This preliminary report examines eight vocational and technical education programs for disadvantaged youth both in the state of Massachusetts and in other states. After reviewing the literature, the staff selected schools to be sampled in this present exploratory survey and developed and evaluated a comprehensive data form. The study showed that special programs for the disadvantaged in vocational education are seriously limited in that experimental design, efficient data collection, and evaluation procedures are lacking. The national trend is a movement away from specialized vocational-technical schools to comprehensive high school programs which include vocational training in the curriculum. Most of the innovative techniques developed for vocational education are found outside the parameters of the public schools in special programs organized for dropouts. One of the key factors to program success is the selection of a dynamic administrator. Two additional phases of the program are planned for the future to provide a formal and continuous evaluation of experimental programs. (BC)