This article explains what amounts to a broken education system. We assume that the purpose of education is to give us the tools to achieve our potential and earn a decent living. Government paid for education (grades 1-12) should result in graduates being able to read, write, do simple math and know something about history, geography, basic science, english and civics. There are actually those have a high school diploma that cannot properly read, never mind much else. This baseline education should prepare you for baseline work like in the service industry. The next stream is to go on to a two year diploma course ot vocational school. Successful completion should give you skills to enter a trade. Some think that they don't need this as it is a waste of time and money, and some are right, but they are few. Thirdly, the University route offers more opportunity and should prepare you for management jobs or jobs that require thinking. Although you pay for this, some that make it still have difficulty in the workplace mainly because they they were not able and were pushed through for the money. Finally, Graduate schools prepare you to innovate and think. These jobs are for scientists, writers and others that use their brains to make money. We are failing in all four streams as students can slide through in return for fees. Yes, we should push those that can to go as high as they can, but not all people have equal ability which we fail to communicate or enforce.
31
In the small city of my native South American country, there are two public high schools. One of the HS is a regular HS and the other one is a vocational one. Which HS someone attends is the parent's discretion. Typically, kids from poorer families attend the vocational HS. I have not read a study regarding how the students from either HS fare after graduation but I would dare say the average income for graduates from either HS is very close.
HS in my native country goes from 7th thru 12th grades. Within the regular HS up until a few years ago, students were split into "specializations" at 10th grade. The specialization were physics and mathematics, chemistry and biology, social studies. The decision as to why specialization a student followed was in part determined by grades in previous grades and personal preference. Back in the early 80's when I left my native country all students had taken Algebra II in 9th grade and you stayed back and had to repeat a grade, meaning having to retake every subject for the failed year, if you failed any subject.
Fast forward a few years and many miles. I encountered an educational system where a large number of students graduate HS without having ever have taken Algebra I; where for the first time in my life I had multiple choice and true or false quizzes/tests; where it was almost impossible to not be promoted to the next HS grade.
Lest we prepare all of our students equally there can be dire societal consequences.
Lets party on!
13
Detroit Public Schools made the assumption that every student would be college prep and look what happened. It wrecked a great school system that turned out trades people and liberal arts majors. The industry of education saw students as widgets, and our fate was sealed.
14
The author correctly addresses the current way funding for higher Ed favors those seeking BS/BA degrees over those who need vo/tech. It does not address the Why of this situation.
When I was in 4th grade and above, the entire public school system I attended, my father on the school board, pushed a 'normal' view of what was expected for 'good' students who graduated from our district. We would go to top schools, esp. Ivy League, and go on to successful professional or academic careers. My 8th grade Health Class text book was about Norma and Norman Normal. He was the QB of the HS team, preping for Harvard or Yale and she was president of the Home Ec Club. Message: Kids, if you ain't like Norma and Norman, you ain't Normal, and you are wasting our time. Honest work in the trades? Shame on you, underachiever!
The charter was to educate all, but the technique was steeped in institutional upper-classism, anti-poor, anti-union, anti-'those people'.
9
SAT scores in America have declined except for Asian Americans, since all Asian Americans are aware they are being institutionally discriminated against when it comes to college and graduate school admissions. The silver lining is that this racist higher bar for Asians has made Asian Americans better prepared for the job market and thus do significantly better in terms of income and career stability.
7
https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Manhattan_Institute_for_Policy_Research
There's usually an agenda behind a point a view. This one is very conservative. It is cherry picking its facts to undercut a liberal, democratic education. It seeks to reduce everyone to workers in a system, the highest good for the capitalist class that runs this country.
7
Manhattan Institute.....that was my first thought but we should not throw the baby out with the bathwater. The author is right and it is a view that I have had for a long time. College is simply not for everyone. In fact, almost all of college is a waste of time from a vocational standpoint. It should be a time of thinking and introspection. Vocational options are underfunded. Try to find a competent plumber in Cleveland, for example.
13
Manhattan Institute? Really? Corporate funded.
4
Why is this Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute--the former employer of Charles Murray--getting his op-ed posted to the front page of the Times? It's a far right think tank that focuses on "political culture"; sorry, that is just not at all something "fit to print" these days.
6
I believe Oren Cass is an important voice of practical reason, often in short supply. Some of the quoted comments miss the important point: work is an essential part of adult life and high school and college , that is institutional education , is the main path to becoming an independent adult. Yet we all know so many people unprepared for work in modern society despite their education. This is his point, one worth listening to.
8
I have many nieces and nephews. Some of them are more academically oriented than others. Those that are not have all felt that they were happy to be done with school. We have always explained to them that all jobs that provide a decent living will require education. Whether it’s a Bachelor’s or Masters Degree in Engineering or Business, or an apprenticeship as an electrician, plumber or HVAC technician, studying and schoolwork will be involved.
This is a problem with the decrease in union strength and membership, because of the opportunities lost in training and certification that unions long provided. Not everyone is a good fit for university.
16
College is no longer about higher education for most schools. It is about profit, pure and simple. Couple that with major sports programs that border on professional sports, and you can see that there is little interest in actually educating kids.
6
I am a part-time English professor. I have clocked over 20 years in the classroom, for the most part at Columbia, where I taught as a Ph.D. candidate, and a selective, CUNY 4-year college.
Three years ago, I taught for one semester at a SUNY community college. That's when I discovered that a significant proportion of kids who go on to community colleges are functionally illiterate or, in my opinion, even if literate not capable of college-level work.
My students, all native English speakers, could not write a coherent paragraph or summarize a simple expository essay. They read poorly, absorbed little and had poor recall. The problem was not "the teacher" -- i.e., me. I am an experienced, successful teacher. The problem was that these kids did not belong in a an academic program.
These kids were not stupid. They were from all racial and ethnic backgrounds and had aptitudes that could and should be developed. They were fully capable of earning a good living and living satisfying lives. These students needed to enroll in vocational programs, with curricula aimed at providing marketable technical and skilled-craft skills. (One kid was going to take over his family's butcher shop; he needed a few basic accounting classes, not English lit.)
Not everyone is suited for academics. The school at which I taught offered vocational programs, and that's where these kids belonged -- but not with additional academic requirements, because that is why so many don't graduate.
28
@RCT
I don't know about NY's Community Colleges, but I do know about California's. Ours have absolutely no entrance requirements whatsoever. They are marketed to kids as young as Middle School as the smart FIRST choice for college. Cheap. Local. And, best of all, no entrance requirements. So, some students enter high school planning on going to the local CC (and knowing their classes and grades don't matter). Some enter high school with the plan to apply to a four year school. But, then, hey, if they hit a hard spot, they shift gears and plan to go the local CC. After all, they counsellors have been pushing them that way.
High schools, that are under pressure to show numbers, numbers of grads, numbers of students going on to college, etc., are delighted to shove the kids into the CC's.
How do poorly prepared high schoolers do in CC? As you found out, a poorly prepared high schooler is a poorly prepared college pretender. That's a shocker.
How is California trying to deal with the abysmal CC graduation/transfer rate? They tried to do a lot of remedial instruction. But many kids found this demoralizing, don't you know. Now they just plan to throw them in the deep end (which they will probably shallow up just a bit so they can fudge the numbers.)
3
An excellent article, the first one I have read that dares to dethrone the "sacred cow" of American psyche: that one must get a college degree. I have a doctorate degree and professorship in a major university, but I never went to college! In the country where I was born there was NO college!. One got 12 years of combined primary-middle-high school education. The last two years were roughly comparable to two years of American college, but were not obligatory and were taken only to those aiming to universities to study medicine, law, humanities. One could, instead, take the last 2 (or 4) years of high school in one of multitude of programs and graduate as a highly competent professional in a trade (usual technical) with immediate employment for a good salary. Such system is still active in Europe now as a sort of work-study program with graduates guaranteed a good job. Americans have been brainwashed to believe that without college one's brain is wasted! The ones who benefit are probably primarily college faculty and graduate "perpetual" students. Let us shore up the high schools first!
10
As this author points out, our approach to K-12 and higher ed are completely wrong headed. In the interest of political correctness, we push "college for all" in K-12 with the result that some students emerge prepared for college, and a great many emerge prepared for absolutely nothing at all.
California has a 114 campus community college system that will take anyone at all. It doesn't matter what courses a student took in high school, what grades were gotten, which courses were passed, whether the student even graduated. They will take anyone. Students know this. As early as middle school, California kids are thinking "I can blow off high school if I want because I can go to the CC and they don't care." Have you ever heard that a lot of young people don't want to work any harder than they have to?
Ask any college professor what they are getting as students. It should come as no surprise that a terrible high school student is a terrible -- and temporary -- college student.
The last time to get a good high school education is in the K-12 years. If we want more college grads, coming out with real, marketable degrees, college should be harder -- not easier to access. Meaningful college is inherently elitist. We should unapologetically embrace it.
Meanwhile, bring back vocational and business tracks in high school so kids graduate with some basic skills.
10
I was placed in a trajectory for those in the gifted arts. I know how to paint and sculpt, copy and create, make fine lettering, etc., etc.. Fortunately for me my parents were interested in medical sciences. I don't want to make this sound as if they were well educated because they weren't. My father never finished high school and began as a home delivery milkman to end up as an ambulance driver. My mother never attended school at all because she was physically handicapped from birth. She started as an insurance-biller in doctors' office and end her career as an office manager. At 13, 2 years into an art centered program, I read the Hippocratic Oath framed neatly in one of my doctor's exam room. So I asked him to teach me everything he knew according to and agreed upon the Hippocratic Oath. I finished school and do appreciate what I learned from my professors and fellow students. Then I went on to make a career in medicine. It was many years, actually decades, before I realized that it doesn't take a person to become a doctor or an RN. All it takes is interest, reading comprehension, and a mentor. I had all of those but my parents kept telling me that only very intelligent men could achieve success, and I was too pretty to go to college. College for girls was only for ugly girls who couldn't find a husband any other way. I'm so very glad that women and girls are no longer being told nonsense like that. Having had a rewarding career along with being a mother have been tops!
5
By the way, when I was going to Purdue, the total fees package was $180/year. Some of my friends have children with over $100K in debts which will stay with them forever. WHY?????
6
One of the unfortunate perceptions is that blue collar careers are viewed as low paying jobs that are for "losers."
This is a reason everyone is encouraged to get a college degree so they can get white collar jobs and be "winners."
This stigma must somehow change for the betterment of America.
10
Quite aside from the gross unfairness of the system, it's also astoundingly stupid! The major effect of all this taxpayer-paid funding of "higher" education has been to drive up the cost of tuition everywhere. More money? Great! We'll pay the administrators, the teachers and the coaches far more than they used to make before the taxpayers were forced to pay up. And as though that weren't enough, they've built absurd facilities. And as though that weren't enough, we've had the useless, for-profit companies gorging at the trough.
However, back to the unfairness. Not only did we stiff those who for whatever reason are "unqualified" for or disinterested in college, but then we stiff them again, in an even worse manner, by sending their jobs to China, Indonesia, Korea, Mexico, etc.
All this costs us as a country. The people we stiff become far less productive than they would be, if:
-- We had no "free" trade.
-- And we had the kind of training and internships that are so successful in Germany, supporting their outstanding manufacturing companies (most of which are mid-sized, not gargantuan, enterprises.)
Half the college students are abysmally unqualified for "higher" education anyway. (Millenials, raise your hands!)
So let's start fresh. No government loans and other forms of support, except for grad schools perhaps. Proper training in the advanced manufacturing skills needed for jobs we'll be bringing home. No illegal aliens depressing the wages in these industries.
8
Typical claptrap from the conservative Manhattan Institute. If there's one thing the political right can't stand, it's the idea that all Americans will develop their fullest intellectual potential - such creatures can't be bamboozled by the GOP's morally bankrupt ideology. Education is only partly about employment.
4
@Sarah
Nobody is "developing their potential" to take on a lot of student debt to play make believe for awhile. Have you ever seen the data on the proportion of California community college students who either graduate with a two year degree or transfer? The studies look only at those students who enroll planning to do one of these two things. The figure is around 60% -- in six years.
Why? Because in many cases they barely got out of a terrible high school education and are clearly unable to do college work.
Next time you meet a community college, or four year college, professor, ask them what they see as students. They will talk your ear off about the illiterates they are asked to teach.
