in lieu of science or math, and 16 states allowed local districts to determine whether to count such credits. Three states prohibited substituting occupational and technical courses for non-elective courses (Naylor, 1986). That picture began to change in the late 1980s. During the 1990s, technical and vocational education participation appears to have grown even more dramatically, possibly in line with the growth of entrepreneurship in the culture (Brown, 1994). Cooperation between business and educational institutions in the project of providing training to secondary-school students has increased.
As of the early 1990s, vocational education has been defined by the US government as "organized educational programs, services, and activities that . . . [prepare] individuals for paid or unpaid employment . . . requiring other than a bachelor's or an advanced degree" (NCES, 1996). Vocational program areas include agriculture, business/clerical, marketing, health, occupational home economics (service sector), trade and industry (skilled trades), and technical and communications. Course content and training in the marketing program area includes dealing with sales and distribution of goods and services and entails everything from retail-clerk training to marketing and management research; this area of vocational education was historically referred to as distributive education or DE.
As long ago as 1986, a core goal of effective vocational education was articulated in terms of increasing the level of cooperation between schools and private-sector outlets for DE students:
Thus, the key to the model is not when or in which institution the technical part of the instruction is provided, but rather that the instruction provided is coordinated to the greatest degree possible, thereby permitting the most unified and efficient course of training (Naylor, 1986).
In 1989, the White House hosted all 50 state governors at a national summit conf...