Hoyt (1989, p. 453) reports that vocational education:
. . . operates as an integral part of the total educational delivery system to benefit both individual and society. Its main purposes are to: provide individuals with the skills they need to attain economic freedom; and enhance the productivity of local, state, and national economies. Vocational education serves and is accountable to a wide variety of publics. These publics include: students of all ages and previous educational backgrounds; national, state, and local governments; business and industry both large and small; labor - organized or unorganized: consumers; persons with special educational needs, such as the disadvantaged, the handicapped, persons with limited English speaking ability, and many others. Unlike many more specialized programs, vocational education has no particular constituency; it is a program for all people.
There are two major goals of vocational education for all student participants, including those in the special education program, that are subsequent to the Carl Perkins Act that provides funding for vocational education (Grubb, 1992, pp. 35 & 37). First, vocational education students are to receive curriculum that integrates both academic and vocational education. Second, these students are to receive education that better prepares them to successfully compete in the marketplace.
Grubb (1992) reports that, in order to facilitate the fulfillment of these goals, there is clearly needed the restructuring of high schools to become more occupation-focused. This can be accomplished by high schools using academies, which are schools within schools, that focus on occupational areas around which instructors collaborate to provide more effective learning experiences for their students. This can also be accomplished by occupationally-focused schools, in which academic and vocational education are integrated, with academic teachers emphasizin...