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Most comprehensive high schools offer at least a limited range of exploratory classes, consumer and homemaking education, shop classes, programs on business and office occupations, marketing and distribution, and computers. Most students seeking more extensive vocational education can spend part of the week at an area vocational-technical center that offers a full range of occupationally specific programs--including career awareness training and counseling--and courses in trades and industries, health occupations, hotel management, computer technology, and food service. In addition, a few areas have vocational high schools that provide all the academic and vocational classes a student would need to graduate. Schools can use Perkins funds for all these activities.
States also use Perkins dollars to fund postsecondary vocational institutions. Community colleges enroll 66 percent of all postsecondary vocational students, proprietary schools have another 22 percent; and baccalaureate institutions have the remaining 12 percent. The most popular postsecondary programs are business, health occupations, and technical fields.
Employers familiar with vocational education have a high regard for it. Vocational education can help to reduce high school dropout rates and benefit special population students. However, the quality of vocational programs varies, as do student outcomes. Those who complete a coherent sequence of vocational education courses and find jobs in a training-related field benefit greatly, but many students do not complete or take such a program.
The 1994 National Assessment of Vocational Education (NAVE), conducted by the Department's Office of Educational Research and Improvement pursuant to the Perkins Act, noted several characteristics of vocational education and recommended further changes. Fewer students than are taking vocational courses in secondary school but a higher percentage of those enrolled are special population students. The NAVE found that several years of vocational experience make a teacher more effective, but that additional years of work experience do not help and that additional years of postsecondary education do. Most schools still need to integrate academic and vocational courses into coherent sequences, and vocational and academic teachers need training to develop integrated curricula. Overall, the NAVE found that there are problems with the quality of secondary vocational education but that comprehensive reform efforts led by the States are improving program quality.
Each State decides how to divide its funds between secondary and postsecondary programs and allocates Perkins funds to institutions, not to individual programs. Local education agencies (LEAs) then generally have the authority to offer specific programs in the schools in their districts, within the parameters of two Federal allocation requirements noted in Section II below.
The bulk of funding under the Perkins Act is awarded through Title II, the basic State grant program. Title I is the 5 percent reserved for State administration, Title III supports special programs to which Tech Prep was added in 1990, and Title IV, in part, supports national programs and activities.
As a result of the targeting changes in the 1990 Act that placed increased emphasis on the Chapter 1 shares and the number of students with disabilities served under IDEA, districts with higher concentrations of students from poor families increased their share of basic state grant allocations by 11 percent. The consortium provision reduced the number of awards from 7,625 in FY 1991 to 3,958 in FY 1992. Seventy-four percent of all school districts receiving Perkins funds are now part of a consortium.
On average, less than 40 percent of the funds from basic State grants go to postsecondary institutions, but States allocate as little as 8 percent and as much as 91 percent to postsecondary institutions. Students enrolled in postsecondary vocational education may have additional Federal funding through Pell grants and other training programs.
The quality of Tech Prep Programs is uneven, according to the NAVE. Some are merely Tech Prep labels on vocational education, many are just agreements between high schools and postsecondary schools about sequences of courses, but some truly reflect a commitment to integrating a student's preparation for entering a vocational field over four years of study.
Labor market returns increase with more years of schooling in general as well as with postsecondary vocational training in particular. This is partly because postsecondary students are more likely than high school graduates to find jobs in the field in which they trained, and they are more likely to have higher wages and stay longer in their jobs than people in jobs unrelated to their training. This appears to be true even for those who begin but do not complete postsecondary vocational training. However, fewer than half of vocational students find training-related jobs.
Vocational education seems to provide greater economic gain to women than to men, and students with disabilities also show greater economic benefits than others as a result of vocational training. The NAVE recommended that secondary vocational classes focus more on industry-wide training rather than job-specific procedures to help students prepare for vocational careers. It also advocated the creation of a national framework for industry-based skill standards to apply to all levels of vocational education and training.
Special population students are over-represented in secondary vocational education but still have less access to high quality vocational education than do other students because they are not located in suburban areas near the majority of area vocational schools. Special population students concentrate in areas that do not include technical education such as food service. At the postsecondary level, more special population students are enrolled in proprietary schools than elsewhere, reflecting a desire for short-term, intensive training to improve earnings quickly.