4
For 2 generations we've taught our children that college is the ONLY path to success and happiness. People who want to work with their hands or enter the trades are treated like second class citizens, somehow "not as smart" as collegians. What rubbish that is. We need to change this model of success, because technicians to fix Teslas are unlikely to be found via referral from the alumni office.
5
How long must we sing this song?
Affluent communities have better public schools than poor communities... Poor school districts rely more on federal funding than affluent communities.
The LA Unified School District [alone] has a +$20 Billion a year budget. That's 20% of the States entire budget.
17% of LA Unified student's parents are "Illegal aliens" or as this paper likes to say, "Undocumented Immigrant Workers."
Do the math.. how much longer will people want to keep paying for these people? France is just the beginning - and French are the race "most tolerant" of ALL Europeans.
2
@TD Mr. Cass works for the Koch brothers funded Manhattan Institute. Does that give you a clue? Profit making vocational schools for the masses, college for the supervisory overlords, no useless liberal arts to confuse the mind.
3
This comment is in the form of an open note to the editors of the the New York Times:
DEAR EDITORS, please read this column and consider it carefully. If there is one trope repeated over and over in the major media it is that people with college degrees make more than those without. This is a truism. And, it is fundamentally inaccurate in that many people without degrees make more money than those with degrees. It depends in part of talent, creativity and insight into one's times, but also luck and family connections.
My father did not have a high school education but made more on average than lawyer (I looked it up when I was in high school). His salary in the mid-1960s was over $160,000. in today's dollars and we did not live in an expensive city where that would have been eaten up by living expenses. One of his grandchildren now also makes a salary in that range because he has acquired specialized skills that are in high demand. My father also often had one or two months off per year. Some deal, right?
Here is a further fact: just because 1 million more people get college degrees, it does not follow there will be cushy, high paying employment for them. Yes, the economy changes, but you don't need a 4 yr. degree to be manage a McDonalds.
Please tell your reporters to stop repeating over and over again that people make more money with college degrees. The correct way would be to say they have the opportunity to make more but it is not guaranteed and others do well, too.
6
When solutions are obvious, as they often are, but no one solves the problem, it is because someone is benefitting. Who benefits from the way things are?
China has 6.5 million undergraduate and 0.5 million postgraduates in science, engineering, and medicine, the largest scientific workforce in the world. Why not US? Ask yourself, "Who benefits from America not grasping the future with both hands?" Someone. Who?
Further, as a nation, we now are like crew cut crabs in a barrel: if anyone thinks anyone else anywhere is benefitting from something, anything, they don't have; well, if they can, they'll pinch them down.
Our racist and city mouse-country mouse conflicts simply no longer allow us to cooperate on anything so full scale with so many moving parts as revamping the US educational system. We no longer have a Belt and Road Initiative in US (even if if the Belt is for US and the Road is our own. We are declining: living off the past, fulminating in the present, evaporating with the future.
Like the English and French before us, we seem unable to stop lying to ourselves about who we are, where we are at, and where we are headed. Evidently, nations must suffer serious consequences before they stop navel-gazing.
2
I attended HS in the late 60's and had no idea where I was headed. I believe most HS students don't have a clue what is to happen after HS. The few that do know where they are going are gifted by involved parents and school counselors. Our HS had an auto tech program, wood and metal shops, etc., but the push was to go to college. Our parents had 30yr careers back then.
Today, the job market is continually changing, AI is replacing jobs by the 1000's and will replace many blue collar jobs. Gone are the middle class wage manufacturing jobs. I suspect there will always be demand for plumbers, electricians, big equipment operators, etc., but don't we all benefit as a society by a higher educated public? I believe we need to give HS juniors and seniors courses and experiences exploring a broad spectrum of occupations. Going to college is overwhelming enough without a goal or focus. Many graduates express they would do it differently had they the opportunity to do it again.
I was lucky to go to college for 1 year, perform miserably, and work the next 3 yrs. I returned to college with a focus I didn't have at 19 yrs old, paid my way, worked 20 hrs/week and graduated 3 yrs after my HS cohorts. College gave me an experience I couldn't have gathered anywhere else. I was forced to take responsibility, organize and plan, and own the outcome. I retired after 35 years in forestry and I wouldn't have done it any other way. I would support a gap after high school.
9
Thank you. I have been teaching for 42 years and have seen needed vocational classes disappear in favor of college focused education. So many of my students will not go to college, and will leave high school with no marketable skills. We need to serve all our students.
8
@Judith Clark-Upton
My description: some prepared for college, most prepared for absolutely nothing.
1
The writer fails to take into consideration the following facts: a post-secondary education is necessary for virtually any job that pays a living wage; vocational post-secondary education is supported by the same federal dollars that support undergraduates; and although there remain a few technical schools, most have morphed into two- or four-year colleges. So whether you're going to be an accountant or a bookkeeper, an RN or a CNA, an architect or a carpenter, you're going to 'college'.
The elephant in the room of Cass's argument is WHY eighty percent of students lack the makeup to succeed if pushed towards college. Are they inherently intellectually limited, or inherently limited in intellectual ambition? If so, are these numbers in line with other countries? If not, why not?
And what would a comprehensive vocational program even mean in a world where every nonintellectual vocation, and many intellectual ones, are on the cusp of being automated out of existence?
I suspect that while some fraction of students probably wouldn't benefit from college, a solid majority are left behind by inadequately funded primary and secondary education, and the anti-intellectual cultures of their schools, homes, or social environments. These are the battles to fight. Cass's recommendation is the embrace of defeat.
3
@Jamiel
In California, about 60% of the K-12 students are Hispanic. Right around a third meet state test standards.
Teachers will tell you that the parents don't participate in the education of their kids, so there is multi generational under achievement.
I just pulled the data on SNAP (food stamp) enrollment. In every California congressional district, there are more Hispanic families on SNAP than are not on SNAP.
2
Most public universities in this country have seen a steady erosion of public support over the past four decades, and the intellectual life at universities itself has been under assault. That said, is this author is suggesting we spend too much on them, and funds, therefore, should be diverted to vocational education? Hard to believe. Maybe he should rethink his position.
2
I have always admired the worker bees, human and insect. I respected them because their work ethic was often more profound than their politics or religion and yet there was no reason to grudge them either. These days it seems there is something gnawing at them and I suspect it's because their work ethic has been soured by the division of labor's rewards. Perhaps it's a little resentment seeing white collar workers sitting at computers essentially being used as gambling machines as the finance industry rewards itself for finding new ways to make money without making anything else. I love the worker bees who build houses, bridges, play instruments in orchestras, teach general ed to youngsters, mend my broken bones. I never met a money market manager I liked - and that's the truth.
And I'd like to thank all the shop instructors I had as well as my music, math, civics, English, biology, history teachers, et al.
3
I suspect that since you are from Portola Valley, you are not a worker bee. However, I appreciate your admiration for us bees.
Not enough hedge managers/computer programmers/financial gurus understand that we keep the actual wheels turning for food, healthcare, transportation, electricity and water that people take for granted.
2
As a public university teacher for decades, I have watched the priorities shift from providing education to those able to absorb it to marketing the institution to children of prosperous parents able to pay the spectacularly rising costs. Funds are spent on statuary, luxury dormitories and 'dictator chic" architecture to impress that clientele (not all of it from the US). Meanwhile pressures, not all of them subtle, grow to dumb down courses and inflate grades to keep the customers happy. Many of the students are not academically inclined and have been cheated. I agree that much more should be spent on vocational educational institutions but I also agree that those programs should include some training in civics, history and government as well as the arts and literature at a suitable level. Goals include employablility, but education should, for democracy to survive, also educate for participation in governing and for life, as in the pursuit of happiness. Scandanavian models can guide reform in that direction. We adopted two boys that were not academically inclined. The older attended a good liberal arts high school and then a two year technical institute and owns and manages a car repair business. The other got a GED and
then took two years of mostly liberal education and mathematics at a local junior college. He is regularly employed with a local meat wholesaler. I am proud of both of them and think that they are useful, reasonably happy citizens.
8
Germans figured this out long ago. And before you jump to a conclusion, the Germans also fund EVERY school at the same level so students aren’t shuffled into vocational occupations because they aren’t given the opportunity to pursue an academic path. This is a matter of valuing all work. I will tell you that there many more days that I appreciate my mechanic much more than some coder at Facebook.
8
Not everyone is college material. When I was in school, after 8th grade about a third of my class opted to attend a nearby vocational school. These were the kids who knew they wouldn't be going to college (lack of money, lack of parental support, not good at the academic subjects) and preferred to learn a trade. The nearby vocational school offered programs for would-be plumbers, auto mechanics, hair dressers, cooks, electricians, etc. The majority stayed in high school, but even then there were some kids who had zero interest in college. We had to pick either the college track or the commercial track in 9th grade. That kind of tracking is gone now, with the vocationally inclined kids having to learn their trades at a community college. Not every kid can or wants to be an engineer, doctor, or lawyer. Too much time and attention is spent teaching kids how to pass standardized tests and less time teaching them critical reading, writing, and thinking skills. We still need good citizens, too. The kids don't see it, but at some time they may have to vote, not just in a federal or state election, but on matters of importance to their towns.
Getting a college degree is not a guarantee of anything. It is not a guarantee of a job, or a high salary, or a nice house. It does mean that you can check a box on an online application form and maybe clear one hurdle that employers set up.
4
The priority of the US Educational System reflect the cultural values of the US.
To quote Ms. Aring
""The relationship among business, government, education and labor is a partnership in Germany, while in the States it's adversarial," said Monika Aring, director of the non-profit Institute for Education and Employment in Newton, Mass.
"In the U.S., we historically don't like to use the public education system to prepare people for work, but rather to be good citizens. The very term 'vocational' has come to be pejorative in the States."
Manual labour is looked down upon in the US. In Germany, the "Lehrlingsmeister" of a company has the same social standing as the chief engineer.
All good, but we should start by putting enough money into preK-12th grades to ensure that every HS graduate has the ability to think critically and be an engaged, informed citizen. As we know from 2016, that is currently very far from the case.
6
In our public education system financing favors the older/higher performing student. The least amount of money is spent on preschool, the most on post-graduate university education. At each higher level of education the financial investment increases. These priorities are wrong. We grossly under-fund younger students and those who require additional support to suceed as a learner. Every level of education deserves and needs to be adequately funded. This type of approach would best serve our nations economic future and our children. Funding, however, is only one element in improving our educational system. Among the many changes required is to end age-based classes and develop a mastery leaning system in which every child fully masters essential sets of skills, objectives, klnowledge, and applications, including those in basic skills (listening, reading, speaking, writing) and critical thinking, independent and project learning, teamwork, computers, etc.
3
Not only is college no guarantee of economic success, it is simply not for everyone, and I agree that high school should offer other options. But it is to our great advantage to financially help those who can "do" college because the benefits are enormous, to all of us. We need people who can think and read and reason and solve problems. Not everyone wants to do these things! Some wonderful people want to tinker or build or make music or work outdoors (yes! this is a consideration for many people who would die in a cubicle or choke on a tie). We need to accept that not everyone WANTS to go to college, and not everyone needs to either. But for those who both want and need to, we should freely help them much more than we do now.
1
What Mr. Cass fails to mention is that a lot of the vocational training he's talking about is already provided at high schools and community colleges. My local community college, for example, offers certificate programs or associate degrees in Law Enforcement, Acoustical Installer, Carpentry, Drywall installation, Electrician, Sheet Metal work, Sound and Communication System installer, four different specialties in automotive technology (e.g., auto collision repair), cabinet and furniture building, Construction inspection, the Fire Academy, and many more. For each of these programs, there are multiple classes, up-to-date facilities and equipment, and qualified instructors.
So why are graduation rates at American colleges low? One reason is that these young students don't have well-off parents to support them and need to work 30-40 hours/week to pay for their rent, gas, car insurance, and other expenses.
It needs to be noted that the author of this op-ed works at the Manhattan Institute, a think tank in the forefront of the move to privatize public education. (The author is also on record as denying that climate change poses a severe risk--- see "The Problem With Climate Catastrophizing" in Foreign Affairs.)
Rather than taking money away from our higher education system and re-allocating it to a separate (and likely privatized) educational system, we should increase funding to support living expenses for our young adult students at community colleges.
8
The US should follow the German educational model and abandon the failed British model but parents here fear the German model since it requires the student to plan his/her career early in life. Instead many student spend the first 12 or 14 years of their scholastic life indecisively hoping for 'divine' intervention to show a path.
