Vocational-Education Column

Private-industry council officials meeting last week in Washington learned from leading lawmakers that the Congress has yet to seriously consider the job-training reforms described earlier this year by the Bush Administration. Under the proposed revisions, local Job Training Partnership Act governing councils would also be responsible for coordinating vocational-education programs.

"We've got to see what's in it first,'' said Senator Edward M. Kennedy, the Democrat from Massachusetts who chairs the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee. "We need to see the fine print.''

Representative Steve Gunderson of Wisconsin, the ranking Republican on the House Human Resources Subcommittee, offered...