Why does the U.S. lack skilled workers?
Why do manufacturing companies constantly complain they can’t find skilled workers, especially among the younger crowd? With everyone worrying about this country going down the tubes in manufacturing, there have been many attempts to address the issue. For example, a recent AME article discusses reshoring and the need to create skilled workers.
A friend of mine is a science teacher in a “Tech Program” at a community college in a nearby state. The program lets supposedly advanced students who are still in high school take college classes to get a jump start on their careers. He says a big reason the U.S. lacks skilled younger workers is that kids nowadays can get through school without even knowing, for instance, how to manipulate equations. Many of the U.S.’s problems started with the “No Student Left Behind” program, he says. Basically, the program dumbs down a whole physics class (or whatever) to the least common denominator. These kids aren’t really even cut out for technical careers or college. Meanwhile, the future engineers and entrepreneurs lose interest in school.
Another problem: Kids today are coddled. Kids are clever enough to manipulate the school setup, which bends over backwards to placate those who are getting an “F” because they were too busy talking on their cell phones during class. Teachers don’t have much recourse because the administrative authorities don’t enforce rules.
How about we help students who are suffering and trying and want to make something out of their lives?
What do you think? Send me your ideas, and I might print them here.
October 13th, 2011 at 10:10 am
Each teacher should have a grinder issued, and cell phones going off in class should be introduced to these grinders (or “one way” receptacle) when necessary. I’d bet the problem of phones in class would go away pretty fast!
October 13th, 2011 at 10:12 am
Leslie,
Although I do not have a magic recipe thats produces Technicians, Engineers and future Industry leaders , I can look back on my career as a possible model to build on.
UK Technical College
Royal Navy Artificer Training Establishment, apprentice program practical and theoretical, BSME equivalent
Kodak, development engineer
UKAEA , engineer
Emigrated to Canada
Atomic Energy of Canada
Immigrated to the US with technical equivalent of MSME per Dept of Labor, preferred status.
Design engineer to manager of two international companies over the next 47 years, with numerous patents.
I realize RNATE does not exist in the US but the equivalent is possible in the US if it was supported by major companies.
It is very difficult to teach design if the person you are teaching does not know how things are made, practical experience in the shop is necessary what ever the industry is .
Work discipline can be taught but it should be eased out from the student carefully.
Theoretical studies should be interfaced with practical work.
Students or apprentices should be paid over the period of their apprenticeship and offered a regular position on completion.
After reading this I know what I mean but I am not sure my career can be easily duplicated in this day and age, but here it is anyway.
Regards,
Don Stanley
October 13th, 2011 at 10:58 am
Leslie:
The problem I am seeing is that companies also do not want to put time into training people. I have a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Purdue and I feel that I am not being given the chance to gain experience. I have asked employers “How do you get experience if you do not want to give someone a chance.” This question gets dodged. I see that employers are not receptive to criticism. If you criticise an employer they automatically feel that you have a bad attitude towards them. The employers are quick to call job applicants the problem and constantly complain that they can not find skilled people. You are right, the schools have dumbed down the math and sciences. This problem has to addressed. People are closing their eyes to a situation that they do not want to acknowledge. It will not get better. You know that a college degree tells an employer that a person can be trained. Everyone had to learn at one time. Also, I feel age discrimination and I am in my 40’s. I find it hard to believe that having a technical degree, and still not able to get a job due to lack of experience. The companies are going to have to put time into people. If a person meets the educational requirements of the job, he or she should be given a chance to gain experience. I am tired of hearing these employers cry that they can not find skilled people. The employers are the problem and they have the solutions to solve them. This is my opinion and I am only one man.
October 13th, 2011 at 11:01 am
Hi Leslie –
I saw the comments about schools not adequately preparing students for technical careers, but I have another comment about that. A little background about me.
