ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

        This work was based on interviews with vocational educators, vocational education students, and employers in California, Florida, Michigan, Ohio, and Oklahoma. We wish to thank the state vocational program directors who assisted us in our efforts and all of the state-level staff who helped arrange our visits. We also want to thank the superintendents, principals, program staff, instructors, students, parents, and employers in each of the sites we visited for responding patiently and candidly to our barrage of questions. Our promise of anonymity precludes our mentioning them by name, but we hope they realize how important their cooperation was and how much this work relied on their input. We also want to acknowledge the helpful comments and suggestions offered by Randy Ross, our colleague at RAND, and the efficient text processing support provided by Donna White.