lectures, that dominates this new development. Teachers' guides are often accompanied by kits of apparatus, specially constructed for particular uses the curriculum designers had in mind. Such equipment has proved its usefulness, and through its use many teachers have discovered that laboratory science in the classroom can be an exciting educational adventure. As schools tackle an ever wider range of science topics, however, the collection of special kits does not really add up to a generally wellstocked, reasonably priced elementary school laboratory. As teachers and children are liberated from set lines of study, moreover, and develop the capacity to pursue investigations where interest and opportunity lead, it becomes imperative that the school have a wide range of simple equipment and materials to meet planned lesson needs and for improvising new apparatus as unforeseen investigations are undertaken. The design of apparatus is not the least of the scientist's skills. The ingenuity and manual skill which may be called forth from children in producing apparatus to meet their own particular needs are likewise an important part of science in the classroom. The child who has built his own apparatus from familiar materials is more likely to relate his findings to the everyday happenings in the real world outside than are those whose experience is limited to the "conjuring trick" atmosphere of the ready-made science kit. These words are taken from the introduction to an inventory of the things that some science educators think ought to be on hand in a classroom, or at least available in the school's stockroom.63 The inventory ranges from blocks and tiles to microscopes (about a third of the entire cost), assorted tools, miscellaneous hardware, materials to be consumed during a school year, and junk. The list of measuring equipment seemed to be about equally divided between metric and English, with perhaps some slighting of the metric. Many of the items on the list, both materials and equipment, are "scroungeable," and any such cast-off equipment would use English measurement. The cost of the measuring apparatus is somewhat over $100; it is a small fraction of the total inventory cost of about $800. A school system which is prepared to provide expendable supplies of this character would have little difficulty in providing the modest additions needed for going metric. SECONDARY AND POST-SECONDARY ACADEMIC In this category we find biology, chemistry and physics laboratory and lecture-demonstration equipment, geology maps and field equipment, and the equipment of engineering laboratories. 63 "Science Equipment in the Elementary School," Elementary Science Advisory Center, David Hawkins, Director, University of Colorado, Boulder 80302 (March 1967). Measuring apparatus in chemistry and biology is mainly metric already, reflecting the practice of the fields. The amount of measuring equipment that would have to be replaced in general physics laboratories is negligible, and, at any rate, it undergoes a general replacement or renewal in a period of time comparable to any proposed period of metric conversion. Geological maps are usually given to scale-typically 1:24,000 for the quadrangle maps of the United States Geological Survey on which 1 inch = 24,000 inches = 2,000 feet or 1 cm = 24,000 cm = 240 m. (These maps have mile scales on them so that the user may avoid the tedium of converting inches to miles.) Tapes and stadia rods for surveying are relatively inexpensive items and comprise a small fraction of the investment in equipment for geology field work. The classical view of engineering laboratories is set forth in the following passage: Engineering schools typically have large investments in experimental laboratory equipment, almost entirely in English units. It will take many years to supplant or convert this commitment. Although much engineering laboratory equipment is becoming more scientific, it is also becoming more expensive to replace.64 A contrary view held by others is based upon the observation that technology has become a domain of rapid change, and that in order to keep academic engineering current and abreast of change, it must be adaptable to the changes as they occur. In this context, the investment in big and expensive permanent instructional equipment is a thing of the past. There is a movement in engineering education toward an exploratory laboratory which can be assembled at much less expense than the conventional laboratory. This notion calls for smaller items of equipment in the college laboratory and moves out of the college laboratory into the industrial shop or other engineering surroundings for students to gain experiences with large equipment and practical problems. Movement in this direction might be encouraged by the speedier obsolescence of laboratory gear calibrated in English units.65 EQUIPMENT IN OCCUPATIONAL EDUCATION An estimate of the total investment and conversion cost in shop, laboratory, kitchen, and field equipment in occupational education can in principle be obtained by finding out how many "shops" there are of each kind and what a typical inventory and conversion would cost for each kind of shop. One should be able to arrive at a national total initial cost, and a conversion cost, by combining these data. We shall see that only the very roughest estimate can be made. For a first try, we shall combine the numbers of teachers given in table VI, with the equipment lists of appendix VII, under the assumption that each 64 "Going SI in Engineering Education," Cornelius Wandmacher, for the American Society for Engineering Education, presented at the Education Conference. Table VI. Teachers and students in Federally aided vocational education classes, by type of program, 1968 ** Number of subclassifications for each type of program, as given in "Vocational Education Enrollment by OE Instructional Program," Planning and Evaluation Branch, USOE, 20 May 1970. (A computer print-out of enrollment and completion statistics as reported by the states for FY 1969.) teacher counted in the table has a laboratory or other instructional facility equipped with some "average" inventory. The total investment can be estimated at $2 billion- this number may be wrong by a factor two, but it is probably not wrong by a factor 10. It is by far the major fraction of the instructional equipment held by American education. We shall explore here the questions of whether this estimate can be refined, whether a reliable estimate can be made for the cost of metric conversion, what replacements and modifications would be needed in metric conversion, and what overall patterns of change can be foreseen for the next 15 or 20 years, which should encompass any period of planned metric conversion. Let us first ask: How many occupational education curriculum programs of each kind are there? Until 1969, data such as those in table VI have been reported to the U.S. Office of Education (USOE) by the states, in summary form, by type of program only. The validity of these data and their usefulness to the leaders of occupational education, who are responsible for planning and executing its programs, have been criticized by the National Advisory Council on Vocational Education and by others, including the Appalachian Regional Commission. The latter made a sweeping indictment: There may be less reliable data systems for evaluating the expenditures of over three-fourths of a billion dollars (each year) of Federal, State and Local funds, but if they exist, they are not obvious to an anxious observer.66 Recently, the USOE has been charged by law to secure more detailed data, and these are now beginning to become available. The enrollments within the seven types of programs are broken down for the academic year 1968-69, and the number of resulting subclassifications in that breakdown is shown in the last column of table VI. (We have noted significant omissions in the "1969 printout," but presumably more refined data may be expected to appear in the next few years.) 