2
We are going to need plumbers, electricians, vet techs and OT and PT assistants. We should be sending the technically and mechanically inclined to vocational or trade school and community college certification programs. There is no reason that absolutely everyone needs to go to four years of college. We are going to need a lot of skilled workers who know how to repair and handle the new tech machines.
3
Lots of comments about how our early education system is failing students. I agree to some extent, but also think we sometimes expect too much out of our teachers and schools; not only are they to teach, but they are supposed to fill in all sorts of gaps that parents have failed.
I live in an affluent, but crunchy town. Kids have lots of opportunities and involved parents, but parents emphasize kids' emotions over discipline. I've been to several extra curricular activities with my kindergartener where kids can't follow instruction, have melt downs if they don;t get their way, etc. It disrupts her experience. She also regularly tells me about outings, show-and-tells, etc. that got cut short b/c kids weren't listening to the teacher, refused to participate, etc.
What does this portend for her later grades, especially as her class size swells? It's easy to get frustrated with the school for not educating her better, but I see an inordinate amount of teachers' time spent merely managing uncooperative kids. How are they supposed to teach?
12
While I agree with most of what Mr. Cass has to say, his position has one familiar flaw. He's right that not everyone should or can go to college. But he is mistaken in thinking that education is simply a form of job training. The liberal arts education was designed to prepare people for citizenship. We have largely forgotten that, and yet some wonder why we have a virtual mobster former-reality show star as president. We need to make sure a genuine education, not mere job-training, is available to everyone at the high-school level.
8
I work in an east coast high school. Our students are incredibly diverse -- race, income, interests, etc. It is absolutely correct to say that the school system still leans college, to the detriment of those students not wanting a college degree or not academically ready for a college degree. The academic curriculum is set up for those planning college. For example, everyone in our school must take algebra 2 because colleges require algebra 2. The result? Many failing students. Many students who cease to work sometime during the semester because every quiz or formative comes back E. It is a not an empowering or encouraging strategy. It turns many off, and some end up dropping out because every subject is another opportunity to fail. The most important thing these days is preparing students for LIFE -- whether that means military, trade school, college or just getting a job. Many students mature later than 18 years. Some do eventually go to college. The current system is hard wired for one kind of student only. I worry all the time about the students who are ground to dust and fall out education and drift along. I, too, went to high school when there was a wonderful trade program. I had friends who went the secretarial route, and got great jobs. Most did do college, but according to their own time and on the basis of a mature decision about next steps.
5
A thought about lifelong learning, or learning for the joy of it...it's not something you get from college. You get it from a family member who takes you to the public library when you're little, and tells you that you can pick out any book, about anything that interests you, and you won't have to do a book report. That's what teaches you that learning can be fun. College is not that kind of learning; it is task-oriented learning. Even in liberal arts classes, you're reading for a purpose. There is material you must master to pass the class, tests to take, papers to write. You don't choose the curriculum. If all a person ever knows of learning is from school, college, even grad school, he or she knows how to learn for a purpose, but there is no guarantee that he or she will ever want to do it just out of curiosity. That's why so many college students hate the "general education" curriculum they must take, and wonder why they can't study nothing but material that prepares them for their chosen career. That curiosity is missing. College is continuing education, lifelong learning is something else entirely, and it's a passion developed early or not at all.
7
@Nikki I agree with your opinion 100%. I grew up with 2 parents who joined the workforce directly out of high school. My father, at the age of 74 is still reading books constantly on the things he would like to master. I too entered the workforce straight out of high school, only recently (last year) I enrolled in college. For the last 22 years, I have been raising my children and working part-time at any job I had the opportunity to apply for. I have worked at a hair salon, a car dealership, a hotel, an aircraft parts store, an insurance agency, a lawyers office, a doctors office and now at a library. I have learned many different job skills and pushed myself to continue learning with every position that I held.
Many people tell me that I am brave to go back to school at 40 years old, that attending online classes vs. being in a classroom is inconceivable to them. I have taught myself for the past 20 years I am quite comfortable with the demands of college via the internet. If I were to have gone to college when I graduated high school, I know that I wouldn't have the self-discipline that I do today.
Whether someone attends vocational school, joins the military, goes to college or joins the workforce directly after graduating high school is not what is going to make them successful. Perseverance, the will to challenge yourself and knowing that no matter what the world is a place of constant change is what is going to create the drive to keep learning.
2
I agree that we need to support all kinds of education and that we should value highly skilled craftspeople and technical workers and make their education accessible. But I don't agree that we are overly funding higher education. For decades, states have been backing off funding for higher education. Consequently, students graduate with a millstone of debt around their neck, which delays starting a family, and discourages studies that serve the public good but do not pay high salaries. We do not fund education sufficiently at any level in this country: we still don't have universal early childhood education; public schools all over the country are underfunded (some catastrophically); and students have to shoulder a growing portion of higher education costs. A functional system of taxation would help -- and distribute the cost of education more effectively. But we have a government full of millionaires who prefer to privatize the system bit by bit. I agree that we must reset our priorities, but let's not see the problem in zero-sum terms.
1
The author of the article makes good argument.
In Germany, it used to be that a small percentage (I think about 15%) of school graduates went to the University and the rest typically went to vocational schools. The German university curriculum was very challenging and rigorous, but since only the academically better students went there, they managed to handle it. Interestingly, the vocational schools were also very high quality and offered rigorous training that was much more applied. The students here also had to work very hard. As a result, the academically superior students did well and so did the others who were hard working and focused. Society also benefited because there were well-trained people for all types of jobs.
This system is what we should be striving for. Unfortunately, in the US, since everyone tries to get into a college/university, too many colleges/universities have sprung up. For all of them to survive, they tend to admit students who should not be in college in the first place. The outcome is low graduation rates, "dumbing" down of the curriculum, grade inflation, and, worst of all, a poorly trained work force.
The above is a stark representation of what is happening in the US.
7
@J. Kale
You know, one thing I notice from watching tv shows about how things are made -- in European factories, such as car factories, you see a lot of women working in what here would be very male dominated jobs. Perhaps that is because their system actually asks whether a particular person has aptitude for a particular task, regardless of gender, while here girls are much more likely to get pushed toward college whether that's really where their talents lie or not.
i was fortunate enough to be academically inclined and receive a private high school education. I saw many friends struggle who would have benefited from a vocational program. The problem is that the "professional educators" are the big influencers here, and they don't want to let go of the money for technical/vocational training opportunities.
I'm a retired vocational college teacher.
In my observations the major determinant of success was personal motivation.
Students who regularly missed classes or slouched in late and slumped in their seats, and couldn't be bothered doing the work, tended to fail and go back on welfare.
Students who arrived early, paid attention, asked intelligent questions, and worked assiduously, all passed and went on to get great jobs in management.
I'll guess a lot of that came from parents - encouraging the kid to feel like a loser who expected to fail so didn't bother trying - or a success who expected to succeed and worked until they did. And of course birth context - being born of addictive or abusive parents doesn't help.
1
All public schools need to offer education in how to live your life making good choices. This includes career and training choices, alcohol, tobacco and drug choices, sexual activity choices and financial choices. Most of these areas of study can be incorporated into existing curricula. Thus equipped, students can have some say into positioning themselves for success and/or further exploration. They can also benefit from a stronger likelihood of making fewer really big mistakes.
2
@Frank Definitely some instruction in financial literacy would benefit many students more than trigonometry. Every student should graduate with an understanding of how interest works, how a credit score is calculated and why it matters, pre- vs. post-tax income, how to balance a checking account, how to budget, etc.
1
We need to start even earlier. A high school education should in itself provide a high level of understanding of the sciences, history, the literary cannon, and our social/economic/political system. It should most importantly leave someone with the ability to think critically and to evaluate and research information to solve problems.
Only a small percentage of our high schools offer that. We have placed the burden of teaching this to universities. We have students entering high schools that can barely read.
Its time to raise funding for earlier education, to equalize funding and make it much less dependent on local property values, to pay teachers much more but to have stricter standards for recruitment, and too also raise standards for our students and fail more students and teachers who do not meet them.
Having a higher graduation rate does not mean anything if the standards have been dumbed down.
1
The benefit
i got from college was the opening of my mind and the broadening of my horizons. More of that for more people would result in better-informed voters
I am all for training in the trades. Doctors, lawyers, teachers do their professional trying after the B.A. For those who are not suited to college, could not high schools do a better job of producing knowledgeable citizens?
2
I know of two people who completed four year liberal arts degrees and then went to technical vocational college to get certification in fields that pay better than what they could get with their BA. Give me a person who has learned to work with their hands and has also learned to apply that knowledge in their everyday life anytime. We contribute to a scholarship fund at a state technical college rather than give to our alma mater, a well respected liberal arts college.
3
We recently moved to Concord, NH and live a few blocks from the high school. When walking my dogs this past summer I was intrigued to learn that there is both an automotive training and broadcast training facility attached to the school. Not sure what other vocational skills they are teaching but I do know of one graduate who is pursuing a career in film. And then there is the young man who came to my 109 year old house this morning to help me with a malfunctioning steam heat system. He soon had all our radiators functioning and not spitting steamy water from the valves. He pointed out the different parts of the system and why it is so efficient for this climate. He practically waxed poetic over the handmade copper tank that is part of the system. For less than two hours work and a few parts the bill was $300 which I was happy to pay. He works for a larger firm here in town and pointed out that they are booked solid for two months
just for heating systems so there is obviously lots of demand for this service and the pay is decent. In the summer they install air conditioning. He also said that there are at least 25 companies in this area doing this work and they are all busy!
One other bonus for these workers: when they go home their work is done. No evening meetings, emails to answer, out of town travel. So time for families and R and R.
1
@Julie Carter I agree completely except for the part about their work being done when they go home -- many tradespeople own their own businesses. In that case, they will definitely have paperwork, emails, etc. to do outside of working hours.
1
The study he links talks about federal aid to technical education. Local School Districts and states spend a lot on both Vocational-Technical Highs Schools and Community Colleges, which offer technical programs. In this part of PA, we've had quality Vocational-Technical High Schools and Community Colleges for half a century. Students from the Vo-techs can gain advance-placement credit in compatible Community College programs and Community College technical program grads can go on to 4-year tech degrees in engineering and computer science at the state universities, including Penn State. Both the Vocational-Technical High Schools and the Community Colleges have business/industrial liaison committees to ensure that the programs match employment opportunities and that the equipment and instruction are sufficiently up-to-date to provide easy transition from school to work.
These are quality programs and they have existed for a long time. The bigger educational problem is the 40% of college entrants who won't graduate after 6 years and the students who don't choose the Vocational-Technical H.S., but also lack a strong interest in or ability to succeed in college and just drift through H.S. without a clear path post-H.S. Of course, many of these students will leave H.S. without graduating -- this is the most at risk of all. A third of H.S. entrants in this city fall into this category, a true waste of human potential.
2
I find it disturbing that we are turning colleges into vocational schools, with narrowly tracked majors and elimination of liberal arts courses and departments. I graduated from a state university in 1974 with a 'worthless' liberal arts degree. What I really learned was how to keep learning.
How many careers today are the same as they were 40 years ago? How many will be the same 40 years from now?
I ended up spending most of the last half of my working life working with computer support and database design and implementation. I was able to keep up with the many changes in the field as they happened. I also worked with computer science majors who thought that getting their degree was the end of their education.
I do firmly believe that there needs to be opportunity for career training and vocational education, but there absolutely still needs to be education for all that teaches critical thinking and basic skills that are methods more than memorization. Common Core has tried to do that, but has been fought every inch of the way.
2
In 1970, only 10% of the USA had a college degree.
The Vietnam War brought many young men to college to avoid the war.
Today, about 30% of the USA has a college degree. That includes 2 yr as well as 4 yr degrees.
Since so many young people may be interested in the trades but don't realize the kind of living they can earn, we may do well to introduce the various jobs and salaries they can make when they're in middle school.
Bring in some tradespeople for career day instead of having all of the stockbroker dads and lawyers...
3
This article is important, because it raises an issue for serious discussion that has all too often been ignored by both educators and the general public. The problem with this article is its too simplistic notion about the purpose of schooling and higher education, and the ability to train people for specific jobs in today's complex job market. It also does not discuss something that already exists -- a large and expanding career and technical education program. And it ignores the cultural issues for so many that take the career and technical education path - today many parents want their children to get a college degree. So I would argue for a somewhat different approach than Oren Cass suggests -- multiple pathways within and beyond the high school education. These would include continued growth of career and technical education at the high school level; more emphasis on two year associate degrees with a focus on career and technical training, paid for by the Federal government; traditional four year college degrees at both public and private universities; paid community service options for high school graduates before they enter a higher education program; and loan forgiveness for entering certain professions, such as for urban-rural teaching and counseling. These types of programs already exist and can be expanded, and they don't require huge retooling of high school programs which would be extremely difficult. Let's keep this dialogue going...
