This document, by the director of the National Assessment of Vocational Education, has the following purposes: (1) to explain proposed amendments to the Carl D. Perkins Vocational Education Act; to relate any of the proposed changes to such issues as vocational teacher education, graduate education, and research on vocational education; and to point out any contributions to the proposed new policy that were the result of the National Assessment of Vocational Education; (2) to point out some of the implications of the Carnegie Corporation's National Board for Professional Teaching Standards for vocational teacher education and for research on vocational education; and (3) to discuss the idea of the federal government working with all state governors to set national goals for education. The first section explains the proposed federal legislation's impact on secondary vocational education, pointing out that it dramatically alters the structure of funding at that level. The second section addresses the proposed legislation's changes in postsecondary vocational education funding and draws attention to the fact that these changes represent a first-time recognition by Congress that the problems of postsecondary vocational education are different from those at the secondary level and that they require different solutions. The third and fourth sections discuss respectively the National Board of Professional Teaching Standards and the issue of national goal setting and performance accountability in education. (CML)