In 1966, at the age of 20, I was hired by Lockheed-California Co., in Burbank, California, to be a Numerical Control Programming trainee. I knew NOTHING about machine shops or manufacturing, but I was a math and science major all through high school, and I was in college at the time, as a math major. I needed a (temporary!) job to put my new husband through his last 2 years of college, and heard that Lockheed was hiring. They gave me a battery of tests, including an IQ test and a 3D spatial visualization test, to see if I had what it takes to learn how to read a blueprint. They hired me (and paid me 3x the minimum wage – I thought I had died and gone to heaven!) and then put me in a training class, 40 hours a week, for a month. Then I spent a month with a mentor in the N/C programming department, then back for another month of full-time training. Later, they invested even more in training me, in 5-axis programming and in CAD/CAM (CADAM, Lockheed’s then-in-house software). Here I am, still working in this field (at a major CAD/CAM/CAE software development company), 45 years later, and getting ready to retire.
Where is the willingness of businesses to invest in young people like that? This was routine, at least in aerospace, in the 1960’s. Now, if you don’t have 5 years of experience, you can’t get a job doing anything! I think it’s a disgrace. I also think we are making huge mistakes by emphasizing college for everyone, but not preparing people for real work in the real world.
So those are my thoughts. I’ll be interested to see what other kinds of feedback you get.
October 13th, 2011 at 11:06 am
How do you encourage young adults into the technical field. I am a 49 year old Machinist and Welder. I see all these professors giving their advice on the up and coming technical shortage but they still don’t answer the basic question, what makes a person want to build things?
I wanted to work with metal, My grandfather could do anything because he was a machinist, That is what motivated me into this life, But my kids who are very good with their hands do not want to have anything to do with this. They told me it takes about 10 years to properly learn machine shop and you don’t make any money.
But money is not what motivated me….It was the basic desire to make things.
At 18 years old I built a log splitter it had twin carburetors and a 50 gallon hydraulic pump. I could split 48” hickory trees for firewood, and I did it all out of salvage parts and about $100.
Thanks
Tony Phillips
October 13th, 2011 at 11:08 am
I personally know a 17 year old boy that is lazy but not stupid and somehow he gets $500 from the government a month. I think somehow he got diagnosed with add. I have add and didn’t figure it out untill I was 35, so what I just work 3 times harder to compensate.
P.S.
Wish I could get back into moldmaking.
October 13th, 2011 at 11:10 am
Our family moved from upstate NY to just south of San Diego back in 1985. The schools were very poor here compared to NY. Especially in the lack of class discipline. Our solution was home schooling with some private schools. All 3 of our children went to College, both boys graduated from UCSD in engineering and my daughter completed 2 years at a community college before getting married and pursuing a career in the grocery business.
I don’t know what can be done with the institutions. The incentives are not where they need to be. One size does not fit when it comes to teaching children, they all have different speeds and learning styles. I suggest eliminating a lot of the central thinking and overhead and let the local schools have more say in teaching methods and what they teach.
October 13th, 2011 at 11:13 am
Leslie,
Just received the newsletter and enjoyed your short but to the point article on skilled us workers. This issue is also dear to my heart and I am involved in various programs to promote manufacturing jobs to high schools as well as technical schools. Below I have written what had recently happened to me in which I thought you might find interesting.
My daughter who is a senior in high school invited me to a meeting at her school on the various opportunities that seniors might be interesting in. The presenters spoke 90% on college opportunities and about 10% on military careers. There was a question and answer session when the presentation was over with so I promptly stood up and asked why manufacturing jobs were not mentioned. I gave a brief description of how many jobs were sitting empty in my home state. After the meeting was officially over I spoke with the presenters on a one on one basis and found out that the states track the amount of kids that the high school sends off to college. The high school is in fact graded on this issue. I then asked if the high schools track the college completion rate and was told that they did not.
My take on this and why I am sending this to you is that wouldn’t it be nice if the states give credit to the high schools for promoting manufacturing jobs! Think of the benefits we would gain.