2
One fallacy being propagated by the article is that once you have that piece of paper (for college or a vocation or any other education related pursuit) that is the end of the line.
What is rarely mooted is that the piece of paper from a college or anywhere else is essentially meaningless 5 to 15 years after obtaining said piece of paper. I would posit that a much more valuable metric for people is a combination of sustainable income based on capabilities and continuing education.
1
I taught middle school and high school for many years in Los Angeles before becoming too frustrated with the system to stay. While I agree with many of the ideas in this piece, there is a distinct lack of discussion here on how this would affect students of color and immigrant children.
Would the white students likely be the ones to go the academic path with the students of color shuffled into the vocational training? That's what I've seen.
While I agree not all students need to go to college, we should be doing all we can to make sure they can. High schools could easily offer both educational and vocational courses, free for everyone to take. This is how it was when I went to school. But budget cuts led to the loss of these vocational classes. No Child Left behind only made it worse.
It shouldn't be the job of High School to train a work force. That should come after graduation. And yes, more help getting people into training for better careers is key. But an educated populace is key to living in and understanding the world around us.
5
Thankfully those majoring in liberal arts is declining because it bakes no bread. Yes STEM is the way to go and the Germans have added another great division, that of technical and non technical. While vacationing in Thailand, I met a couple of young German lens grinders who made lenses for experimental devices. Ordinary lenses for cameras, telescopes and microscopes are made with grinding tools using dedicated software. Before making the expensive programming of such machines it is very correct to build a test machine/software to see if it works.
I am a graduate of Purdue in math - I was a very poor student and only really liked a class by a graduate student - Pete Karas - who taught a class of how to make decisions using computer models. Years later while working in the Brand Group of The Coca-Cola Company we made a presentation to both Coke top management - all sales people - and as soon as they saw the presentation - our corporate group immediately approved buying over $100 million in northern markets and immediately our syrup sales dramatically increased.
Pepsi immediately responded with Pepsi Challenge - basically the difference between the 2 brands is that Pepsi is 5% sweeter.
Previously some have criticized the German school method. When at Coke I got the job of helping our new German find schools for their children as ours were terrible. Most sent their children to private schools. Never criticize a winner!
My father built a school in Picher, Oklahoma, one of the most polluted and deficient sites in America. The children were all, including me, heavy metal poisoned and had trouble concentrating on things like consecutive numbers. Later the problem would close the town as "unfixable." But from 1948 to 1961, he brought the school from the lower 15% in the nation to the 88th. He graduated major symphony and opera musicians, sports figures, a fortune 500 CEO, multitudes of lawyers, teachers and professional people. Almost no one failed to graduate and the college rate was outstanding. As I talk to my friends from Picher on Facebook I am constantly amazed at their accomplishments. My graduating class was 98 students. Meanwhile a mile away in Quapaw they were graduating one of America's finest classical composers as well, Louis Ballard. The key here was Vocational Tech courses and lots of hard practice in the Arts and Sports. I graduated from University and went on to graduate from Manhattan School of Music in New York City and run my own chamber opera company and training program. What we don't need is tracking people. Good teaching will solve both of the students, in this article's problems. Conservative models that stereotype students is not education, it's gate-keeping and unworthy of a civilized Democracy which depends upon every citizen's growth and maturity no matter where they are from. REH, NYCity
1
Excellent article. My only slight disagreement is that it seems to me that there should be enough time for the more academically oriented to learn some technical/mechanical skills, and vice versa. In other words, young students should not be forced into an either/or type of situation..
4
First, I should provide you with my rather unconventional background because it obviously has shaped my views. Thirty ymears mostly as a business executive with a marketing focus. Finally in a position as President of a cable manufacturing compamy in New York.
Unfortjunately, the stress threatened my heart and I had to chajnge careers, the doctors said. After obtaining a PhD. I started my own small management consulting company before becoming a college professor and Head of the Marketing Department at a small Liberal Arts College in Virginia for 10 years. Our four children were out of college, married and working with nine wonderful grandkids. So we were ready for a less stressful and rewarding new Chapter.
I have also written an award winning book: The Keys To Success In Any Career Or Job. It was a finalist for best! book of the year in
2010. I scientifically developed six universal compentencies required for success.
I strongly believe that a college education should 1) Prepare one for a successful entry into the workforce, and 2) Prepare one for living a balanced and meaningful life. Both are important and achievable. And there is obviously a strong relationship between work and one's personal life.
So in sum, I don't believe in the writers contention. Although one must be prepared for college and desirous of a career in many professional fields. Additionally, I fully support Vocational Schools for those who chose that alternative. Both are required.
More later...
1
We may spend too much tax money on college students but the cost of college are stratospheric. Our tax contribution constitute a pittance on the costs of college degree and the debt students are currently engaging to get that degree. It is not too much spending giving the costs incurred. Granted, more spending is needed in vocational training and programs, but not at the cost of less gov spending and and aid for college education. Go to the root of the problem. Do not try to put band aids that entail even less educational aid from the gov.
Wow, I'm so not ready to give up on the "meritocracy" that seems to be such a bad word to some these days. I don't mean anything more grand than you have to work hard and earn your way into college, and then you have to work hard while there to reap the benefits if you succeed (which are not all monetary). While it is certainly more difficult for some high school students, due to their circumstances, to do this, let's address it at that stage and not think we have to bring up everyone to a similar level after the fact.
2
"That some young Americans assume unaffordable debts is not an argument for yet more spending on college, but rather a reminder that its value proposition can prove to be a poor one."
Although the above sentence was not the point of the article, it struck me as "right on the money". What's also needed is good counseling for students on whether college is a good investment for them, and just as important, the value proposition of private colleges. Yes, this is tricky but it's absurd how much unnecessary debt these kids take on. If you have to take out more than the Federal Loans then choose another school!!! That's exactly what we did.
2
While this is a thoughtful and even well thought out editorial, the author fails to consider one extremely important aspect of education. That is giving students the knowledge and thought processes and ability to recognize the difference between fact and fiction.
In other words, one key component of education not considered by the author is the ability of our citizens to serve as thoughtful, voting citizens. Certainly preparation for an economically viable life is extremely important. But in our society, preparation to thoughtfully participate in our democracy is critical.
2
I would love it if as a society we paid greater attention to, and spent more money on high school and earlier students. Many of these who do get accepted are forced to take multiple 'basic skills' courses once in college to make up for weaknesses in their learning and preparedness for college learning. My own school, (which will remain nameless to protect the guilty) requires 3 such courses, all at the expense of courses with academic rigor.
The good news is that public funding changes that could level the playing field among higher education instititions would not likely reduce the actual education within elite schools much because much of what you're paying for there is their name (and access to career opportunity).
1
I strongly disagree with any suggestion that we divert funds from College bound students to others, But first I want to object to the writers comment about fire alarms. The best ones cost $60. why should they even be discussed.
College debt already delays people's access to home ownership, starting a family and burdens career decisions with the need to make the most money soonest. College graduates contribute the most to society.
Yes, we need to better support vocational education but not at the expense of college. Rather with more money.
Furthermore, we need to provide the counselling necessary to motivate the unmotivated. That's the real solution for those people.
It didn't occur to me at the time, but my secondary school experience was actually somewhat similar to what is proposed here. Near the end of middle school (i.e. during eighth grade), my school hosted an assembly for all those who would soon be going to high school, bringing in two speakers - one from each of the vocational high schools in my county.
The speakers pitched vocational training in a matter of fact way, laying out the prospects available to those who attended. Students would learn about a few fields, pick one they were good at, train more, then be assisted in finding some on-the-job experience, in whatever form available for that field.
I've always been an academic-minded person, so I'm now in graduate school, but several of my friends chose this vocational route, and though we for the most part fell out of touch, once in a while we'll talk, and they seem to be succeeding across the board. All have well-paying jobs with potential for future promotions, and one of them is now looking into starting his own business.
The key thing, I think, is that it's presented as a choice, rather than a mandate (like in the German system). I have no fears about paying my student loans, and love the things I study; my old friends have no fears about making a good living and doing what they love.
I hadn't realized just how lucky I'd been to live in the school district my parents moved to, but looking back through the lens of this article, I appreciate more and more.
1
Vocational track beginning age 14. So many kids would feel such relief. No longer the irrelevant workload. Get them out of those desks and working with their hands. Leave me the academically dedicated. We'll happily continue our essays.
1
I would argue with the entire premise that college graduates are destined to be economic winners, while non-college grads will land at the bottom. I will never forget that the guy who installed my new oil burner made $3,000 in one day (about the average cost for that in my area), which is two weeks pay for me. I've got two graduate degrees. Which one of us went the smarter route, me or the plumber? I know many men in the trades who make over six figures, a salary which most college grads will never see unless they choose a particularly lucrative field such as finance or medicine. Ironically, part of the reason for that is that so many kids are pushed into college now, and taught to disdain working with their hands, that those with real skill in the trades (not just day laborers) are hard to come by and can name their price. Meanwhile, college grads are plentiful, at least here on Long Island. Supply and demand applies to the job market as much as anything else. That all by itself is justification for widening the options.
5
In SC, anyone who can manage a B average in high school can go to tech school for free. And some school districts are working with tech schools and employers to resuscitate the apprenticeship (also cost-free) for kids interested in getting a certificate or 2-year degree *while* they finish high school.
2
I left college after 2 years, now have an advanced degree.
I went to work in a creative Woodshop in an area that the wealthy were flocking to some 35 years ago. I worked with a Lawyer, an Architect and an Industrial Designer that chose Woodworking as a vocation. All three have been more then successful because they were innovative, thoughtful, creative and Educated. You can learn most trades in a short time, especially today with web sites and youtube, but you need to be educated in order to make the best use of learned skills.
The thing about education is that its so class based. All 3 of those men got to choose their paths and were successful, at least in part, because of family wealth. As anyone who has taken a beginning teaching class will attest to, the surest indicator of future success is class, not race, gender or religion. If you want successful vocational programs, then pour money into preschool, grade school child care healthcare ,food programs ,public transportation, scholarships to summer camps and on and on and on. Its about class.
1
Aren't community college supposed to be increasingly moving towards more vocational training?
Wouldn't it be simpler then to continue to make community colleges even "more vocational", than to completely reorganizing the entire system?
2
What characteristics are needed in the citizens and workers of the future? How we build those characteristics through government investment in education can only come after we decide those characteristics.
All citizens and workers need to be able to read and write. All citizens and workers need to be able to solve problems. All citizens and workers need to be able to think critically.
Businesses may need particular workers to have certain manipulative skills. Businesses used to do this training, like in building skills, manufacturing, etc. Businesses turned this training over to the individual and the government in the last 60 years.
A college degree is only a certification that a graduate has obtained certain life skills. What should happen to people who have not yet learned those skills?
2
We are college grads with advanced degrees. My spouse is a workaholic so our "vacations" are usually an added day or so after an out-of-town work-related trip. Our careers require us to live in a city which has little natural open space to enjoy. We can jog the streets of suburbia or pay $5 a day to go to a County Park.
In contrast my same age cousin spent one semester in college then became a police officer. His wife an LPN. They are now both retired. They made a little less money than we did but had much more free time. They have always been able to live in a location with free access to nature-related recreational opportunities.
We have more money but I think they have a better life.
3
The flaw in this article, and indeed in many people's traditional notions, is that we have an education *system*. We do not. What we have is an education industry.
The federal monies that exist to move students into higher education are not based on any altruistic notion of "education" nor are they based simply on the desire to educate the workforce or train them for upcoming jobs.
It is based on the fact that our "education system" is a giant money-making enterprise unto itself. Students at Ohio state get fire-alarms for free because some smart fire-alarm-making company has realized they can tap into this market; the fire alarms certainly aren't free of cost to the University that provides them and the company certainly doesn't donate those fire alarms to the students.
A lot of people are making a lot of money on "education" while, as the author points out, our actual education levels aren't actually rising.
Our education system is non-existent. Our education industry is thriving.
2
Sounds great in theory. Given recent experience, I expect that a vocational charter school movement will not be far behind.
