Vocational education is very good for lots of reasons, but the histrionics about its getting cut has to stop!  Most of the money given to education goes to hiring more staff (nonpteachers) and more offices, etc. rather than being used for direct education for students.  So, what education professionals have to do is step out from behind the teacher's union (the biggest beneficiary of more education dollars) and start telling school districts and states to cut the mounds of non-teacher and other non-essentials from the budget before they ever touch things like vocational education.