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This document reports on a systematic examination of the boundary between public and private delivery of vocational education and other employment and training opportunities, in order to find opportunities to shift the boundary toward greater private involvement without sacrificing public responsibilities. In addition to an executive summary, introduction, and 54-item bibliography, the document contains six sections. The first section distinguishes between provision and production. The second section addresses several provision issues in vocational education and employment and training services. The third section is entitled Public and Private Production of Federally Provided Employment and Training Services. The fourth section describes privatization approaches for restructuring provision and production arrangements, including deregulation, tax incentives, vouchers, user fees, contracting out, total withdrawal of government involvement, and sale of assets. The market alternative, and its limitations, for production arrangements for federal employment and training programs is taken up in the fifth section. The last section contains conclusions and recommendations related to performance standards, consumer information, competitive contracting requirements and procedures, and public agency coordination and promotion of increased use of market incentives. (CML)

This two-part paper attempts to establish the facts about, and to debate the merits of, using individual earnings information collected quarterly by states from employers as a source for vocational education performance assessment. The first part of the paper explores three topics: (1) who wants to know about the earnings of vocational education program leavers and why do they want to know? (2) what problems are encountered in using other available data sources that are not found in working with wage-records data? and (3) what specific data items does the quarterly wage-record source offer? The second part of the paper then examines process issues that are encountered in using the wage-record data. Brief mention is made of complementary data sources that enhance the usefulness of the wage-record data. The paper concludes that it is only a matter of time before the wage-record data are used and that procedures must be worked out for the most effective and efficient use of the data. A 31-item bibliography is included. (KC)