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

My old high school no longer has any industrial arts classes. The only two I ever took were electronics and drafting. I use both of them now quite a bit. Even though I may not do actual drafting, the skills of attention to detail and precision taught by that class are useful in everyday life. I never took wood shop or metal work, but if I knew then what I know now, I would have.

I too was pounded into my head to take college level prep classes in HS. I had a semester of college done before graduation. Now I'm a paramedic without even an associate's degree. Critical care and nationally registered, but no degree.

It saddens me to see industrial arts going away. Our kids need to learn how to make things again. We can't expect to remain on top if we hire out every part of out daily existence. Self reliance is a dying art.

Sorry Ray. Kind of way off topic. Now back to your regularly scheduled postings.....

This is interesting. My 9th grader, who is not doing well in college-prep type academic classes, is thinking of enrolling in our district's vocational program to take Engineering Drafting and Design; might be the best way for this really bright, but hands-on kind of kid to go. His older brother is studying to be a theoretical physicist, so each is smart in a different way. I really worry about our young people trying to make their way in this so-called economy. It seems that there is more demand now for Wal-Mart cart retrievers than anything else.

I remember when my oldest cousin decided to eschew college to go to vo-tech and become a machinist.
He was given a hard time by his family and my grandparents.

Turns out he did the smart thing. No debt and straight in to a job with good pay. He did just get a bachelors degree so he could move further up the corporate ladder but his employer reimbursed the bulk of tuition.
Here I am with an 8 year old piece of paper that took me 3 years to get and cost 20k a year.
I'm still paying it off and what little of my formal schooling I use could have been done in 2-3 semesters at community college.
I should have followed my heart and been a ski bum.