From the turn of the 20th century through the 1970s, vocational education was viewed as an attractive alternative path toward a livable wage and stable job for students. During this period it was often possible to support a family in some level of comfort with a high school diploma.
Starting in the early 1980s, shifts in the U.S. economy and the ruling class’s adoption of the neoliberal agenda prompted changes in the decisions of high school students. As union-busting spread, wages stagnated and more and more manufacturing jobs were shipped overseas, it became clear that the only way to get a “good job” was with a college degree. Otherwise, you were likely to be relegated to low-wage service work, if you were able to find a job at all, or end up in prison as part of the mass incarceration of the period.
According to the U.S. Department of Education, between 1982 and 1990, enrollment in college preparatory programs increased by 10 percent nationwide, and enrollment in vocational programs dropped in 32 states. While this may seem worth celebrating, that generation’s aspirations were not matched by college readiness, resulting in a large population of high school graduates who were prepared for neither work nor college.
In a 1993 study of seven suburban high schools where the vast majority of students were enrolled in the academic track, 46 percent graduated without the necessary credentials to begin college, resulting in the need to take remedial classes. Therefore, 48 percent did not obtain sophomore status after one year of college. The majority of students who had graduated from high school but did not enroll in college were working minimum-wage jobs without formal training from their employers. It was no longer possible to earn a decent wage with a high school diploma alone.
By the late 1980s, this trend had been recognized, and a new education reform movement called for an overhaul of the failing vocational training programs. Vocational education was given a new name (career and technical education) and funding under the Perkins Act, and redesigned to train highly specialized non-professional workers who would be needed in the service- and technology-focused economy.
One of the programs introduced within this new wave of technical education was “tech prep,” federally funded programming that connected two years of technical education at the high school level with the completion of an associate degree or two-year certificate.
Tech prep programs, in contrast to older forms of vocational training, combined students’ academic study with their technical coursework. A 2002 study revealed that tech-prep students were 12 percent more likely to return for a sophomore year of college compared to their peers who had not participated in tech-prep programs in high school. Other studies showed that tech-prep participants were more likely to graduate high school than peers who were in a CTE program that did not also include academic coursework, and more likely than peers who were on an academic track.
Cutbacks and privatization
Despite this record of success, last year Congress completely eliminated funding for tech-prep programs, cutting $104.2 million from the Perkins Grant. With a decreasing number of publicly funded options, more and more students have been turning to private institutions, entrenching themselves in debt for results that are not guaranteed.
A recent article in the Bay Citizen exposed the fact that over 130 vocational schools are currently operating in California without state approval. Many of these for-profit institutions are charging tuition upwards of $20,000 without clear or honest reporting on their job placement statistics or the transferability of their accreditation programs, leaving students in debt and unemployed at the completion of their program.
Education funding subject to political campaigning
In April, the Obama administration announced the latest in vocational education reform. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan proposed a new blueprint for reauthorizing the Perkins Act, providing an additional $1 billion to create 3,000 new career academies and possibly reach 500,000 more students nationwide. In his Feb. 2 remarks, he emphasized the importance of career training paired with academic instruction and the completion of an associate degree—the very same characteristics of the tech-prep programs that were cut the previous year.
While the Obama administration’s recent proposal seems to be a step in the right direction, many advocates of quality career and technical education are skeptical. The timing of the announcement, coming exactly one year after tech prep was chopped and six months before the election, leads many to believe that this is a campaign maneuver.
Additionally, the proposed $1 billion increase would be in competitive funding, meaning CTE institutions within each state would have to compete against each other to obtain the prize, rather than being guaranteed the funding they need to conduct their programming.
Without a massive shift in government funding, where education becomes a priority over the defense budget, reforms will come and go without meaningfully addressing the inequalities of education under capitalism. In the same February speech that proposed the new CTE blueprint, Duncan stated, “High school graduates themselves—not the educational system—should be choosing the postsecondary and career paths they want to pursue.”
But this is only possible under a system where education at all levels is a right, not a privilege subject to campaign seasons, budget crises or competition. Only under socialism, where education and a job are guaranteed rights, can the full potential of our youth and society be fully realized.
