The subject of career education is a vast and complex one. For example, it often emphasizes alternative educational programs for high school and junior high students that may involve substituting work for academic experience in industrial settings outside the schools. Or it may encompass recurrent or lifelong education programs for adults that provide additional education which may or may not be work related. The youth oriented ideas can mean less education while the concepts aimed at adults suggest more. No one would deny that education and work are related. The real issue is what form any advocacy movement takes and whose interests it serves. The rationale behind much of the federally supported career education effort is weak, and many of the programs seem to be more in the interests of big business than in the interests of our nation's youth. Career education cannot solve the youth unemployment problem, but certainly there are youth problems that well-directed career education programs could help with. The American Federation of Teachers advocates dissemination of more information on job availability, occupational projections, and job access. It supports job training programs which build upon a basic education by combining further academic experiences with on-the-job experiences, but it strongly opposes any occupational education program that would diminish general liberal education or that would endanger present child labor, minimum wage, early school leaving, and health and safety laws. It also strongly opposes programs that involve turning over some of the responsibility for public education to the private sector. (BL)