'Voc ed' drifts along

...The problem is not in Kurys' s art, or pride in Sophie's mother and her friend, but a series of clues that show us that the director -for all her sophistication -- does not know her Freudian slip is showing...

...This legislative activity comes in the shadow of recent congressional funding cuts, prompted by a concerted but unsuccessful administration effort to curtail the program severely...

...He traces a global pattern in the growth of vocational education in every major region of the world up to about 1950...

...He establishes a garage after the war and showers his wife with middle-class respectability...

...He's got time on his hands" nine months and seven days since his high school graduation and no job in sight...

...The second program makes funds available to states for adult training, retraining, and employment development...

...Hearings on the "Voc Ed" Act were held throughout the Ninety-seventh Congress by the House Subcommittee on Elementary, Secondary, and Vocational Education, ending with twenty volumes that detailed the plight of the disadvantaged, the handicapped, the displaced homemakers, among others, who have not always been served well by the best of intentions in vocational training...

...4164), 20 percent for the disadvantaged, and an amount not to exceed i percent for vocational programs for Indians...

...The authors of the 1916 House report expressed concern that the aspirations of many young people were denied in an educational world where the only choice was preparation for college -- and then only for the few -- and where the early schooling drop-out rate was alarming...

...This story is like hundreds of other cases that have been related to members of Congress, pointing to a need to modernize vocational education programs, particularly for the "under-served" of the nation...

...There are nine program components, the two largest, by far, being Basic Grants (funded in FY 84 at $567 million) and Program Improvement Supportive Services ($99.6 million in FY 84...

...But employment offers a readily measurable yardstick for taxpayer dollars, and the business community's increasing interest in vocational programs generally promotes this perspective as well...

...The transmission of specific technical skills in vocational education is seen to be "based on a narrow conception of individual capacities and abilities...

...An amalgam of legislation has accrued since 1916...

...President Wilson urged passage of the vocational education bill in his message to Congress on December 5, 1916: "It contains plans which affect all interests and all parts of the country and I am sure there is no legislation now pending before the Congress whose passage the country waits with more thoughtful approval or greater impatience to see a great and admirable thing set in the way of being done...

...Madeleine helps me live, I can't breathe without her," Lena passionately explains, the traditional line normally reserved for the other man in a French triangle...

...She meanwhile puts up with Costa, an underemployed actor who peddles art in his spare time (it turns out to be stolen) or hijacked shirts (they turn out to be sleeveless...

...he observes that the vocational share of secondary education has declined consistently in most countries since then (Eastern Europe excepted): "The rise and fall of vocational education coincides with a shifting mandate for secondary schooling -- a movement away from the production of differentiated workers that fit a differentiated economy into the production of more standardized citizenry in line with the egalitarian demands of nation-building and citizenship privileges...

...Like Chevalier, the man is dismissed, here not with laughter but silence and an icy stare...

...A major question facing Congress is whether the current and proposed level of federal funds is sufficiently targeted, given the limited funds available...

...In part this is because the basic story in Entre Nous and the surface texture are so seductive and alluring...

...Dan Quayle's attempts to give states more flexibility in dealing with setasides were reportedly rebuffed by such defenders as Sen...

...The administration has retreated, however, from its much tougher stance in last year's FY 84 budget, when it proposed to consolidate vocational and adult education programs into a state block grant and fund the combined program at $500 million -- a cut of almost 40 percent...

...Take, for example, the presentation of the husbands, especially Michel...

...Shortly Commonweal: 240 thereafter, Congress approved the Smith-Hughes Act, but what has happened to the issue's importance since...

...Take, for example, Madeleine's little boy, who first appears as a reluctant Indian chief at the school play, a passive contrast to little Sophie's energy...

...But Quayle won approval for his amendments to drop the set-asides for home economics and counseling...

...4164, in its original form, dropped the " set- asides " and established a separate program for students with "special needs...

...The groups with vested interests in the set-aside provisions largely succeeded in blocking the major effort at overhauling the "Voc Ed" Act, the attempt at better targeting of federal funds, particularly towards the training needs of the economy...

...The last addition was an entirely new set-aside for activities designed to overcome sexual bias and provide support services for women in vocational education...

...l l ~ . . . . . . . . . . - r - . . . . . . . . . ~ . . . . . . I I J ~ II 3J . . . . LI...

...Certain senators are so fond of set-asides for the "'under-served" that in at least one measure introduced, the set-asides exceeded 100 percent...

...But there appear to be other, reasons besides fact for their shoddy treatment...

...The scene is delightful, a mark of director Diane Kurys's supple vision of ordinary things, a vision that has made her into one of the leading female ' directors of our time...

