Vocational education in America has attempted to be the bridge between education and work. The Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA), an example of such a bridge, provides for remedial education in basic skills for training disadvantaged youths and young adults who had not been successful in the educational system. The context of skilled workforce preparation is changing. National changes such as the philosophy of the Reagan administration and its goals, the acceleration of technological change and demographic change, will affect the interface between education and work. The developments may affect the interaction of education and work in the following ways: (1) expansion of career development programs; (2) re-emphasis on the study of mathematics and science; (3) more emphasis on postsecondary technical education with equipment sharing with industry; (4) increased demand for industry training utilizing a teacher-worker exchange; (5) increase in cooperative education; (6) training trust funds negotiated by labor unions; (7) increase of vocational education in rural areas; and (8) expansion of special needs programs. Combined with labor union willingness to build retraining into industry-wide contracts, this represents the opportunity to redefine education and work, or rather to rationalize all of the disconnected pieces into a reasonably smooth continuum. (BPB)