1
My husband took every vocational and math class he could in high school and then went to trade school and got an A and P license. After 20 years of working in airplanes he saw his earning potential diminishing and got an ME and a MME. He never regrets the time he spent turning a wrench.
1
The missing ingredient here is not job training, it is exposure. Many manual trades have apprenticeship programs available that will take care of the actual training. High schools don't need to get into this aspect of education and it is the rare teenager that would even know what they wanted training for anyway.
By virtue of the fact that I came from an educated family, I was exposed to more academic pursuits and ended up with a career that reflected that. I only discovered an interest in things that may have lead to a completely differently life once I was a home owner. I didn't know anyone that worked a manual trade and my family kept company with others of a similar background.
I see the same problem with one of my grown up children. No particular interest in academics, but no real exposure to alternatives. Past a certain age, it is difficult to introduce such things when children are no longer part of a captive audience in high school. Worst case scenario, being introduced to manual arts will make teenagers more self-sufficient and well-rounded as they enter adulthood. Best case scenario, it will open up an entirely new path in life.
6
The issues brought up in this article are true; but the underlying employment problem worldwide is not addressed. The work that humans need to be doing is going undone, because our economic system is still based on industry...how many shoes, guns, and cars can you make and sell. Yes service industries are there but the driver of it all is the shoes! What the automation of industry means for people is not being addressed.
There is a tremendous amount of work that needs to be done. The insect population is crashing and we don't know why or what to do about it. The planet we live on is in dire straights and we have the capability to analyse and mitigate the damages. The solutions would provide new jobs. The opportunities abound if we can figure out how to change the economics of making things (which machines are quite good at) to analyzing and solving problems we've created.
What does it matter if we have a rush to produce skilled labor? With our current economic way of looking at things there will continue to be shortages of meaningful, well paid jobs.
My son was on the academic path in high school, aced the math section on his SATs, got admitted to a competitive research university, and dropped out in the middle of his first semester. My wife and I assumed, falsely, that our son would attend and graduate from college as we did. We both work, by the way, in higher education. As it turned out, he is good with his hands (can tear an engine apart and put it back together) and is endlessly fascinated by how mechanical systems work. He was fortunate to enroll and learn a trade through his union's education program. He has never before exhibited such enthusiasm for learning. This may be, in large part, to the student-centered curriculum. He is now certified and licensed as a stationary engineer and earns an annual salary that would be the envy of most college graduates, and has no student loan debt.
4
The idea that a college degree makes people better citizens, or more informed voters, is an idea I have not seen any evidence to support.
The job market for most recent college educated, who are often under-employed for their education and investment that they have made, remains highly competitive and yet full of low paid internships.
All while there is a real worker shortage for skilled tradespeople and crafts persons. These trades and crafts are careers also. Ones that offer 4-6 year well paid apprenticeships and yearly salaries from $80,000 to $100,000+.
The educational industrial complex seems to exist to benefit its members and those institutions that profit from the ongoing subsidies and a steady rise in wages and benefits. To call out the false need to provide a universal college education is to risk being labeled “anti-education”.
3
@Glenn In a just and fair democratic democracy, every citizen should have free and equal access to the same quality and amount of public education. Of course, we are very far from being a just and fair democracy here in the USA. But why quibble over details when we can bow down to the lies and misinformation of our political, educational and media sycophants instead.
2
Essentially according to this article, the 'purpose' of public education is so citizens can earn more money. This is the same capitalist song and dance I was taught in high school back in the sixties, where us poor working-class kids were told we should study hard, so we could earn a scholarship, so we could go to college, so we could earn higher wages. The focus on American education has long been on human greed.
Compare this to how Jesus taught the poor and common people for free, who said "you will know the truth and the truth will make you free". In one short soundbite, Jesus gives us both the proper goal of education, to understand better what is true and the proper motivation, so we can become more free as both individuals and a society as a whole.
This wisdom of this is obvious today, where millions of poorly educated Americans often vote for the worst kind of leaders and, end up shooting their own children (quite literally) in the head, as the clueless frauds we vote for don't even have the common human decency to push for sensible gun control legislation.
And sadly today, rather than providing every American citizen with a free university-level education, we openly practice human segregation, reserving such for only the supposedly smartest among us, while disregarding the rest. And thus, it isn't surprising that we continue to vote for the worst kind of leaders, who don't care how far behind American students lag from Europe and the rest of the world.
2
"Mr. Cass is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute."
The Manhattan Institute label says it all. Whenever you see that label, expect to see an article about money, and we aren't disappointed. The article also doesn't correspond to reality.
I went to a high school where you could take vocational classes and academic classes. I took a lot of classes in print shop. I also took a class in electronics. During summer school I took print shop. I graduated with a 1.5 G.P.A. The vice principal looked at me in shock at graduation and was amazed that I graduated. I then went to Community Colleges and a Cal State system and graduated with a 2.5 G.P.A. and a B.S. degree in physics. I continued on in graduate school and got a Masters Degree in physics with a 3.5 G.P.A. I switched over to a U.C. school and got my PhD. in Physics. I would give you that G.P.A. but UCSC (Granola Tech.) didn't give letter grades. My first job out of college was working on the design of the microprocessor that made the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park.
My point is that we should pay for people to get an education beyond high school. Students are smart enough to find their own way, given a pathway and a choice of academic, vocational or both. For example the actor Mark Harmon went to Pierce College in Woodland Hills. At that school he could have learned to be a farmer, since they also have classes on animal husbandry and crop cultivation. His choice though, (Alfred Hitchcock), was to be treated as cattle.
2
I think that there's an old - but relevant - witticism that "youth is wasted on the young."
There've always been distractions, ... but - could be my age, I know - NOW MORE THAN EVER. The hand-held devices that play games, let one "stay in touch" (FORCE ONE to be in touch, too) quite a bit more readily than passing a note, etc. have a lot to answer for.
Way beyond my pay grade, but if beer and alcohol have always been readily available, haven't they been joined by much more pernicious things in the last 50 years?!
The point is that just as "working 9-5 [roughly] in offices" is absolutely insane in 2018, but most still do, given the changes of the last 50 years, maybe, it's time to stop moving the chairs around on board the Titanic. NYC (and NYS ... and I'm sure most other places) move heaven and earth to keep graduation rates up, but to what effect?
Rich kids routinely have gap years at 17 or 21, ... but maybe MOST kids should NOT be put through the sausage machine from age 3-22 any more!
Is our citizenry "educated" - SANE even - to have made the Pres. choice they did 4 years ago? Literate? Cultured?
I think this is one of those "think tank" efforts that actually DOES think clearly and "outside the box." Teachers & professors ARE "doing better than ever" - personally. The students - as they say - not so much!
1
No need to gate your community or have your kids attend private schools. Just keep property taxes high and supporting your own schools. It's all about competition in this country, isn't it? We're fundamentalists.
2
As everyone knows, vocational programs have been underfunded since the Reagan Era. It's very expensive to provide state-of-the-art technology for training even at the best community colleges, let alone high schools. Not to be a cynic, but if a way can be found to enrich Republican politicians and their patrons in the .01%, and to make the programs incorporate right-wing anti-union and so-called "evangelical christian" indoctrination, there's a chance new funding for such programs could be obtained from the current government. Otherwise, the best way would be for corporations to have robust apprenticeship programs...but that might require upper management to decrease their compensation from 300 times their average employees' wages to only 290 times as much.
3
For us readers who believe the problem has to do with ascribing a monetary value (itself artificially inflated) to things like education, art, culture, and even human beings - what are we to make of this piece or of this author? It seems like Neoliberal hogwash. I simply see a false dichotomy wherein each alternative is assessed on a cost-benefit analysis. Neither seem appropriate at all. Perhaps our problem has everything to do with the defunding of education and the unnatural relationship that exists between finance and higher education.
Now if we could only teach them finances and how to grow food too, a diploma might be worth something
1
Tax anyone making over 10 million/year at 40%, use the money to fund free K-16 for all children. Problem solved (mostly.)
2
Subsidized interships and employer training is fantastic idea--especially since online classes becoming more of the norm. Showing up for real time class is hard enough-online is for the above average performer. What else a misguided priotiy??overstaffed Police creating brutality -yanking one year old baby from mother at Welfare Office. Less Police - More Welfare aid needed.
1
I see that many commentators feel that the author's focus on jobs misses the larger point about what education is supposed to bring to our society. I agree philosophically, we need to educate folks to be citizens and to share the best angels of our nature.
But that is not what college brings. The highly educated folks in this country to serve the corporate interests of the owning class are being newly created in our universities. And very very few of them are likely to push back against their masters when they earn so much more than the old high school peer who did not go on to higher education. The top 10-20 percent of earners in this country do the bidding of the 1%. And they learn to go along with things as they are in their universities.
There should be more vocational education more diversity in outcome for all high school students. College is not for everyone.
1
I agree with the author's point, we should support young people in both academic and vocational careers. We need both types of workers and should recognize not everyone need go to college.
I first noted the discrepancy when I was teaching in California. My school district took the position that every high school student should be targeting the requirements of the UC (Univ of California) system for admission. This struck many teachers as misguided but of course no one asked us --- the actual teachers who interact with students every day --- what we thought.
2
Is it possible that Oren Cass and other so-called elites (Williams undergrad, Harvard Law) do not understand that for most people, the question is not "college or nothing"? Is he talking about social engineering because he perceives that some people are not properly taking advantage of what is available to them? I'm the granddaughter of 4 immigrants. I have many, many cousins. Some of us chose college and others had the ability but not the desire. Some went to college later in life, and some not at all. Within each large nuclear family, we pretty much had similar opportunities, but the choices were unique among siblings. The problem with the current system is that you have to be a good guesser. If you thought becoming an engineer in the 80s was the answer, you might have guessed wrong at that time. But if you chose nursing, maybe you had a better career. If you thought working in a GM plant was the thing, you might have done okay for a couple of decades. Or not.
1
It’s not really difficult to understand why this trend has happened to public high schools.
Years ago there was a surge of interest in vocational education. It’s result? White students tended to be in college prep programs while minority students tended to be shuttled into vocational programs. This tended to happen with insufficient regard to a student’s interests or needs. Counselors simply, without giving it much attention, did what they believed the system intended, and they did it without necessarily asking the parents or the students what they wanted or truly examining what they were good at.
When the data about how much more money college graduate earn became well-known, everyone just assumed that the best course was for every student to go to college, without ever examining if that was their desire or if it matched their talents and interests. Why? Because no one wanted to be in the position of seeming to be a racist who assumed only white kids could to college. You can’t really blame them.
A simpler solution never seemed to occur to anyone, because the data seemed so compelling: go to college, make more money.
What we used to call vocational education has more options than it did then, as outlined in this article. What is still missing is the simple expedient of asking the student and parent what they want. Lots of students aren’t interested in the sorts of abstract thinking that college requires. They know that, and would eagerly take advantage of other options.
2
Do you have any idea how much our public schools spend on K-12 students with special education needs? English language learning needs? other needs that put them "at risk" for non-graduation and other unfortunate outcomes? Most of those students will likely not go to, much less graduate from, college. I'm not arguing against those expenditures; I'm simply arguing for taking them into account in any discussion of how much the system spends on different kinds of students.
2
I am a professor who will be the first to tell anyone contemplating college or any schooling beyond secondary that most of their tuition dollars are being spent on administrative costs. At my institution, we have far more administrators than professors/instructors. Consider your options carefully before you invest in something.
1
The mindset we have about vocational training needs to change. We tend to think more highly of people who pursue a college degree, but most of those people pursing a degree will not make as much money as their plumbers.
I work as a builder of single family homes and have observed first hand the effect of our broken education system. There’s now a shortage of skilled labor in the home building industry and we can’t find enough plumbers, electricians, and HVAC technicians to match the demand for new homes.
I recently talked to the owner of a local plumbing company and at least 2 of his 30 plumbers make over $100K a year. And they don’t have any student debt. Oh, and the company offers an ESOP program, 401(k), health, and dental insurance.
5
In an education system where high school hardly matters except a place to earn the grades to go to college, FREE community college is all the more vital. State colleges in California used to be tuition free (60 yrs ago), and community colleges were free for many decades. Community colleges were where one could study advanced industrial arts, film, nursing, music, and the first 2 yrs of general education for a bachelor's degree (easily transferring to a university). Many young people don't develop their scholastic abilities until they are past 20, so they need another chance to study art, Spanish, or environmental science... because it's about education, not just employment.