Rich Kime
National Sales Manager
October 13th, 2011 at 11:16 am
As a sometime designer of factory equipment, including workstations for assembly, I can testify that many in the lower paid echelon of factory workers are woefully underprepared to think critically, thus the heavy emphasis on “poke-yoke” design (the original Japanese phrase translated roughly as “idiot proof”, but it was made a bit more politically correct). One of the problems, however, is not so much that our U.S. factories can’t hire well qualified people, but that the owner companies won’t pay a reasonable wage for well qualified people and the work is uninteresting and tedious. Why should an intelligent person take a repetitive, unchallenging and poorly paid job in a factory when they can do more interesting things, even at low pay? Foreign workers are often less picky, even if no better qualified (we still end up playing “poke-yoke” no matter where the factory is located). If factory jobs were made more rewarding by placing more emphasis on intelligent decision making, I believe that many of these “poorly qualified people” would end up significantly more qualified after some period of adjustment. After all, a person who is not normally intellectually challenged on the job is not as likely to be thinking critically at any particular juncture. It seems that the lessons Harley Davidson learned in the late ’70s and early ’80s about “ownership” of jobs have still, at this late date, not been learned well by most of American Industry despite these lessons being taught in almost every MBA program in our nation. American industrial engineers are constantly doing time studies to determine how to shave seconds off of fabrication processes, but they are seldom tasked by corporate executives to find ways to get employees involved in making products better. A few companies make half-hearted stabs at it, but are really not interested in or willing to invest part of the Directors’ and shareholders’ profits to make meaningful changes, much less trust any part of their operation decision making to their employees as Harley Davidson did. Consequently we coddle and tolerate intellectual laziness, and it shows. In short, the problem is as much about poorly educated managers and greedy corporate bigwigs as it is about poorly educated and intellectually lazy laborers.
Mark Stapleton
Owner, Watermark Design, LLC
Charlotte, North Carolina
http://www.h2omarkdesign.com
October 13th, 2011 at 11:20 am
Wrong wrong wrong… The dispersion of qualified engineers and designers has nothing do do with academics. US manufacturer’s don’t pay and education costs are rivaling the housing bubble. Hence, the cream of the crop use their engineering degrees to work in the chrystal meth. labs of Wall St. where they can make a living wage. Want proof you say? At my campany there are newly minted MIT graduate engineers who are forced to share a 2 bed apt. among 3 renters.
Lawrence
October 13th, 2011 at 11:22 am
Hello Leslie,
Possibly some of our kids are not well educated, but that doesn’t mean they cant be taught. Companies can have apprentice programs. Opportunities for good paying jobs can drive ambitions. Internships can start careers. Kids will listen if you take the time to tell them.
During WW2 there were many crash programs to get things done, including training people. Look at how fast industry got going.
This all costs a lot more long term investment money and higher salaries than greedy billionaires want. Maybe we need a big shock - like a trade war with China to get things going again.
Regards,
Steve Oberheim
October 13th, 2011 at 11:24 am
Leslie,
I used to think the dumbing down of public school systems was a result of misguided good intentions, but things are becoming so bad you have to wonder if it isn’t intentional. The biggest threat to a king’s power is not posed by other kingdoms, but rather his subjects becoming fit to rule themselves. Perhaps this is all a ploy to mitigate the threat an educated and capable (i.e. independent and critical thinking) pubic pose to those who want to rule over them? I doubt it is really intended to dumb everyone down, but it does make you wonder if there isn’t a grain of truth in there somewhere.
Mark Willis
October 13th, 2011 at 11:27 am
Leslie,
As a former teacher (of both “general” education and “special” education students), I totally agree with your article.
I think what we need to learn in the United States is— it is a waste of time and energy to try to make all students into all things.
We need to take more of the European approach–where by the “high school” years—students are put into tracks of their choosing/ testing ability.
This way, some go onto college and others go onto vocational training.
In this way—each student is getting what they need to be successful and will be ready to enter the workforce at the proper time (after school, training is done).
The problem with our current system is that the schools try to prepare EVERYONE for college—and the truth is–on national average—only 10-20% will continue on to college and only 10% of those that do continue will graduate college.
In other words—our current system is working for 1%-2% of the students! You think someone would realize this and change it!
In fact, most current high schools don’t even teach basic personal finance skills—and the number one reason of those that go to college end up quitting—finances….