...There are some affectionate scenes between Michel and his two daughters, but they are never squared with his image as a poor husband...

...There are other funds to be set aside from other program components...

...Aaron Benavot of Stanford may point to a major reason in his article, +'The Rise and Decline of Vocational Education" (Sociology of Education, April 1983...

...On March 8, the House passed H.R...

...The predominant style, moreover -- the concentration on brief vignettes where significance emerges with understated, laconic emphasis -- is as sensuous and light as nouvelle cuisine...

...These provisions were removed~ however, in House subcommittee markup by an amendment of Chairman Perkins, which retained current provisions and their set-asides and, in addition, required states to set aside another 5 percent of their grants for sex-equity programs...

...He found that any job using older equipment had a waiting list of printers with years of experience...

...In the Senate subcommittee, most of Sen...

...Life can begin again at thirty," Madeleine explains, a line that brought knowing approval from many way over thirty in the audience...

...Lowell Weicker for the handicapped and Sen...

...By contrast, there are some scenes in the early part of the movie -- detailing how the women first met their husbands in World War II -- whose epic grandeur and shrill action indicate that Kurys could try her hand, equally, at another kind of movie and succeed grandly there as well...

...The House-passed measure creates two new programs that are the chamber's prime vocational education effort to address the training needs of the economy...

...The practice is so common that the term set-aside (or setaside) is used for these provisions...

...At present, various federal vocational funds allocated to the states are required to be set aside for national priorities established by Congress...

...9 II I I IIII I I I I I I [ Screen u DIANE KURYS STRIKES BACK O NE SCENE suggests both the charm and danger of Entre Nous...

...Yet he once had hope, a lot of it, and not too long ago...

...To win support of budget-conscious members, the House dropped any specific spending ceilings and authorized "'such sums" as Congress deems necessary...

...But one wonders what he is doing in this movie -- why the misfortunes of a little boy deserve such development in a film primarily about the parents of the other Commonweal: 242...

...Sophie, the daughter of one of its heroines, is performing an imitation of Maurice Chevalier at a school play in the 1950s...

...H.R...

...So far, so good: Entre Nous on this level is a tale of grit and determination...

...But despite hints of lesbian affection there is no fatale in Lena's attraction to Madeleine: all they want to do is set up shop together, literally...

...But the equipment he learned to operate -- quite skillfully -- was no longer being used in most print shops or press rooms in the town...

...As one of the longest standing examples of federal education aid to the states, current vocational programs trace their federal beginnings to the Smith-Hughes Act of 1917 -- which authorized grants, in the form of a permanent appropriation, to the states for vocational education in public schools below the college level...

...Attempts to expand funds for postsecondary and adult vocational training were thwarted, notwithstanding the dictates of the job market, because advocacy groups for the disadvantaged and the handicapped had been dissuaded from pushing for larger percentages for their set-asides only if the postsecondary set, aside was not expanded...

...Of course, perhaps these husbands were this way, and the film merely a faithful record...

...He serves in her camp as a legionnaire, marries her, and escapes with her over the Alps to Italy and relative safety...

...4164, a five-year extension of the Act and the first major overhaul in eight years...

...Participating businesses are to provide 25 percent of the cost of the training programs, through financial assistance or in-kind contributions...

...Behind both gestures, moreover, is a pattern of scenes that makes not for feminism but homophobia, the film's dark side...

...Robert Stafford for the disadvantaged...

...Students were to be assisted in learning skills in a wide range of fields from agriculture and home economics to industry and trade...

...To paraphrase Hobbes a bit, _the two husbands are vulgar, either brutish or nincompoop, and short -- a physical side of the contrast to their wives that has, perhaps, racial significance...

...But he is seen as unsuitable for Lena, playing football with the daughters at a picnic, for example, when she is trying to read...

...Both of these programs are to be closely coordinated with those operated under the Job Training Partnership Act...

...it's nice to know that there are some continuities in the life of public policy...

...On March 1, the Senate Labor and Human Resources Subcommittee on Education reported its measure, S. 2341, to the full committee, which has twice canceled scheduled consideration because of still-unresolved conflicts among major Senate factions...

...He graduated with good grades and high recommendations in his school's vocational education printing program...

...The general praise for the movie thus at least suggests one thing: we are not yet as attuned to female insensitivity as to male...

...d l . . . . . . . . i _ _ , ~ _ i JEREMIAH BARUCH is the pseudonym of a Washington writer with a position in the government...

...But the scene is more significant, a kind of revenge for Chevalier's sexist condescension in films like Gigi, and revenge, as moralists have warned, can easily go too far...

...He is poor, black, and unemployed, along with almost half of his fellow blacks of 16-19 years...

