That program extends to vocational students the same challenging academic courses provided to college-bound students. Bottoms argues that federal legislation passed during those decades, such as the Vocational Education Act of 1963, placed too much emphasis on at-risk students. Most reforms call for blending vocational education with challenging academics. Anthony P. Carnevale, a labor economist and the vice president for public leadership for the Educational Testing Service, adds that the value of a narrowly defined vocational education decreased with the reduction of manufacturing jobs in the early 1970s. Most educators today agree that the course vocational education has taken for most of the century must be redirected.
Most reforms call for blending vocational education with challenging academics.
The Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Applied Technology Education Act of 1990, for example, encourages the integration of academic and vocational education. That's the real Deweyan application of vocational education. Since the turn of the century, vocational and academic educational programs in American high schools have grown increasingly separate. This policy brief from RAND examines ways to integrate them. High school students in New York City could study a variety of retail-related trades at the Central High School of Needle Trades in the heart of the city's garment district.