On teaching students technical skills— Many jobs with vo-tech skills can make just as much as the college jobs, or even more! Example: teacher versus certified plumber.
However, in the United States–we tend to make college the prestigious option and if you fail at that —you are just a “blue collar” worker and that is frowned on……very sad indeed….for where would our country be if no one did the technical jobs?
Maybe someday our country will realize how to truly educate our students with what they need and what is right–rather than trying to stuff them in cookie cutter molds and prepare everyone for college.
Talk about frustrating,
Erika
October 13th, 2011 at 11:30 am
Leslie,
I hate to be a suspicious person. But what better way to destroy America, and the American way, is to strike with the axe of stupidity and ignorance at the root of education.
This is not because those who are calling for the dumbing down of children in schools are looking out for their welfare. Instead it like they are like the fox looking out for your chickens, they are conspirators, and have conspired for years to destroy us, as a Nation. They are destroying the educational system, allowing illegal immigration combined with a open welfare system/free health care system paying for things they never paid into, and are throwing money to every lazy derelict they can. More and more people I come in contact with are on welfare, food stamps, or on disability.
I work as a engineering toolmaker for a company that was one time full of brilliant people. Now after 33 years with the company, I see new a new owner, who has no experience with our industry, hiring new engineers who have the skills of what I would call a week end warriors, taking the helm of the company. The new management is using their yardstick of skills as a standard to hire new workers
and to those who obviously know more than they do, and are a threat to them, they get fired.
Is this dumbing down or not? If this is what is going on in America as a whole, I don’t give us much hope.
Jack
October 17th, 2011 at 3:56 pm
I agree, why should we as a society bend and reform a system that worked? We are close to needing military controlled schools. I say put discipline back into homes and school. Those who want to learn should be taught those who don’t send them home. I struggled through school, which I didn’t like I knew I wanted to be a welder before I made it to the 8th grade. Needless to say I stoles out in 10th. Started welding and fabrication, went to school for machinist skills. And im doing pretty good in life
October 17th, 2011 at 4:01 pm
I believe it’s worse than your article indicates as concerns the “teaching system” in our country.
It is a total systemic problem that has failed from the highest levels to the lowest levels, and adding more money which has been the solution in the past is the problem.
When you have a problem that is created in a “system” adding money is in fact rewarding the system for the failure. The system learns from this and not only continues the original failure but now looks for ways to get more rewards.
We have created a huge system that has adapted to an inverted reward structure where failure is rewarded by more money being thrown at the “problem”.
Until the “product” (in this case the student) is viewed as broken nothing is done, our public school system actually prides itself on making the student feel good about themselves regardless of how much of a failure they actually are.
Feelings are now the main goal (or product) of our public education system which is much easier to achieve than actually teaching them what they will need to be useful.
It is the quantum shift in the final products goals from being “useful” to a product that “feels good about itself” which has created useless product hitting the streets.
Schools of higher learning are also “companies” and their goal is to make money. If what is being sent to them doesn’t possess the basic skill sets needed to learn then they must dumb down all the goals until the product can be “shipped out the door” and they receive their reward in the form of…you guessed it more “money”
Higher education gets more money for more students graduating so again the “system” rewards volume of production and not the usefulness of the final product.
Now lets look at any attempt to “solve the problem”
As you will see from the previous description of our “school system” at any time if anyone notifies the schools that the final product is not meeting needed or stated goals then the return solution is always the same “give us more money”.
If the final system complains that the product they are getting is not useful the result will be to raise taxes to inject more money till the problem “goes away”. So in fact the final system learns not to complain with the hope that they will not lose more money.
The “system” is now in balance as there are no complaints from the customer regardless of how bad the product becomes.
If people would please stop referring to it as a “School System” and start calling it what it really is a “Government Funded Jobs Program” it might help to start to identify problems and solutions.
If you call an airplane a car then try and find solutions you can see where all the confusion might come from.
Solution:
Scrap the entire system as a failure….in effect treat the public school system as a company that has failed to produce a product that anyone wants to buy and shut down it’s production of useless product.
