Thread: An observation on the unemplyoment rate.

Hopefully there aren't a lot of companies that need to institute workplace training programs blaming the education system for their problems.

The federal government has no place meddling in education. There is no Constitutional authority for it and the idea of taking taxpayer money, running through federal bureaucracies only to have it handed back to local communities with strings attached defies local and reason. At the state level, the idea that state government should FUND education is arguable, so that everyone gets access to learning. The idea that state governments should RUN the actual schools, from determining what's in textbooks to how many tater tots each student gets for lunch is insane. Get the government out of the business of education and watch results improve, costs drop, while innovation thrives as real competition begins to take hold. Or, we can just pour more money down that crapper...it's working out so very well so far???

Slartibartfast, (that's kinda hard to spell the first time)

I think Mike Rowe is dead spot on in his comments. Thank you for posting that clip. I had not seen that before.

I don't mean to start a education bashing thread here. My best friend is one of the few shop teachers left and my wife is a teacher. We value education here. But I think the ball has been dropped in this skilled labor area and I am curious to know if other vocational fields are seeing the same phenomena of having a high unemployment and a shortage of of workers qualified in those vocations.

I think this goes beyond a companies workplace training program. Skilled labor is just that "skilled" labor. When a company hires a person for a machinist position they should be able to reasonably assume that the person has a certain foundation of knowledge. Yes they should expect to train the person to make "the widget" that company needs. It is unreasonable to expect them to have to teach the person how to safely and effectively run a lathe.

I also found Mr Rowe's comments about the societal over valuing of a college education over vocational training to be interesting. Watching that made me realize that I am one of those guys. I have about seven years of higher education. I got my BA in fine art ed. and did my graduate work in sculpture. Now here I am 20+ years later running my own business realizing everything I learned in college that I actually use today I could have learned in six months. I went to college because so many people pounded the mantra " you can't get a job without a college education" into my head. It was pure hogwash.

Ray

Father Guido Sarducci's Five Minute University - YouTube

Originally Posted by nun2sharp

Father Guido Sarducci's Five Minute University - YouTube

That was hilarious! Been a long time since I've seen that character.

Ray