The leadership of communities of color should reexamine vocational-technical education as a potentially effective channel for training Black and Latino youth. None of the five potential schooling channels--public schools, vocational schools and programs, employment training programs, apprenticeship and union programs, and prisons--has done an adequate job with regard to Black and Latino youth. Four important caveats must be considered: (1) Blacks have had a long history and tradition of participation in vocational education; (2) the Booker T. Washington-W. E. B. DuBois debate regarding how Blacks should be educated is full of myth and misconception; (3) any strategy built exclusively on one of the five schooling channels is doomed to ineffectiveness; and (4) focusing on improving the quality and availability of vocational-technical education is a "supply-side" strategy. Vocational-technical education should be reconsidered because adequate training and schooling are necessary to partake of available economic and job opportunities. In addition, the Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Applied Technology Education Act of 1990 directs more federal funds to school districts and colleges in low income communities. Although studies have shown the continuing problems faced by Blacks and Latinos in vocational-technical education, several surveys and studies conducted at the national level have identified essential factors for the development and implementation of effective, high quality schools and programs. (Contains 37 endnotes.) (YLB)