Edging Toward Effectiveness: Examining Postsecondary Occupational Education

摘要

In many ways postsecondary occupational education (PSOE) is a stepchild--even a stepchild of a stepchild. The institutions where it takes place--community colleges, technical institutes, some area vocational schools, other public training centers, private proprietary schools--are not well known and are often of low status. In federal policy, these institutions are often after-thoughts: they do not benefit from the large programs (Chapter 1, aid for bilingual and handicapped students) aimed at K12 schooling; they are not the principal targets of the large amounts of federal funds in postsecondary student aid; and federal aid for vocational education, one of the few federal programs providing funding to both secondary and postsecondary programs, has always been written with secondary education in mind. And within the institution where most PSOE occurs--community colleges--occupational education often suffers again from second-class status relative to academic or transfer education.