66 "The Status of Secondary Vocational Education in Appalachia," Research Report No. 10, Appalachian Regional Commission, Washington, D.C. (October 1968), p. 1. Before we leave the data of table VI, let us first note that the ratio of students to teachers depends upon the type of program, and that it varies by a factor three. Then let us ask several questions of these data: Is it fair to say that a typical curriculum involves n students (where n may vary depending upon the type of program), and that the number of laboratories, etc., is therefore given by dividing the number of students by n? Occupational education leaders say that's not a very good guess. May one say that each teacher has his own occupational education curriculum, and that the number of laboratories, etc., is equal to the number of teachers? They say that's not a very good guess either. Another sample of data may be found in the summary and tabulation of the programs of the public community colleges of California.67 In 1967, there were 139 different occupational curricula taught in 81 colleges. Since then 12 new colleges have been opened. Some occupational curricula are taught in almost every community college in California- for example, real estate, general secretarial, vocational nursing, and police science- while agricultural inspection and laboratory animal technology are each taught in only one college. The American Association of Junior Colleges (AAJC) has conducted a census of occupational education programs in 2-year post-secondary schools.68 Questionnaires have been sent out and returned, and the data they contain are being reduced by Professor Louis Wall of Western Illinois University, Macomb. The diversity of the programs reported has delayed the completion of the analysis until accurate classifications can be made by persons familiar with the programs themselves. Some preliminary analyses will appear in the form of a report of the AAJC; 69 while the raw data, coded and available for further analysis, will remain with Professor Wall. Presumably further surveys of this nature will be undertaken if this census proves to be as useful as the AAJC expects it to be. Proprietary schools constitute a significant part of the occupational education resources of the nation. They are organized as profit-seeking, if not actually profit-making, activities. They are entirely dependent upon tuition paid by their students, and their success lies in placing students who will satisfy their employers. Consequently, proprietary schools are characterized by strong student motivation and efficient teaching of job skills. Recent Federal legislation permits public school systems to send their students to proprietary schools with tuition paid in part by Federal vocational education funds. Some proprietary schools seek regional or professional accreditation 67 "A Guide for California Public Community Colleges," Bureau of Vocational-Technical Education, The California Community Colleges, Sacramento, 4th edition (1968). Each college has transfer and other programs, in addition to the occupational curricula listed in this catalog. 68 AAJC, 1 DuPont Circle, Washington, D.C., is a coordinating and information-exchanging body whose membership includes most of the nation's community colleges, junior colleges, and technical institutes. and the authority to grant associate and bachelor's degrees,70 while others are concerned only with job skills and placement. In 1966, there were about 7,000 such schools with about 1.5 million students enrolled. A summary of private vocational schools is given in appendix IV. Proprietary schools are very flexible in adapting to change: when a need for workers arises in a given field, they can quickly staff and equip facilities and offer new curricula. They have relatively small investments per student in plant and equipment, and their teachers are untenured employees. Proprietary schools would have little trouble in following a metric conversion. Equally elusive is the answer to the question: What are typical initial and conversion costs for a shop of a given kind? There is simply no such thing as a typical inventory, because of the wide variety of occupational curricula and the variability of the ways in which general principles (for example, those of the internal combustion engine) are overlayed, in teaching, with occupational needs and practices and local conditions. To continue the example, Diesel engine maintenance and repair may or may not be separated from internal combustion engine maintenance and repair, and may be taught in curricula entitled Automotive mechanics, Truck (or Diesel truck) maintenance, Heavy equipment maintenance (cranes, bulldozers, and earth moving equipment), Stationary power plants, Agricultural mechanics, Marine technology, and others. In any of these curricula, the local orientation may range from "keep 'em running," to complete overhaul and rebuilding, to running under optimum conditions tuned up by dynamometer and electronic measurements. The equipment needs for these courses vary from the simplest hand tools to the most sophisticated machinery and instruments. In addition, local conditions may dictate a dependence upon surplus or excess equipment11 or upon industrial gifts of used or new machinery, or the school may have the freedom to purchase new equipment and to renew it frequently. With respect to metric conversion, these conditions, together with the philosophy of the faculty and administration, may give rise to such responses as We would modify our own machines - it would give the students some 70 Proprietary technical schools are as concerned as conventional colleges of engineering about the changes foreseen in the structure of the engineering profession. They see it as a field of growth for their programs in technology. See app. VIII. 71 Made available by the Federal government to educational institutions through programs administered by the state departments of education. "Surplus" equipment is often just a little bit |