The purpose of this paper is to examine how well-prepared vocational educators are to teach courses and programs that reflect the emphasis on academic skills in the Perkins III legislation. The paper examines the academic skills and pedagogical knowledge of elementary, secondary and secondary vocational candidates to assess how well-prepared vocational candidates are to support and reinforce students' acquisition of academic skills. The study includes an analysis of (1) the demographic and academic characteristics of teacher candidates; and (2) the academic skills and professional knowledge of teacher candidates as measured by reading, writing, mathematics and pedagogical knowledge test scores on the Praxis assessments. The data reported in this study are from more than 200,000 elementary, secondary and secondary vocational teacher candidates who completed the Praxis Series assessments for teacher certification between 1994 and 1999. The Praxis test takers are primarily college students actively seeking entrance to a college of education. Three key findings emerged from the analysis: (1) Candidates for certification in vocational fields are not as academically or pedagogically prepared as are candidates for certification in secondary fields; (2) Candidates for certification in vocational fields are not as academically prepared in reading and writing as candidates for certification in elementary education; and (3) A potential disconnect may exist between the academic and pedagogical skills of vocational candidates and the direction of federal policy, which has increasingly emphasized the importance of academic skills for vocational students. There may be several factors that contribute to these differences, including: (1) Vocational teachers' job requirements and teacher preparation programs may not currently emphasize this new direction of federal policy; (2) Prospective vocational candidates tend to be older than other teacher candidates and may have been out of school for longer periods of time; and (3) Prospective vocational candidates tend to have lower grade-point averages in college than other prospective teachers, and they may have taken more courses that did not emphasize academics. (Contains 16 figures and 12 footnotes.)