Return the money to the parents and they will find a way to teach their children what they need to succeed as they are motivated to see “the product” as being able to be sold some day. If they fail then the child is of no use to anyone and eventually like any useless product it is “disposed of”
I’m sorry to be so blunt but it was the fear of being disposed of that drove previous generations to always be useful…..
Kirk Demadaler
October 17th, 2011 at 4:03 pm
Hello Leslie, just read your article about the “dearth of skilled workers”. Why then did stanford univ, harvard univ and a non profit organization hand congress a study stating that congress had it all wrong. They found out that if all the jobs open were filled by all the available candidates in engineering and sciences then there would be AT LEAST 1/3 more candidates available than jobs. Don’t forget- teachers have to motivate there students to keep them in school. And to keep there own jobs they must have students to teach. Beware of the teachers! DC Florida
October 17th, 2011 at 4:06 pm
Hi Leslie,
There is no dearth of skilled workers in the +50 year old crowd. And there are ample unemployed in this age group willing to work for whatever they can get.
I just looked at an ad for an entry level position at Microsoft. This was for configuring Sharepoint. The job requirements? 5 years development experience in Sharepoint, C#, and APS combined with a Phd level education. Entry level? How about this. A Kent, Washington aerospace company needs a draftsman/designer with Solidworks experience. Masters degree in engineering required!
I don’t have a degree, though I have the equivalent number of college credits as your average Phd. I just never took the humanities to meet the degree requirements. At the height of my career I was “Director of Engineering, Subatomic Particle Research for the Mathematical Sciences Division of Amaco Oil Company” and managed a staff of over 200 scientists, engineers and technicians. Now, at 58, I couldn’t even get an entry level drafting position.
Whoever is selling the idea that there are no skilled workers in America is spewing bull. The skilled workers are everywhere. Just go to any job fair. The big problem is employers refusing to accept that any new employee will need some training to do the job required. They all want people that can hit the ground running. Their expectations for skilled workers is impossibly high.
I own a small computer repair company. I have 5 employees. All of them have college degrees in other areas such as law, forensics, history, etc. Yes, you can come to my company and have your PC fixed by a lawyer! I had to train all my employees to do their jobs from the ground up. Unfortunately, most companies are not willing to make this investment in their people.
Now, as for the young not getting a “proper education”. I agree. Only one of my three sons knows which end of a screwdriver to hold onto. They spent their entire high school and college years avoiding anything that had a handle on it. But, as parents, we were sold on the idea that our kids were growing up in the “information age” and that they would all have illustrious careers at Microsoft or Apple. There are no shop classes offered anymore. There are no automotive repair classes offered anymore. Need a plumber, carpenter, painter, or electrician? They are all immigrants. Maybe that will change now that the reality of the “information age” has sunk in. That job at Microsoft has been filled by a guy from India. Microsoft does not hire from the local community colleges or even the University of Washington. Nor does Google, nor Amazon. They can hire the best and brightest from MIT or Stanford. They have no need for the lowly graduates from second tier schools. Time to bring back that woodworking shop class!
cheers,
Art Valla
October 20th, 2011 at 2:27 pm
Manufacturing companies can’t find skilled workers because they don’t pay them enough. There is a huge difference between a bachelors Engineering degree and a “skilled trade” in wage. It takes 4 years to earn a Bachelors degree but takes longer to learn a technical skilled trade such as a competent machinist… who earns less than the Engineer. You tell me where those blessed with the opportunity to pursue higher education will go….
and please don’t tell me about that “Overtime Benefit” crap.
October 20th, 2011 at 2:41 pm
Good Afternoon,
I went to Northeastern University for my BS. Northeastern U had/has a plan. After you completed your first year you were elegable to work 6 months and go to school 6 months a year. You worked in selected companies that used your skills, gave you experiance and paid you. So you had tuition. They also had a great night school where just about the same thing happened.
I could never have affoded College, but I went to work for Polaroid and they saw in me an ME. I had a group of great engineers teaching me the proffesion there and most of my tuition paid. They got there money back and more with 25 years of patents on automation and products. The GE, why do we all call it that had a great program for apprentice Engineers also!