2
I lived with my family in Switzerland for four years. Our neighbors owned the local bakery. Their older son attended the bakers trade school (free) and apprenticed at the finest bakery in Zurich. Now, he has taken over the business from his father. As a member of the Bakers' Guild, he is a highly respected member of his local community. Trades in the US do not get the same respect that they do in Switzerland, and, as a result, there are fewer public education opportunities in the trades in the US.
1
As a teacher (specifically, a teacher of the gifted students), I have so many comments to make on this (and so little space). Some are born of my experience teaching in a red state.
First, the idea that "we ... lavish taxpayer funds on" the education of students such as mine is essentially laughable. It may be true in wealthy suburbs (e.g., Johnson County, KS) and college towns, but not in the majority of districts in this state. There are proposals to divert some of those funds to private schools, no less.
Second, the entire state of Kansas is pushing a complete overhaul of its education system (and my district is one of the pilots) to look an awful lot like the ideal described here: an emphasis on career and technical training so that students come out of high school with technical certificates and associate's degrees. I wonder, though, where does this leave the gifted and talented students who really ARE university-bound? Are we really preparing them for that kind of intellectual work?
Third, and in my opinion, most importantly, this column is based on certain assumptions that we, as a society, need to seriously examine. Fundamentally, it comes down to the purpose of a public education. The assumption here is that school exists primarily for teaching job skills. I suggest that this is secondary to preparing citizens.
3
I was always on an academic pathway in HS. However in middle school I took wood shop both years, in HS I took the combined electric/mechanical drawing/metal shop as a freshman, as a sophomore and junior I took wood shop. We also had an auto shop course that advanced each year. One could graduate as a certified auto mechanic from our HS.
Shop courses and home economics courses were 2 1/2 credits in our school where "major" courses were 5. I also took personal typing, which taught us stenoscript and typing. I can still type 90-100 wpm because of that and my programming career.
Because of this preparation and excellent teaching in a broad range of practical skills, I can fix almost anything at home.
We need to bring back these types of courses, they are good for everyone, and essential for those who won't go the academic route.
147
@Joe Sabin
Which was the whole point to shop class. There are those that don't want to go to college, that aren't academic. There used to be avenues to for those that want to be electricians, carpenters, etc. We need people like that to build the buildings, and wire, plumb them, and by the way, those jobs pay very well.
I too, came up through school at a time when those classes existed, typing, home economics, shop, etc. In fact, there was a state program called the Summer Youth Employment Program, which young people in high school, could look at a list of available jobs in the trades, or theater for example. At 17 I was a stage manager for the live theater called The Paramount Theater, in Seattle. Broadway shows are put on in that theater, it was an awesome experience one that really showed me that there was more to an education than just college...
18
@Joe Sabin
Gee, you sound like me. As a 'girl,' I didn't do the shops, but my high school had them in spades--and, nobody looked down on the kids on a vocational track. We had everything from home economics to business courses to wood shop, metal shop, auto shop, mechanical drawing--all things I would have taken if I had the time. My only diversions from an academic track were a business (not personal) typing course so I could work as a part time secretary while I earned my engineering degree. I also took music theory because it interested me.
My point is that my high school had it all. Repeat, all. It was great, but that was back in the days when somehow there was money to fund studies beyond the academic track.
I became an engineer and I can fix anything at home, but looking back it would have been a lot easier if I had taken that high school carpentry class and wood shop.
I now live in a tony town where there is no vocational education. There's a regional technical high school for that training in another town. Sad, really, because kids in my town think they're failures if they don't go to college. We have an astronomical college acceptance rate, but honestly? Many of those kids would be far happier in a trade.
I wish high schools could be like they were in the sixties. It was the real world, real life. The government helped kids find their path. Now, many chase a 'dream' that doesn't suit them.
13
Did I benefit from a college education? I'm honestly not sure I did. I'm 60 and I never experienced the job market that our politicians said existed. I majored in biology with a minor in chemistry. I graduated at the very end of 1980. Reagan took office in 1981. Even before he took office I knew of people who were having a very hard time finding jobs.
A college education does not guarantee anything for a person. It doesn't mean a person will find a good job, succeed in life, or be able to have a job until it's time to retire. Indeed, one could argue that in America, it's one's age and economic status that determines if one can find a decent job and if one will be able to have a decent life. I know of too many people who are smart, hard-working, and college educated who have lived through extended unemployment multiple times or even once.
The problem isn't college or our K-12 system in the way it's portrayed here. The problem is our complete unwillingness to treat early childhood and subsequent years as important to the lives people will have later on. We refuse to acknowledge the fact that some people are not college material, some don't want to go to college, and that employers do not want to train anyone ever. It's a recipe guaranteed to cause serious problems for all particularly in an economy where the meaning of work is changing.
133
@hen3ry¿ Your right the nature of work and education are changing. Today technological expertise is a given. The ability to function in a team-oriented, multicultural and changing environment are expected. Efficiency of action and thought along with critical thinking are all required.
Effective interpersonal skills, articulation and listening essential. The ability to thrive in a rapidly changing environment with, at times, great uncertainty requires problem solving utilizing all technological tools. Risk taking, if prudent, is becoming advantageous. There is more, but later...
The Education system is changing also. Unfortunately, it's progress is not experienced evenly across states and within across cities. But encouraging trends like: more college credit courses in H.S., addition of vocational courses @ Community Colleges (CC) or Vocational Schools (VS) is increasing, colleges working with H.S. to accept credits and make the transition smoother. Colleges/universities working with CC's with same objective. Some of these trends perhaps should be implemented in VS. It's a changing and dynamic enviroment...like the workplace.
But, in my view, the objective across all institutions should be to develop capable but well-rounded students who enjoy and hopefully excel in these changing times.
Some of my grandkids are taking advantage of lower cost CC for two years, then transferring to a college. Seems to me we have should have that same option for VS?
More later...
The REAL economic injustice in this country is NOT between the grotesquely rich 1% and the other 99%. It's between the thoroughly rich 30% and the other 70%. It is NOT determined by pedigree (aristocracy, WASPness, Blue Bloodedness, etc.). It's determined by EDUCATION. The obscene tax brackets are Red Herrings. The real threat to MEDIAN income families (forget upwardly skewed MEANS, which also misleads us from the true situation) is the professional/academic class (which most definitely includes the NYT editorial board). This group is willing to pay a little more (little being key here) to help the "have-nots". Unlike rich Republicans, they can protect their prosperity AND take the moral highground. Would they be willing to stop subsidising private and elite public universities (through endowment tax shelters, research funding, like the NIH, student loan and grant financing, etc.) and have a goal of making all public universities EQUIVALENT in caliber? I wouldn't bet on it.
2
There's nothing in this article about either unions or raising the minimum wage to a decent livable level. Unions have been bashed by politicians and business for decades, and their brainchild law of the minimum wage has been eroded by lack of equitable raises for 40 years. And the media has failed to fill the heads of young people with the democratic values of working together, collectively, toward the common goals of better pay and better workplaces, and instead has focused on divide-and-conquer talk about rugged individualism. Some appear to succeed in that approach, but not that many, and a great many are left out of making a living that exceeds hand-to-mouth poverty.
Yes, stronger support for vocational education starting in high school or middle school would be great, but quite a few school systems do that already. What's needed is a better floor for working-stiff earnings, a higher minimum wage, and not so much crushing inequality.
3
Opinions are like .... Well, you know.
1
So let's just provide everyone with equal credentials at birth....
1
The irony is that in Socialist Russia and the former Eastern Bloc countries, they admitted what everyone knew to be reality and actually tested kids for IQ...then set up a track for them based on what the data and science told them about that particular child's path to success, whether it was laying tile or designing code.
The fact our own Socialist Democrats can't admit that IQ is a fundamental requirement to get through college prep classes in high school may help them assuage their white guilt, but it does nothing for kids who could care less about privilege (or lack thereof) and just want a chance to get through school and get to where they can make a livable wage.
The sooner Progressives can admit that not everyone gets to grow up to be an astronaut, the sooner we can be of service to call kids instead of leaving a whole crew of them behind.
And for teachers who end up with a classroom full of kids who have two parents at home? You won the teacher lottery. Don't tell us how good of a teacher you are because 95% of your kids are going to a 4 year college. Help the kids who are struggling with math, reading, and writing skills so they can apply to trade school.
And SJW"? Stop Virtue Signaling that you're ignoring IQ because it's racist, sexist, xenophobic or homophobic.
This is 300 million years of Nature manifesting itself in our bodies & brains.
If you need to see how this works, watch the NFL, NBA or NHL on any given day.
Stop leaving these kids behind.
4
Most people want teachers to make a living wage, they want clean, safe, modern facilities, they want enrichment, they want after-school programs, they want tech and the arts........ but they don’t want their taxes raised, and across the country they sometimes vote against referendums to increase taxes for educational improvement.
I was a public school administrator in NYC and within our district there were wide discrepancies in schools’ offerings and extras. Thankfully, fair student funding pretty much meant every school got the right amount for basics, but schools in wealthier neighborhoods had vibrant and passionate PTA teams which could raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for programs such as orchestra, drama and dance. They could buy more technology hardware, expand and update libraries, fund teacher aides for extra help in classrooms, even fund an extra teaching position to open a new class on a crowded grade. But neighborhoods without that sort of economic leverage clearly graduated kids struggling to compete despite doing quite well in school.
Too much public money goes towards glamorizing college campus facilities, to funding federal student loans too exorbitant to be paid back and to subsidizing people whose skill set and best employment prospects do not require a college degree but rather explicit training in their field.
And then there are those money-sucking for-profit colleges preparing graduates for......unemployment with useless degrees.
2
Our educational systems priorities are seriously flawed long before the high school/college divide. We are increasingly not supporting public education and instead diverting funding to charter schools under the false narrative of "choice" as the panacea of change and improvement. The so-called answer to failing schools that leaves the others to fail but doesn't insure that the charter have to meet any standard whatsoever. And while that charade is going on we have teachers begging for supplies for their students - they get to beg from 'Donors Choose' or go on shows like Jeopardy or the local news channel and no one seems a bit embarassed that our teachers must do this for "their" students. Then we have kids separated in schools, yes still separated by "ability" so those that "can" get the best supplies and those that can't may not get any. That truly motivated teacher may go begging for supplies, like a microscope so "her" students can learn hwo to use a microscope (part of the standards to be met), rather than 'learn' from looking at a picture. Lots of disparity and misguided priorities going on that are insuring that we will not meet the demands of preparing students for the 21st century. So how will the U.S. fare against other nations? - Perhaps it's all academic and won't matter given that we're being led by a ship of fools that are climate denialist, war mongering fools who are leading us toward WWIII.
We could learn a lot from Finland.
1
Good ideas but how do you palliate against the the destructive forces of the entertainment industry making kids hedonistic consumers and little Trumpians in the long run.
How to integrate a liberal arts education as well?
Today, kids need many inoculations.
1
Finally something smart and factual about the prospects of most high school kids. Well done. More of this please NYT.
2
I wholeheartedly agree with the author. Child-rearing has become a competitive sport for the middle class, wherein raising a plumber or electrician is regarded as a failure.
3
This is so pedantic. Also, most kids who go into a trade will make more money than their college-educated peers who leave their coveted institutions of higher education drowning in student debt. People need to stop looking for 'name' degrees - I'm looking at you Harvard, Yale, etc. Don't blame the government or start crying out for free college (not possible). Stop fueling the system. Stop paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for a B.A. Colleges are businesses and they are simply responding to the market. How about instead of looking down at that poor second student we ENCOURAGE our 'smart' kids to consider the value of a trade? More money, less existential angst. Enjoy.
3
The real problem with education is that it parrots the views of society, especially as it pertains to our belief systems. This is no accident; we want it that way. Unfortunately, our belief system, and the beliefs it supports are causing all the unnecessary problems faced by humans.
Donald Trump and his Republican followers will destroy America's fragile democracy in their quest to remain in total control. And, having shown how effective the demagogue play book works on a national scale, Trump won't be the last. If democracies like ours are to survive, there must come a paradigm shift in human thought.
In the near future, we will program the human mind in the computer based on a "survival" algorithm, which will provide irrefutable proof as to how we trick the mind with our ridiculous beliefs about what is supposed to survive - producing minds programmed de facto for destruction. One day, students will be taught the dangers of beliefs just as they are now taught the world is not flat.. When we get to that point, we will begin the long trek back to reason and sanity.