...20 April 1984:241 Benavot sees this trend as fostered by a worldwide acceptance of an educational ideology of "individualism," i.e., education ought to meet the multi-faceted and evolving needs of the individual...

...WILL WE nETHINK a Maion EDUCATIONAL PR0aRAM- . ' Voc ed' drifts along JEREMIAH BARUCH I T'S A BONE-CHILLING March afternoon, and he has already made his usual stop at the employment office...

...as Madeleine whispers to Lena when she first meets him, "You're not made for each other...

...more funds were also supposed to be directed to postsecondary and adult vocational training...

...Where is the national clamor and presidential urgency for the revision and passage of the "voc ed'" bill today...

...When the two families race cars on a country road, he naturally gets sick and his parents have to stop to let him vomit...

...At the end of Entre Nous we learn that the film is partly autobiographical, that Sophie resembles Diane Kurys herself, standing on a beachfront porch and watching her mother coolly inform her father that their marriage is over...

...p ART OF THE explanation is that vocational education is financed primarily by state and local monies, in fiscal 198 I, the most recent year for which figures are available, the federal efforts amounted to only about 10 percent of the $7.3 billion spent on vocational education...

...For the first time, ties have been established between the business community and education in the development of the vocational education curriculum...

...Of course, perhaps he was...

...tions to a funding level of $732 million for fiscal 1983, 7 percent below the fiscal 1980 amount...

...Yet if one takes a look at the nation's unemployment rate, much less at that of the young or of minorities, one realizes that, even by this measure, Congress and its national educational policy, so far, falls short...

...Hill receptivity to the president's request was indicated by the administration's being unable to locate a sponsor for its bill in either the House or the Senate during the Ninety-seventh Congress.As one seasoned cynic remarked, since a willing sponsor (with a photographed handshake and a pair of cuff links) can be found for almost any executive-initiated measure, the inability of the administration in the last Congress to persuade any member to introduce its original proposal is politically remarkable...

...The problems arising from implementation of current "voc ed" programs pose a considerable challenge to members of the House and Senate as they proceed to reauthorize the Vocational Education Act --- which had been extended to the end of fiscal 1984 without amendment in the last Congress...

...The most telling incident occurs when he is unable to unlock a bathroom stall while his mother, Lena, and her two daughters wait outside observing what a ninny he is...

...Lena (Isabelle Huppert) and Madeleine ~Miou-Miou) meet at the school play, and soon find in each other more mutual help and support than they get from their bumbling or loutish spouses...

...the current federal programs were provided their basic framework by the Vocational Education Act of 1963 (introduced in the House, by the way, by Kentucky Representative Carl Perkins, now Education and Labor Committee Chairman), which was amended in 1968, and again in 1976...

...From the funds set aside for the disadvantaged, a percentage of funds equal to the percentage of people of limited English-speaking ability is required to be set aside, to be used for those people...

...The permanent appropriation of the Smith-Hughes Act is still part of the "Voc Ed" Act's funding...

...Perhaps additional impetus is given to this view by rapidly changing work environments resulting from technology...

...He meets Lena, a Belgian Jew, as she awaits deportation east at the beginning of World War II...

...Though her husband Michel (Guy Marchand) wrecks their first boutique in a jealous rage, the pair regroup and conquer...

...And if the funding is deemed inadequate, why is it so difficult to build a consensus that much greater support for vocational education is necessary for the country's economic and social well-being...

...In its recommendation to the House Budget Committee on March 6, the Education and Labor Committee proposed $883.8 million for vocational education in fiscal 1985...

...He is a hard-working, mostly loving, swarthy vulgarian...

...Congress had reduced the "Voc Ed" Act's appropria. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . _---S]i...

...It is apparently difficult to find a member willing to be highly visible in opposing the phalanx of interests involved in the vocational education bill...

...The vocational education community continues to debate whether"employability" rather than employment is the better means for assessing the success of programs...

...The president's FY 85 budget proposes to consolidate most existing vocational education programs, and to fund them at the same level that they received last year -- $742 million...

...The first program provides grants to the states to train persons in high technology fields, through partnership with industry...

...With his voice on a recording of "La Pomme" in the background and a Chevalier mask on her face, the little girl dances away with cute but awkward gestures and waves an apple with a herky-jerky motion in the air...

...It concerns not just Sophie's mother Lena, but her friend, Madeleine, two French housewives who leave inadequate husbands for each other's company...

...From these, 10 percent is required to be set aside for the handicapped, 15 percent for postsecondary institutions (the American Association of Community and Junior Colleges was reported to be, along with the American Vocational Association, one of the three education groups which drafted H.R...