Where are companies now! These companies not only trained and educated engineers they also had programs for technicians and mold makers.
October 20th, 2011 at 3:24 pm
Hello All,
A lot of good points have been made so far. For me this comes down to a fundamental question of skills versus knowledge. Skills are essential in the workplace (especially in technical fields) but knowledge enhances application of said skills. That said, I think a lot of companies these days put an undue amount of emphasis on the knowledge part without an equal or greater emphasis on the skills part. The thinking seems to be that we can easily give people with knowledge the skill set they need to do their job, but not the reverse.
While I do recognize the value people with knowledge but no skills bring to a position, I think the reverse has been highly underplayed. As has already been stated, there are design / drafting positions out there requiring a master’s degree. I hold a design / drafting position with only an associate’s degree, and I believe I do my job quite competently. I tend to believe my employer agrees, as I’ve been with them for 3 years now and they’ve not complained at all about the quality of my work and I’ve not complained at all about the compensation I receive. I am a design / draftsman, but had more than a decade of “hands-on” experience prior to this position.
The problem is, I get the feeling that companies that value real world experience over book knowledge are a dwindling minority. I guess I should count myself fortunate to work for a company that does seem to value hands-on people as well as people with prestigious degrees.
Best,
Mike
October 20th, 2011 at 3:29 pm
In every education debate that I am aware of the real problem with our educational system is never discussed: there simply is no substitute for self motivation.
Its always something else like:
1) The students are not learning so let’s give them free meals. I never got a free meal when I went to school and I was often hungry but I still learned. We give them three free emals a day now and they still don’t learn.
2) Pay the teachers more and they will perform better. The performance of a good teacher is not based on their pay. I was educated by hundreds of teachers and I am sure their pay varied greatly as it does in all professions. The best ones were not the most highly paid in my opinion judging from the clothing they wore and the cars they drove and the houses they lived in, etc. The best ones were those who loved to teach and money can’t buy that. It can reward it but it can’t but it.
3) The school needs better equipment. To an extent I agree but with limitations. The university I went to could not afford new strain guages for the engineering laboratory one year so we made due with the old ones. It was a good thing too because the company I went to work after graduation used even older equipment and still does, 30 years later! In fact one of the standard text books for one of my classes was written in the 1960’s. Recently it was stolen from my desk so when I did some research to get another copy I found out it was still the standard textbook! There may be a lot of new applications out there these days but the fundamental laws of physics haven’t changed since I was in college, except for the fact that neutrinos have mass, so not all books have to be recently published to be relevant.
I am a firm believer that if you really want to learn you will no matter what the odds. You just have to be self motivated to do so. Isaac Newton Albert Einstein, et cetera never had computers but look at what they accomplished. Classical physics. Relativity. Self motivation is the key.
Our kids today are simply too distracted by all the games and tv shows and movies and subcultures so prevalent in our society. They need to decide early on what they want to do and then work hard until they are really good at it. In a coddled environment they are never going to be pressurred into doing so especially if there are no consequences.
Kids today think way to highly of themselves and they don’t seem to understand that respect is earned not given and respect for individuals is not the same thing as respect for ability. You may respect “Joe”, the chef at a local restaurant, as a human being, but you won’t know if you respect his cooking or not until you have eaten one of his meals. If Joe liked to cook and got good at it you’ll want to eat at his restaurant often. If not you’ll never go back.
The same rule applies to any ability!
October 20th, 2011 at 3:38 pm
The problem is not the lack of skills. The problem is the layoffs that made so many skilled workers “under employed”. Too many companies in the last 10 to 15 years have had “resource actions” which were simply preludes to outsourcing in “low cost geographies” on the basis of companies not wanting to pay for traditional US retirement plans and benefits. This latest generation has watched their parents “careers” go up in smoke, “what’s the use?”, is their attitude. The country has to get its trade policies straight before the generation is lost, forget about a retirement for the “under employed” generation. Perhaps once we get it straight and realize that knowing how to do something is just as important as a professional meeting attender dilettante “being in charge” of something, we can attract young people to trades and “careers” which require study, knowledge and expertise.
