academic coursework of heavy vocational coursetakers includes fewer advanced academic courses and more remedial and survey-type coursework (tables 43, 45, and 47). The combination of completing fewer academic courses overall and fewer advanced and more lower level academic courses may contribute to the finding that students earning more vocational credits have lower NAEP academic achievement test scores (tables 105 and 106). Another contributing factor may be the tendency of high school students from special populations to participate in vocational education at relatively high rates. Against this background, however, high schools reported that efforts to infuse more academic materials into vocational courses were among their most common integration activities (tables 97 and 100).

Varied Profiles of Vocational Students and Teachers

A third theme emerging from this report is that no single description fits all vocational students or teachers, particularly at the secondary level. Instead, profiles vary by vocational program area. For example, business was the most common vocational concentration among college preparatory graduates (table 37), and business concentrators were more likely than all other vocational concentrators except technical and communications ones to meet all of the A Nation At Risk academic coursework standards (table 40). Additionally, female graduates were significantly more likely than male graduates to concentrate in business (table 37), and graduates accumulating greater numbers of remedial credits were significantlyless likely to concentrate in this area (table 38). In contrast, male, Native American, and economically and academically disadvantaged graduates were more likely than their counterparts to concentrate in trade and industry (tables 37 and 38).

Vocational teachers also differed according to the vocational subjects they taught. For example, vocational teachers in trade and industry, technical, and health areas were more likely to teach at vocational schools than agriculture, business and accounting, career education, home economics, and industrial arts teachers (table 118). Furthermore, trade and industry teachers and technical teachers were more likely to have earned less than a bachelor's degree and, along with health teachers, were older when they first began to teach than other vocational teachers.

In conclusion, vocational education encompasses diverse objectives, activities, providers, and participants. No single description of the vocational education experience covers all situations. Experiences vary among education levels, types of schools and institutions, vocational program areas, and groups of students and teachers. This publication presents a wide array of data that shed light on these different experiences and help to understand the complex nature of the U.S. vocational education system in the early 1990s.

Footnotes

1. Section 421 of the 1990 Perkins Act directs the Secretary of Education to establish a national vocational education data system. This publication is in part a response to this legislative mandate. 1990 Perkins Act, Public Law 101-392, Sec. 421.

2. The Act goes on to say, "Such programs shall include competency-based applied learning which contributes to an individual's academic knowledge, higher-order reasoning, and problem-solving skills, work attitudes, general employability skills, and the occupational-specific skills necessary for economic independence as a productive and contributing member of society. Such term also includes applied technology education." 1990 Perkins Act, Public Law 101-392, Sec. 521 (41).

3. A.G. Gifford, E.G. Hoachlander, and J.E. Tuma, The Secondary School Taxonomy Final Report (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Education, National Assessment of Vocational Education, February 1989).

4. For simplicity's sake, the text refers to specific labor market preparation education as the occupationally specific curriculum and to specific labor market preparation programs as occupational programs.

5. In addition to serving high school students, area vocational schools often enroll postsecondary (for-credit) and adult (noncredit) students.

6. Section 403 of the 1990 Perkins Act called upon the Office of Education Research and Improvement to conduct a national assessment of vocational education to provide descriptions and evaluations of a broad range of issues pertaining to vocational education (1990 Perkins Act, Public Law 101-392, Sec. 403). The NAVE published its final report to Congress in July 1994 [National Assessment of Vocational Education, Final Report to Congress (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Education, Office of Educational Research and Improvement, Office of Research, 1994)]. The statistics provided in the above paragraph can be found in Volume II, chapter 1 of the report.

7. The exceptions are data on secondary school teachers (tables 114-127) and on school-to-work programs (tables 97-104), which do distinguish between comprehensive high schools and vocational schools.

8. E. Gareth Hoachlander, Phillip Kaufman, Karen Levesque, and James Houser, Vocational Education in the United States: 1969-1990 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, 1992).

9. National Assessment of Vocational Education, Final Report to Congress, Volume II, chapter 1 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Education, Office of Educational Research and Improvement, Office of Research, 1994).

10. In secondary education, 1 Carnegie unit is awarded for the completion of a course that meets 1 period per day for 1 year. For simplicity's sake, this publication refers to a Carnegie unit as a credit.

11. Vocational and Applied Technology Education Programs-- General Provisions, 34 CFR 400.4.

12. These definitions were originally used by the NAVE. National Assessment of Vocational Education, Final Report to Congress, Volume II, chapter 1 (Washington, D.C.: 1994).