The following information is drawn from sources that include the National Adult Literacy Survey (NALS); Census Bureau data; the National Evaluation of Adult Education Programs; and State performance reports.
| New ESL clients | New ABE and ASE clients | |
|---|---|---|
| Race/ethnicity | ||
| White, non-Hispanic | 8% | 61% |
| Black, non-Hispanic | 2 | 22 |
| Hispanic | 67 | 12 |
| Asian/Pacific Islander | 22 | 2 |
| Native American/Alaskan Native | < 1 | 3 |
| Age | ||
| 16-30 | 62% | 68% |
| 31+ | 38 | 32 |
| Have high school dipolma or GED | 53% | 11% |
| Employment status | ||
| Employed | 46% | 40% |
| Umemployed | 18 | 27 |
| Not in labor force | 36 | 33 |
Almost half of adult education participants are enrolled in ESL classes, a proportion that has grown dramatically in recent years. Most of the ESL participation is in the West. Compared with adults enrolled in ABE or ASE programs, ESL participants tend to be Hispanic, male, urban, and employed; relatively more have a high school or equivalency diploma; and fewer receive welfare.
ESL students tend to remain in the program longer than students in the other programs and therefore receive more instruction. Some program characteristics, such as day-time classes and available support services, are linked with higher persistence rates.
| Year | Federal (actual) & % of total | State (actual) | Total (actual) | Total (in 1980 dollars) | % change (in 1980 dollars) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1980 | $100.0 (57%) | $74.3 | $174.3 | $174.3 | |
| 1982 | 86.4 (40%) | 128.6 | 215.0 | 185.8 | 6.6% |
| 1984 | 100.0 (34%) | 196.6 | 296.6 | 233.4 | 25.6 |
| 1986 | 97.6 (23%) | 319.9 | 417.5 | 303.1 | 29.9 |
| 1988 | 115.4 (19%) | 491.3 | 606.7 | 408.2 | 34.7 |
| 1990 | 157.8 (20%) | 622.0 | 779.8 | 484.3 | 18.6 |
| 1992 | 235.7 (26%) | 657.3 | 893.0 | 523.3 | 8.1 |
The AEA has several funding requirements:
The majority of the more than 4,000 adult education providers are LEAs, but that proportion is declining. More than half of all providers serve non-metropolitan areas and most providers are not in school buildings. States fund providers based on program design, past performance, and community need. Recent AEA changes provide funding for non-traditional providers such as community-based organizations.
The cost per pupil of adult education differs across programs and seems low because many students leave programs after only a few hours of instruction. A recent study found the average cost per participant hour to be $6.11 for ABE, $5.12 for ASE, and $4.28 for ESL.
Beyond the basic State grants that fund these programs, the AEA also funds competitive demonstration grants in the National Workplace Literacy Program. These are partnerships between at least one education organization and at least one business, industry, labor organization, or private industry council. Funding has increased from $9.57 million in FY 1988 to $18.9 million in FY 1994. The program targets adults who need to increase their literacy skills to improve their job performance. It may offer the three adult education programs as well as training designed to improve workers' literacy in job-specific areas.
More than 80 percent of adult educators are part-time teachers who have degrees in elementary and secondary education. States provide short-term, in-service training for teachers because few courses exist to certify adult educators. Almost 75 percent of all providers use volunteers, most of whom work as tutors.
The AEA student who attends at least one class receives a median of 58 hours of teaching and shows modest positive improvement in literacy. About one-third of clients stay long enough to advance one instructional level. ESL clients stay enrolled an average of 30 weeks, longer than ABE or ASE clients who average 20 weeks and 17 weeks, respectively. Seventy-two percent of all adult education clients, when interviewed six months after leaving the program, reported that they planned to continue their education within the next two years.
Former ESL clients are most likely to report job-related benefits from their participation in the program. As a group, ESL clients improve their reading skills in functionally important ways and are capable of holding jobs that require them to understand simple text. Reading gains are correlated positively with the client's original English reading ability, the cost of instruction, and total hours of instruction.
The average ABE client enters the program reading at a level equivalent to the beginning of sixth grade and finishes at the equivalent of the end of the first semester of seventh grade. Improvement is influenced by voluntary attendance, the presence of full-time staff, highly individualized curriculum, and a mixture of classroom and laboratory practice.
ASE clients gain an average of half a grade of reading comprehension and leave the program reading at the ninth-grade level. Students who receive a GED may also improve their future employment or education.
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[Vocational Education--Basic Grants to States]