The Skills Standards Projects have provided further emphasis on the need for benchmarking U.S. vocational-technical education (VTE) against international competition. Benchmarking is an ongoing systematic process designed to identify, as quantitatively as possible, those practices that produce world class performance. Metrics are those things that are to be measured in a performance system. Each must have a measurement process designed to determine objectively the status of both the benchmarker and that which is benchmarked on that metric. Types of metrics include the following: an exam, number of hours to produce a program completer, operating budget per student, placement rate of students in directly related jobs, and employer satisfaction with the quality of the completer. For benchmarking to have utility in VTE, the metrics chosen must keep the process relatively easy and yield results useful for program improvement. For a VTE benchmarking model to be of benefit to practitioners, it must review elements found in a high quality VTE program. The product of the VTE system is an individual prepared to be a productive employee. In the design of a system to benchmark VTE programs and the products of those programs, there are numerous elements to be considered. They can be identified within two categories: those elements of process and those characteristics of product. The most compelling reason to benchmark in VTE is the need to improve the quality of the product. (YLB)