13. W. Norton Grubb, Access, Achievement, Completion, and "Milling Around" in Postsecondary Vocational Education (Berkeley: National Center for Research in Vocational Education, April 1989).

14. The recent NAVE found that vocational education is widely available in U.S. high schools. About three-quarters of all comprehensive high schools offer occupational programs, while more than 90 percent offer, at minimum, introductory vocational courses. Additionally, almost all comprehensive high schools either offer vocational courses or provide access to area vocational schools. National Assessment of Vocational Education, Final Report to Congress, Volume II, chapter 1 (Washington, D.C.: 1994).

15. Local economic conditions affecting vocational programs included both the loss of jobs for which programs trained students and the loss of educational funding that often accompanied a poor economy. Ibid.

16. Ibid., chapter 2.

17. Although the National Postsecondary Student Aid Study (NPSAS) excludes students taking not-for-credit courses, about one in four nonbaccalaureate students in the 1989-90 NPSAS sample reported majoring in program areas that were classified by the Classification of Instructional Programs (CIP) as "personal improvement or leisure" programs. See A Classification of Instructional Programs, 1990 Edition, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Education, , U.S. Government Printing Office, 1990.

18. Although all students enrolled in public vocational-technical institutes are typically considered to be vocational, some of the students surveyed declared they were enrolled in academic programs such as law, education, and journalism and communications.

19. National Assessment of Vocational Education, Final Report to Congress, Volume II, chapter 1 (Washington, D.C.: 1994).

20. Students majored in health and in trade and industry programs at statistically similar rates.

21. National Assessment of Vocational Education, Final Report to Congress, Volume II, chapter 6 (Washington, D.C.: 1994).

22. Graduates were classified as "college preparatory" if they completed 4 or more credits in English; 3 or more credits in math, with 1 or more of those credits in algebra or higher; 3 or more credits in science, with 1 or more of those credits in chemistry or physics; and 2 or more credits in a single foreign language. Students who met both the vocational specialist and college preparatory criteria were included in the vocational specialist group.

23. National Assessment of Vocational Education, Final Report to Congress, Volume II, chapter 1 (Washington, D.C.: 1994).

24. The NAVE found that throughout 1982-1992 graduates earning large numbers of vocational credits were less likely both to concentrate their coursetaking in a specific program area and to earn advanced credits within their concentration. The NAVE speculated that the increasing lack of program concentration may be due to a number of factors, including students taking vocational courses for avocational reasons; students anticipating more complex job demands and moving toward an interdisciplinary type of training by taking coursework in several program areas; or students simply being less focused in their coursetaking. Ibid.

25. The percentage of marketing concentrators completing second or higher level courses in marketing was not statistically higher than the percentage of trade and industry concentrators completing higher level courses in trade and industry.

26. The percentage of occupational home economics concentrators completing second or higher level courses in their concentration was not statistically different from the percentage of health and technical and communications concentrators completing such courses in their respective concentrations.

27. For the purposes of this publication, an occupational program was identified as nontraditional if one gender group was two or more times as likely as the other to participate in the program in 1992.

28. The NAVE found that the gender imbalance in occupational programs was greater among concentrators than among all graduates taking one or more courses in these areas. National Assessment of Vocational Education, Final Report to Congress, Volume II, chapter 1 (Washington, D.C.: 1994).

29. In this publication, the term white refers to white, non-Hispanic persons.

30. In this publication, the term black refers to black, non-Hispanic persons.

31. The NAVE suggested that the overrepresentation of minorities in private proprietary schools might be due to the fact that these schools are concentrated in urban areas, while public subbaccalaureate institutions are mostly located outside cities. National Assessment of Vocational Education, Final Report to Congress, Volume II, chapter 2 (Washington, D.C.: 1994).

32. Ibid.

33. The NAVE found that special populations, particularly academically disadvantaged and disabled students, made up a growing proportion of the vocational and occupational course-taking population over the last decade. Several factors may have contributed to this trend. First, special populations decreased their vocational coursetaking less than other students during these years. As a result of this differential decline, "the overrepresentation of special population students in vocational education" increased. Second, the Perkins Act encouraged districts to maximize the participation of special populations in vocational education. Finally, the NAVE suggested that as vocational enrollments decline, "special population students are often easier to recruit, in part because regular programs are more willing to let them go. Comprehensive high schools, often reluctant to send students to area vocational schools because they may lose funds by doing so, are more willing to send more costly, hard-to-educate students to AVSs." Ibid.

34. The differences between student parents and expecting students and their counterparts in the number of occupationally specific credits earned were not statistically significant.

