Intended as a proposal for a fundamental reorientation of the Carl D. Perkins Vocational Education Act, this document suggests a new model for the federal role in vocational education aimed at program quality and improvement rather than at the distribution of funds and the provision of ancillary services. An introduction explains the scope and aims of the document, and a short conclusion section argues for viewing vocational education as a system deserving of wholesale reform rather than a piecemeal effort. In between, section 1 notes implications of the state and local education reform movement of the 1980s that are relevant for the reform of secondary vocational education, and section 2 describes the proposed model itself. The model recommends that the federal government avoid direct regulation and instead adopt incentive grants for state governments to engage in broad-scale reform of vocational education under federal guidelines; the establishment of a national task force to develop standards and options regulating course selection, course content, indicators of performance, access of special groups, and governance; and establishment of a new agency with authority over the incentive grants and capable of making substantive judgments, under guidelines, about educational quality. The document concludes with a 53-item bibliography. (CML)