See RevolutionOfReason.com
1
As long as our educational system parrots the views of greater society, our woes will continue, especially condoning our system of beliefs and the beliefs it supports. One day, we will teach students that beliefs are dangerous, just as we now teach them that the earth in not flat.
In the near future, we will program the human mind in the computer based on a "survival" algorithm, which will provide irrefutable proof as to how we trick the mind with our ridiculous beliefs about what is supposed to survive - producing minds programmed de facto for destruction. Once we understand all this and begin teaching it in our schools, we will begin the long trek back to reason and sanity.
See RevolutionOfReason.com
Some good thoughts, and some this veteran teacher does not even recognize. It does seem ironic that the guys writing this stuff, however valid parts of it may be, are all holders of multiple degrees. Usually of the Ivy League variety.
1
Most hard-working people where I live know better than to consider Missou for their kids. (It's the big public university of the state; it's no Berkeley, no WashU...) You're going to need more than grades with our zip code. They pay taxes to educate other people's kids who will use it to secure good futures. They provide soldiers to fight the country's wars that, since Viet Nam, both the right and the left agree on. Sure, life expectency is going down here. But since out here we are mainly 'raw racists and misogynists', it's something the educated elite can apparently live with. Why do you think the term "fake news" resonates so well out here? People generally know themselves; they know whether or not they think less of a particular group of people.
2
@carl bumba
To clarify (as prompted by my wife), they don't consider Missou because they could never get accepted, afford it, or have the luxury to be a full-time student, anywhere. If you ask a high school (or community college) student where we live, " Why don't you go (or transfer) to Missou?" they will probably look at you like a similar student would from MA, after being asked about attending Harvard.
1
Our American Education System is largely the result of a misapplication of good intentions. #1....allowing teachers to unionize....while supposedly a well intentioned idea to help teachers,,,it completely subverts the goal of education in favor of better salaries, more benefits, etc for people who work for THE PEOPLE, they do not work for greedy capitalist exploiters of labor. Now we have a top heavy system of "administrators" who cannot be controlled and use their leverage to constantly over-burden an already stressed tax base. #2....difficult to mention in this era of "guilt tripping"....but "integration".....this well-intentioned goal of getting white kids and black kids to learn together had the actual result of DESTROYing the neighborhood school. Instead of equal funding of neighborhood schools, we accomplished little more than destroying the black community centers and decimating the white schools, once an education system the envy of the world. Along the way, we created highly centralized facilities that really do resemble SuperMax Prisons, complete with lockdowns, armed guards, metal detectors, etc......put 2000 teenagers in a building with only minimal adult supervision, and what do you expect to happen?? Smaller schools, with local control is the answer......NOT Federal Standards or National Teachers Unions.
@Wherever Hugo
I knew the “evil teacher unions as the source of what ails us all” comment would show up eventually.
Just like healthcare, receiving education in USA is a business & a privilege for those who can afford it. It's all part of the fraught ideology that business comes first, and government has no place in the lives of the citizens. Let them fend for themselves. Sadly even in Canada some people are infected with the same ideology and brainwashed. That's the built-in problem of Democracy Through the Voting Booth that polarize people and empowers extreme selfish inclination.
Young people would appreciate and benefit from these plans, their parents would love it, employers would benefit. BUT do the larger powers - chiefly what’s left of the GOP, gunning for a resurgence in states and DC - want it? There is a large chunk of that party’s so-called so-called leadership that’d like to see citizens and voters dumb and poor. And this plan to upgrade education for all flies up against their plan for the future. Keep this segment in mind. They will fight us on this. Count on it.
I accept the decline in general and vocational education attainment since 195. But, since 1980 and the Regan years there has been a wholesale attack on all public education. Deep cuts in state and local funding; Cuts to community colleges. Schemes to divert funds from public to private education with no measurable results. Florida spends less per public school student today then it did 10-years ago. But only public schools are held to testing standards -why - the GOP control of state and Federal government.following fiscal policies suggested by the Manhattan Institute. So Mr Cass look as the source of the problem. Tax write-offs for private education; tax increases for public education support. All engineered by the GOP that funds the Manhattan Institute. Accept your role in the problem - dont blame others. How very Trump.
1
Not all students want to go to college. That's why robust apprentice programs and strong community colleges should be available. If a student wants to go to college, the opportunity should be available. It will then be up to them to succeed or fail. I fear that this proposed plan will lead to students being forced early on into one track or the other by the powers that be with choice being sacrificed. This is a frightening scenario.
"faces a labor market in which he may need to work harder than his college-bound counterpart for lower pay, with fewer options and slower advancement."
While this is likely true in terms of physical labor/effort, there is clearly no understanding of the mental stress of professional workers. My father complained of his burns from working in a kitchen. What about being pressed to meet untenable schedules and technical requirements while working unpaid days?
The master mechanic at my garage makes a 6 digit salary for fixed hours while many of us are expected to respond to emergencies at all times at a lower salary.
1
I have a suggestion, while we are busy debating the merits of vocational and college educations for our youth, could we please return "civics" to the high school curriculum. Often, I hear members of the news media ask Americans a political question and I am appalled at our ignorance of basic facts, like who is the vice-president and who is 3rd in line for the presidency.
3
There's way too much emphasis on preparation for college. we need craftspeople to do the work that keeps society running.
Despite being on that college career track in a special NYC schools program in the 1960s I dropped out of it. It bored me.
Instead I worked after school (in Florida) in a tool and die shop. Later I worked in a sheet metal shop where my father was the superintendent. Then Ma Bell a place I liked working and a trade I liked as well. After four years in Naval Construction Forces I was able to start a business and earned enough to be independent in my 50s. Paid for my son's college education leaving him with no debt. Retired now with properties and no mortgages. Could I have done as well with a college degree in some field I disliked?
By the way, my father got his education at East New York Vocational High School in Metallurgy.
Bring back vocational education.
2
We need to:
1. Abolish federal guarantees on student loans. That one policy underlies much of the perverse incentives in our system.
2. Orient college curriculums more toward career success and less toward the humanities.
We don't need to prop up the decidedly non-humanitarian system of adjunct professorships and aspirational doctorates in service of these noble goals.
We should as a nation fund the Humanities in other ways. Grants for working artists, improved funding for K-12 humanities education, etc. These systems do good work, and do not have the same problems colleges have.
I have made a number of demo recordings at Denver's Career Education Center over the years. The facility offers vocational training in many different fields. (The recording studio is excellent even if most of the kids are there to make their own hip hop records.)
The path Mr. Cass lays out is a great start; I would add two years of public service somewhere during that time for students. Either in the military or civilian service.
Vocational schools are very much the norm in England from what my friends there have told me. No stigma. No problem.
After all, the world is always going to need plumbers, truck drivers, and heavy equipment operators, etc. We should remember that vocational apprenticeship programs were a big part of union life.
Providing graduates with employment credentials is not the core responsibility of either high schools or four-year college degree programs, although community colleges generally take on this resposibility. Taxpayers support public education (and students in private colleges with loans and grants) because a democracy cannot be sustained without literate, knowledgeable, participating citizens. Where does the author consider this core purpose of public education?
Not enough high school grads will have the essential skills for citizenship if high schools require only two years of academics and track most students into voc-ed for another two years. Remember, your auto mechanic and plumber and digital security installer need to be able to read, to do problem solving, to cast an informed vote, and perhaps to serve on the local school board!
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@Mary C.
Um, who is the President of the United States?
4
@Mary C. Auto mechanics, plumbers, and digital security installers do read and problem solve; in fact, problem solving is at the heart of all those professions. Believing that vocational education is somehow inferior to 'academics' - and that individuals who participate in vocational education are also inferior - is part of the overall problem with our educational system. 'Book learning' and academics is seen as preferred and superior to other forms of education. Consequently, educational opportunities have become an either/or when it should be a both/and.: you can offer students both academic and vocational opportunities, not just track them into one or the other. You can also consider trade professionals intelligent, informed citizens. Certainly there are plenty of academics who are poor problem solvers, cast uniformed votes ( or don't vote at all), or who would never want to serve on the local school board or would be ineffective if they did. Intelligence and engaged citizenship comes in many forms.
39
@Mary C.
Thanks for stating what is seemingly become less and less obvious now that private interests have finally managed to secure a toehold in public higher education.
An education is more than a degree and it's also more than a job; however, in our austerity-minded, penny grubbing world, these end goals are more and more the norm. Sadly, they are the only furniture that's left in what was once a populated room.
I am particularly bothered by the alleged public funding largess that this writer--from a neo-liberal think tank--assumes public education receives. I teach at the community college level where funding is always tightening and where our mantra (hefted onto us by private think tanks like this one) has become "doing more with less." At this stage, half of our faculty are part time workers (like me): think: gig economy.
I'm not against vocational programs, but robbing someone who has already been robbed to pay for something that was once in his pocket--community colleges were leaders in vocational training programs--is less ridiculous than it is dangerous. The historical irony is that the glory of the community college system and its myriad of course offerings are beholden to the work of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation back in the 1960s.
Today, these foundations are calling for the decimation of the present community college model in the name of efficiency and effectiveness.
17
Germany appears to have a very strong vocational/apprentice training program.
Could this have anything to do with Germany's manufacturing prowess and, leaving aside Volkswagen, reputation for quality?
And could our lack of the same be at least part of the reason for the decline in our manufacturing?
Providing choice without forcing a path, seems the right way to go (and maybe different from the German model). But offering the choice and exalting both routes, would seem useful on too many fronts to count.
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@AJ it's probably more our war mongering that is dragging us down rather than Germany uplifting themselves. In other words, Germany is a comparatively normal place?
2
@AJ I agree with offering a meaningful and appealing choice. Germany's system is (surprise) too rigid. It's very difficult to change vocations if you decide after a few years that you want to do something different.
3
@AJ The percentage of German jobs in manufacturing has declined from 40% in 1970 to a bit over 20% now. The cause is automation, and that trend will continue.
5
A four year college degree involves about 2 1/2 years on campus. What's wrong with that picture? A degree takes up too much time during the most energetic and, perhaps, creative time in people's lives they will ever know. Three years with a month and a half off in summer should be enough.
The "better" more selective schools weigh down students with so much work many don't have time to think. Some years ago, an article about women at Penn (Ivy League) said the women told the writer they could not possibly have time to date because they were far too busy with classes and other activities to improve their resumes. So, many women resorted to casual hook-ups, treating the young men on campus like sexual servants, calling them up when needed and inviting them over, ignoring them when they weren't.
Thinking and critical analysis involves having unguided time. Walter Kirn, a brilliant writer now, said his real education began AFTER he graduated from Princeton and was able to read and study for value and meaning, not just to produce the clever questions about material demanded of his profs. The educational requirements sometimes go against, ahem, getting a true education.
Consider this, please:
the true value of a college education has never been tested.
It can never be tested empirically because it is impossible to have a control group and especially a control group that is every bit as intelligent and driven as those who go to college. So, we base our faith in it...on faith.
1
When I was in high school it was clear who was interested in college and who wasn't. But, at the time our school had a vocational program where kids who didn't want to go to school could actually learn skills that would help them in their quest to obtain employment. The school had a carpentry section where the class built a house from the foundation to the roof. There was a plumbing component, and electrician component. This idea can be modified and updated to provide kids with the ability to these jobs and others. Wind turban construction and repair, solar panel installation, computer coding for those interested and with the ability. There are countless jobs that can and should be filed if only the workforce is educated when they apply for the job. Not every kid wants to go to college but that doesn't mean that the educational system can't provide them with the tools they will need to succeed. Education is what made this country great and is what will save us from ourselves.
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@Manuel Lucero I agree that people who want to go into the trades should have the opportunity and the education to do do so. However back in the day when I went to high school, the system operated like this: If you were white, you were assumed to either want to go to college or, if you were a weak student, female and white, you took the business program. If you were a black student and male, the default track was the vocational program. If you were white and male and were either not much of student or trouble you too took the vocational track. If you were black and female the business program was your default. The only people who broke through this system were straight A black students. Whereas a white C student was assumed to be college material, only the very best black students were. I'm not sure it would be different today.
10
@Manuel Lucero
Manuel, I live in what was formerly called “The Farm Implement Capital of the World.” After 65% of the industrial jobs evaporated in my area, the local high schools cut vocational ed. Our daughter’s high school cut all industrial ed from the curriculum. I am sure it was not much different in other “rust belt” areas.
We now supposedly have a shortage of people wit the “skill sets” desired by business. The other side of this equation is that business does not want to train,wanting finished products, trained by voc ed institutions.
