When the Secretary of Education recommended in the 1988 Fiscal Year Budget that the Carl D. Perkins Vocational Education Act not be renewed, and therefore that vocational education receive no federal funds, the National Association of State Directors of Vocational Education (NASDVE) conducted their own evaluation of the effectiveness of the Act. A planning group from the organization organized the study and created a survey. The study was configured around four components: (1) determination of the availability of data in each state for the series of research questions in the implementation study; (2) an assessment of successes, problems, and recommendations regarding implementation of the Perkins Act; (3) selected vocational education data requests--to gather data from each state on vocational enrollments, number of programs, number of eligible recipients, and number of economically depressed areas; and (4) key examples of effectiveness of the Perkins Act. Preliminary results from mailed surveys of these four areas suggested that vocational education is providing needed services and programs and that the federal aid they have received through the Perkins Act is critical to that success. The NASDVE, therefore, appealed for continuation of vocational education funding. (KC)