October 20th, 2011 at 3:40 pm
Your article asks the wrong question. You’ve taken a corporate manager’s statement as gospel and ran with it. Perhaps you could investigate what “shortage” actually exists. We have over 600 qualified applicants every time we have an entry level apprenticeship opening, absolutely unheard of ever before. The part-time worker at Home Depot that sells me conduit fittings is an ME with 18 years experience - that was before his company shutdown US operations. Unemployment is at record highs. There appears to be very little evidence indicating a skilled US worker shortage, but plenty of evidence pointing to a cover story trying to justify giving US jobs to other countries. Judging from some of the comments, many of your readers can see this clearly, such as Mark D, Bonnie, Lawrence, Art, Dan B, Wayne, Dean, Mark Stapleton, etc. They all raise excellent points that I have also seen and experienced first hand. Perhaps, as Mark S. mentions, the problem is developed when pure greed and ambition replace skill, responsibility and plain old sense as job requirements for managers and corporate ‘bigwigs’.
October 20th, 2011 at 4:03 pm
If we as taxpayers are forced to pay for every person to get a “free education” then there should be some choice involved. Here in Minnesota it cost taxpayers an average of $12,000 PER YEAR, PER CHILD for k-12 public education.
SCHOOL VOUCHERS would be a big help to solve the problem of unprepared kids. Each parent would get a yearly check of say $10,000 for their child to go to whatever school the parents want to send them to, and the parents pay extra if the school costs more. That way we can send our kids to private schools that arent full of unionized tenured teachers that are neither rewarded or disciplined for performance…. and private schools can “kick” out the problem kids.
If this were implemented, you can bet that public schools would dry up overnight…. so you can also imagine that it will never happen as long as the NEA is around and lobbying the politicians with the money they collect from their union members who get paid by the taxpayers.
October 20th, 2011 at 5:22 pm
Dear Leslie,
I have read many of the posts and all make some good points. I have a 12 man machine repair shop in Nevada. Unlike alot of the nation we are not lacking for work. My problem is skilled craftsman. A body with a college degree values their self far beyond their ability.
From an employer stand point I have the customer on one side demanding perfect new parts from their broken and worn pieces that preform better than new and want them repaired for a fraction of the cost of new.
From an employee stand point they want the wages of a doctor and posse skill set of a high school grad.
Reality dictates it takes 5 years to gain 5 years of experience. How does a company pay for the damage done to machines and cutting tools when a tool is run to fast or a carriage runs into the chuck? How do you charge for a 1 hour job and the employee takes 3 to 5 hours. This because of lack of experience.
Most of the employees I have worked with for the last 30 years do not care about the job they are there for the pay check. I have given raises to some and they worked less and became less productive.
I can be sitting in my office and hear a machine being run improperly through a wall and 100 feet away. A skilled machinist would have the problem resolved long before I could get out there to see what was going on. Others would wounder why I was coming out to see them.
Motivation is what made America what it once was. Child labor laws have damaged much of the youth. By the time a young person is old enough to get into a manufacturing job, they have no idea what it is about.
Most people are clueless about where things come from let along what it takes to get a product to market. A product must be manufactured for less than 1/4 of its retail value. Any thing beyond the cost is overhead.
Its easy to say bring back manufacturing. The difficult to almost impossible is over coming the government red tape. Then finding people that want to do the boring tasks required to do something over and over again. No one but the super rich can afford anything made one at a time. Quality control becomes a factor. Raw materials is becoming a problem. Environmental restrictions add to the cost.
China has stolen much of our expertise. They have no environmental restrictions to speak of. Their people are willing to work for nothing. Their schools teach math and other necessary skills.
Ask the average high school grad how to read a tape measure or convert a fraction to a decimal. Even how to make the correct change from a dollar bill.
Don’t get me started on unions. They reward for being a body and not much more. They discourage doing more that one task at a time.
October 20th, 2011 at 5:24 pm
No shop classes results in no exposure to the value of math.
Placing no value in real life purposes for math skills results in sleeping through math class.
