Testimony for New Jersey State Advisory Council for Vocational Education.

The public schools have just been restructured based on insufficient information or ignored research. Now, with new education bills and laws, another restructuring is beginning. More thought should be put into the purpose of education in order to handle the crucial issues for such restructuring. For example, certification requirements for superintendents, principals, and special education teachers currently do not specify any knowledge concerning the world of work. In addition, the alternate, noncollege route for preparing vocational education teachers does not work to prepare them adequately, especially now that more integration of academic and vocational education is being sought. Recommendations include the following: (1) eliminate the separation between the vocational system and the rest of high school programs; (2) increase the requirements for teachers of special needs students and for principals to include knowledge of the world of work; (3) update and use the taxonomies for education based on the model developed in 1966 at Ohio State University and the University of Illinois (Towers, Lux, and Ray) to create curriculum for the school-to-work transition emphasis now being mandated by Congress; and (4) propose a balanced curriculum rather than switching from one discipline to another in educational emphasis. (Contains 17 references.) (KC)