35. Limited-English proficient students also appeared more likely to be vocational specialists, but this difference was not statistically significant.

36. The 1990 Perkins Act included individuals in correctional institutions among special populations groups. Public Law 101-392, Section 521(31).

37. New Basics standards for noncollege-bound high school graduates include 4 years of English, 3 years of math, 3 years of science, 3 years of social studies, and a half year of computer science. National Commission on Excellence in Education, A Nation At Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform (Cambridge, MA: USA Research, 1983).

38. However, while technical and communications and business concentrators appeared at least twice as likely as marketing and distribution concentrators to specialize in the college prep curriculum, these differences were not statistically significant.

39. However, the difference between foreign language and fine arts was not statistically significant.

40. Although the 1990 Perkins Act did not define the term integration of academic and vocational education, some research has been done on the forms that such integration takes in schools. In The Cunning Hand, the Cultured Mind, Grubb et al. identified eight integration models that differ in approach and ambition: (1) incorporating more academic content in vocational courses; (2) combining vocational and academic teachers to enhance academic competencies in vocational programs; (3) making the academic curriculum more vocationally relevant; (4) curricular alignment by modifying both vocational and academic courses; (5) the senior project as a form of integration; (6) the academy model or schools-within-schools; (7) occupational high schools and magnet schools; and (8) occupational clusters, "career paths," and occupational majors. See W. Norton Grubb et al., The Cunning Hand, the Cultured Mind: Models for Integrating Vocational and Academic Education, Berkeley: National Center for Research in Vocational Education, July 1991.

41. The Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills (SCANS) identified five competencies needed for employment, including (1) identifying, organizing, planning, and allocating resources; (2) working with others; (3) acquiring and using information; (4) understanding complex interrelationships; (5) working with a variety of technologies; and a three-part foundation of skills, including (1) basic skills; (2) thinking skills; and (3) personal qualities. The Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills, What Work Requires of Schools: A SCANS Report for America 2000 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Labor, June 1991).

42. However, the percentages of educators in comprehensive high schools developing applied materials for academic courses and either team teaching or developing coordinated courses were not statistically different.

43. The study reported similar findings for science and reading achievement. Alexander C. McCormick, John Tuma, and James Houser, Vocational Course Taking and Achievement: An Analysis of High School Transcripts and 1990 NAEP Assessment Scores (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Education, , May 1995).

44. The study suggested that researchers and policymakers interested in the causal relationships between coursetaking and achievement should use longitudinal data to examine achievement gains, with careful controls for other explanatory factors. Ibid.

45. K.A. Rasinski, The Effect of High School Vocational Education on Academic Achievement Gain and High School Persistence: Evidence from NELS:88, Draft Report (Chicago: National Opinion Research Center, 1994).

46. A pattern of increasing labor market returns to education was documented by Kane and Rouse. These researchers found that persons who attended 2- and 4-year colleges earned about 5 percent more than high school graduates for every year of postsecondary credits earned, regardless of whether they attained a postsecondary degree. See Thomas J. Kane and Cecilia Rouse, "Labor Market Returns to Two- and Four-Year Colleges: Is a Credit a Credit and Do Degrees Matter?", Working Paper #4268 (Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research, January 1993).

47. For example, 79 percent of vocational completers employed in a field related to training were employed throughout the time studied, while 77 percent of those employed in an unrelated field were consistently employed.

48. The NAVE found that training-related employment also had a positive impact on the earnings of secondary vocational completers. NAVE, Final Report to Congress, Volume II, chapter 6 (Washington, D.C.: 1994).

49. The School-to-Work Opportunities Act of 1994 encourages states to expand work-based learning opportunities for high school students and details methods for developing meaningful experiences. Public Law 103-239.

50. However, credits earned by health concentrators were not statistically different from credits earned by business and occupational home economics concentrators.

51. The only exceptions were that technical and health teachers were not statistically more likely than teachers in the "other" vocational category to teach at vocational schools.

52. Technical teachers were not more likely than health and "other" vocational teachers to have earned less than a bachelor's degree, and technical and health teachers were no less likely than teachers in the "other" and "mixed" categories to be age 25 or younger when they first began to teach.

53. See "The State of Certification," Vocational Education Journal 68 (6) (September 1993): 30-35.

54. For example, area vocational schools typically block schedule their classes, offering two to four sessions per day. In contrast, comprehensive high schools schedule six or seven class periods per day, although some vocational classes may meet for two consecutive periods.

55. The state and institutional financial aid categories included both need-based and merit-based aid.

56. A Nation At Risk did not include foreign language among its coursework standards for students who were not college bound.

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