Sleeping through math class results in inability to do math, shocking but true.
Inability to do math, coupled with insistence of parents to go to college results in massive college dept, bad drinking problems, and a flood of “Socialiology” graduates otherwise know and “Future Prophessors”.
Fortunately due to the diligent efforts of kids who did learn math, McDonalds cash registers have been developed to the point that kids today do not even need to be able to recognize numbers.
October 20th, 2011 at 7:31 pm
I’ve long been saying that America is in a war of achievement, and we’re losing. There are three factions responsible: parents; students; and teachers; yet all of the blame is laid on only one.
A huge problem: litigious parents; a school system may be bankrupted by meritless lawsuits, or even one large award. Little Johnny doesn’t want to be in school, constantly acts out, and the school’s attempts to discipline and work with the parents fall on deaf ears. Then the parents come to a meeting at school with their attorney and the school backs down. They have to.
Furthermore the problem children know exactly how far the school can go with discipline and they know the worst the school can do is really not that bad. The parents may not be litigious, they just might be ineffective, apathetic, or just worn out after working two jobs just to get by.
School vouchers are not going to solve the problem, not if we fail to address discipline and parenting. Of course if we address those we’ll likely not need vouchers.
The people who say teachers, teachers’ unions, or tenure is the problem confirm only one thing; they don’t know squat about the realities of being a teacher.
Imposing discipline and holding parents accountable are the places to start; something the politicians won’t do.
October 21st, 2011 at 10:52 am
A generation of American children have been deprived of the common sense curriculum that comes with using your hands. Now it is up to industry (what remains) to teach them what they did not learn, but industry doesn’t know what to do. They stopped serious career training long ago.
The popular narrative must change to embrace the acceptance of using one’s hands to create things. The people who want to have gainful employment, doing something useful and valuable, will have to be convinced that carving a horse or making a mahogany lamp is a learning experience. Shop class was not carpentry prep; it was about common sense, critical thinking, making intelligent decisions all building important neural pathways. Using knowledge to create skill.
Bring back shop class if you want a motivated, sharp, new generation of technical people rising.
Pat Gallagher
October 24th, 2011 at 10:43 pm
Well as an American who attended school in Australia in 1959-60 then came here I found public schools stink overall in the good old USA. You sit there having to memorize nonsense mostly with bored teachers who just want their jobs and pensions and read whatever the idiot book said. I was taught we would never go into space, the moon came out of the Pacific ocean and don’t ask a question because the teacher won’t like you. When I finally went to electronic school I found something that actually was interesting! Wen to machinist school and that was interesting but I wish I had gone to a real school rather than wasting 13 years doing nothing in public schools. Funny but I ended up being brought out here to NCS Pearson-National Computer Systems bought right before the 911 attack by Pearson Plc.-the largest educational publisher in the USA and maybe the world. We set up No Child Left Behind and it’s just about billions of dollars for the testing company not “education”. They even use bad tests at the college level which mark the students wrong mistakenly and no-one cares! Got caught in Minnesota and had to pay 21 million to the kids they wrongly flunked at graduation too. Just money, billions for a global conglomerate but don’t mess with them! That kind of money means they are serious as one college professor I contacted found out. threatened her life folks. Maube she’s dead….Point is is just about the global corprorations controlling everything and owning everything for profit and by the way we are the connected corporation they used to set up the TSA airport idiots too. All gone now-POOF!!! Brave New World now. The “president” is just a chimp stooge for these boys I know as they had Bush come here and hand us that contract.(no-bid cost plus) Maybe once they have us on the level of Chindia we can make stuff again? Can’t compete now on costs in the USA. Was at GM during the great outsourcing of America sent down to Brazil in the late 80’s. It’s all by design the kids are so dumbed down-not their fault. Kids are smart the system just grinds them down and our “job” is to enforce the “order” like in Iraqistan, Pakistan, Lybia, Syria, Africa as soldier botts. Until they have us locked up tight and have total control of the global system guess that’s how it will be. Ooops! Springer Show is coming on…I never miss an episode.
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