. The Communty College I went to back in the 80s was presented with an ultimate by a steel company interested in relocating Train prospects on specific machinery that they would use in ther employ,or, we are not interested in your area. They received just that. Skills that were widely available, are lost when bombs go off like they did in my community from the late 70s and on.
As for University ed, the core liberal arts curriculum seems to be hollowing out, and all but the elite schools are becoming, what was formerly known training schools. So called “middle class jobs” are becoming more like working class ones. Wait until AI is firmly implemented.
4
NEGLECTING Technical and Vocational opportunities for all students has caused us to create a college-educated class of students who live in poverty since they cannot procure jobs with decent pay and will be indebted for their college degrees for many years. Meanwhile there are jobs that go begging in the areas of software engineering and cyber security, both very important fields. Not right for everyone. Then there are the crafts and trades. I'm in favor of offering a gap year to kids who want to go to college so they can get a year of vocationally oriented technical training. There are great free online resources where you can audit courses in many technical areas to see if they're a good fit for your interests and talents. Kids accepted to 4 year colleges can get jobs and pay their own way, while building professional experience and being financial independent. It's hard to accept that people may not end up earning a living by holding their ideal job. But that's how things work in today's marketplace. Junior colleges would be a great place for high school grads to earn high tech certificates, then continue to get college degrees in any field they choose, assured that they will be able to find well-paid work.
There's nothing like an article like this one from a graduate of Williams College, Harvard Law School, Bain Consulting, and Mitt Roomey's last campaign to get the ad hominem juices following.
Y'see there's a reason that many people view the trades as a one way ticket to the underclass under the thumb of people like Mr Cass and his mentor. They've done their utmost to kneecap unions and worker bargaining power so that the benefits of increasing productivity flow pre-dominantly to them.
Proposals like this one (as well as the delusional credentialism of 'college' for all) both suffer from the root cause of money's tendancy to reinforce its own power in a positive feedback loop. This power imbalance, advocated since the Reagan Administration and abetted by 'scholars' at the Manhattan Institute (employer if the academically gifted Mr Cass), explains the absurd state of educational funding almost completely.
4
I'm surprised this article did not discuss military career paths. An enlistment functions much like what the author describes: recruits receive technical training, gain several years of experience, and earn a modest salary for their trouble. This pipeline has trained many of our nation's craftspeople, especially in economically marginalized communities (both rural and urban).
While a military career is not for everyone, other civilian programs like Americorps could imitate the military education model.
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@Jack As a 10 year Army veteran I completely agree. Unfortunately, more than 2/3 of our young people are ineligible to join the military. Of the ~21 million potentially eligible candidates to enlist more than 9 million fail the academic requirements, primarily being able to pass the math portion of the ASVAB. Another 7 million can't join mostly because they're physically out of shape.
5
@Jack We should have universal service. It will put people from all walks of live together and help kids to function as a team and problem solve. It would be great for both our democracy and for the economy.
3
Rather than try to redesign High School, a difficult task to say the least, why not have a tuition free Community College system? It's the 21st century, the jobs that are here and the jobs that are coming require more than High School. Let's invest in people. The Community College system should be tied into the workplace; we can learn a lot from Germany here. For BA's and Grad school how about a tuition loan system financed by the government at interest rates just high enough to run the program with payback at low rates over the course of a person's working life. That's essentially the Australian system. O' wait, we're the 'Great' country; we can't learn from others.
2
Basic level vocational training should be taught to every student as well as basic home economics. While not every person will ever build a wall, change a tire or cook their own meals or manage books for some form of business everyone should have those basic foundations of understanding. These are what help you to understand how things in the world work and are a foundation for future success whether it through college or straight to work.
From these foundations the person can decide to move down any path with some initial understanding of where that path will lead. These skills also help reinforce many of the academics that are being taught by giving them a real world application. They are also courses that generally don't add to the homework load so the time spent in class is the time spent on the class.
We should be providing all our children with the basic starting points of living life and running their own small business (carpenter, plumber, mechanic, etc.). Instead we now thrust them into the world to sink or swim on their own with little to prepare them for what is ahead -- unless they are going to college or into the miliary
1
Actually, educational attainment in our society has increased consistently for decades, a fact which is easily found in many Census Bureau publications such as this one: https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2016/demo/p20-578.pdf. Despite ever-increasing eductaional levels, economic inequality has continued unabated. Yet critics of the educational system such as Mr. Cass skillfully turn the conversation away from the economy, and back on education. This fits into a long line of critiques that began in the 1980s with A Nation at Risk. Perhaps the Manhattan Institute and other think tanks could start addressing the many reasons that wages are so low for so many, including college graduates.
2
While I see the logic for vocational training to come back, I am not sure it needs to come at the expense of 2 years of high school education. A mechanic, or carpenter can benefit from those extra years of mathematics and advanced English. Moreover, I don't think experience is limited to the vocations alone. Many college students struggle to find work post-graduation, especially if they have majored in arts as opposed to STEM. For all students in colleges their ought to be practicum courses and opportunities to intern. I've experienced first hand the benefits of having internships in college and its a tragedy when students are forced to take on jobs to help them pay for college, while more privileged students are able to use that time to pursue internships. For those compalining that the purpose of education is not to create workers, I disagree. The purpose of an education is to provide people with an effective way to communicate and contribute to society -- that certainly includes being able to perform meaningful work.
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@Vish
Guess what?
People going into trades will do better in Maths if they see the purpose of it. Math is used to torture plenty of high school students. If it has a useful context instead the rarefied aura of the abstract we get now, maybe it’ll be seen as cool instead of onerous.
You’ve never been to trade school. How do you know what will help these kids?
4
@Vish
You talk about not shortchanging students from the last 2 years of high school, but you have no problem badmouthing the arts. If you want citizens who are not automatons without souls, then you need the arts. Who is going to be dancing on the stage, or playing in the orchestra or carving the sculpture, if we don't have artists?
5
@Vish So many of the STEM fields can be, and will soon be, done by a bot or an app., you might want to rethink the value of an art degree of some sort. And, try this: remove from your person everything that was designed by an artist and then remove yourself from everything that was designed by an artist. Standing naked in the mud yet?
7
My father had an 8th grade education and worked in a shipyard, but he liked to read. My mother graduated from high school. I earned a post-graduate degree in the liberal arts thanks to California public education and the GI Bill.
As a young man, I earned money at various odd jobs, including such gigs as a summer camp counselor, a machinist, a draftsman, a salmon fisherman, a grape picker, and in the military I worked with computers in supply management and as an auxiliary security policeman in Vietnam (an "augmentee"). I also learned to speak French fluently.
I didn't become rich in life, but I did OK. I would consider my life to be a personal failure had I not been inspired in school to explore my interests, to read, to travel, to think, to experience, to meet all kinds of people, and to continue learning.
It's not all about money-making skills, and I don't discount those. They come in handy. They were actually easy to learn as most people are smart enough to take to them. It just requires a little focus and attention to detail. And lack of money... But building a mind is a different thing, and it's well worth spending a lot of time at it.
We don't think much of minds in this country. Sad, but true.
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@Al Mostonest Schools don't build minds anymore, that's the difference. They teach kids how to pass a standardized tests, they don't teach them how to ask questions and think about the answers.
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@Al Mostonest. This is how many people got suckered into voting for a true huckster for President. We are great at emoting but most can’t think too logically.
3
@Al Mostonest,
I'm awfully glad to read your response to this piece.
It's of comfort to see a fellow traveler define success as something other than the accumulation of wealth and prestige. Like you, while I did get by, I chose to make myself rich in other ways: having a good mind and heart became my goal in my early 20's, (I'm still working toward this some 50 years later).
We may never be known as the movers and shakers of the world, but we can claim a full and meaningful life just the same. Our systems may never officially acknowledge or award this kind of accomplishment but we can at least pass on the option for our type happiness and peace to our children. Not everyone needs to be on what we view as the hamster wheel.
16
Our tax priorities are not with education, consistently cut. From K through 12, money spent wisely would help. Many children come to school unprepared and yet expected to pass some standardized test, a futile for many exercise. If the K-3 students were taught appropriately, no matter how long it took, many of the latter problems would be eliminated. Easy technology fixes, addiction to cell phones and "screens", is diminishing attitudes of work ethics and effort. Our values have been eroded to favor might and the military over our most precious resource, children.
2
@Marylee,
Where I live students can never be held back as it might be detrimental to their "emotional development". (I'm not kidding!) Whether or not they've acquired understanding and skill, too many kids just keep getting pushed forward no matter what. Having a fourth grade teacher in my family as I do, I know her students are being taught to the very best of her considerable abilities, but I also know too much of her time is being spent trying to keep order in the classroom. This matter of education is far more complex and difficult than most people realize; if they want to know what we're really up against, they should visit a classroom or two in an inner city school. Their heads will spin.
This article assumes that an education should be designed to produce an ideal worker-consumer who must learn to navigate a capitalist economy that is tilted against him. If that is the way education is supposed to be structured, then, yes, let's focus on job training right from the get-go, and lobby Congress to demand that Corporations bring back all those manufacturing jobs we shipped overseas decades ago. (Good luck with the latter one, by the way.)
However, if your philosophy of education is one grounded in the idea that we are to educate our children to be citizens of a democratic republic, who are to have a say in how the economy should be structured to best benefit the general public (i.e. single-payer health care system, more funding to public education, more social and less military spending, more public companies, etc.), then this essay should be a treatise of "what not to do." That is not to say that more vocational education is not warranted, but it should never be an either/or argument: i.e. either you're a student or a worker.
College is a larger and more complex problem altogether: too much spending on sports (i.e. the "military-industrial complex" of colleges), too much on buildings, posh dorms, and cafeterias, bloated administrative bureaucracies, etc. Basically spending on everything BUT actual education is the problem with colleges these days. Perhaps congressional oversight is warranted (I fear) to get college costs down and make the taxpayers happier.
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@Steve
"Perhaps congressional oversight is warranted . . ."
Congressional oversight? Please. Congress is largely responsible for the disasters the article decries in the form of federal welfare to colleges plus other educational disasters such as No Child Left Behind.
"The problems we face will not be solved by the same minds that created them."
3
Recently visiting the campus of a great state university, one with a terrific reputation, I took a look around at the billions of dollars in buildings and facilities that had been invested there. Amazing. All of this for students who make it to college; for the rest of them? Next to nothing. Makes no sense.
College. College. College. It is like a drumbeat in our society. Must have it. Must do it. Otherwise, you will be left behind, forced to take lower paying jobs and stay there.
In many cases, the idea that one can't progress without the degree becomes a self fulfilling prophecy: because so many have degrees, the workers chosen to hire and for promotion all have degrees, whether or not their actual course of study applies to the tasks. The rest can be kept down by management whether or not they are intelligent, capable and experienced. So many slide through their working lives under utilized and underpaid.
We need a way to certify people as excellent without a four year degree. The whole college thing was invented in the first place for the sons, later the daughters, too, of the well off who could afford to take four more years out of their working lives. It is a kind of leisure class pursuit, though almost no one would see that way now.
In recent years, I have seen statistics indicating that fewer than half of those who enrolled as freshmen in many schools get a degree within SIX YEARS. This is a dismal record. Som'ms wrong. Have we been sold a myth wrapped in a lie?
2
you have it right: most of the students in college don't really belong there, are not really interested in being there, don't learn much, and don't see much of a return on a degree, if they even earn one. it's mostly a costly diversion.
exceptions abound, including those on a career path that requires graduate school or an associate or bachelor's degree for licensure, and the rare few who are actually internally motivated to learn something.
but I see a few reasons America has wound up so tied up in college:
> employers want young hires prescreened somehow, and even an unrelated, unnecessary undergrad degree shows something about an applicant. this is the BA requirement to work at Bloomingdale's glove counter we've heard of for decades.
> young people unrealistically hope college training will open career doors otherwise closed to them.
> parents have high hopes that their special little darlings deserve the kind of life that requires a degree for employment. or maybe they hope the college experience will transform their feckless offspring into upright citizens interested in something more than video games. his is the right of passage dodge.
> and most importantly, both our economy as a whole and some students require a holding pattern keeping them out of the job market for a few years because, well, there are not enough jobs overall and we don't know what else to do with them, especialy since we turn up our noses at programs such as apprenticeships.
In whose interest is it that we talk about education solely as a means to attain a job?
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@TD Those who would like to have the skills to obtain a job upon graduation from vocational ed or college ed.
Of course education can and does go beyond job skills, but if education doesn't lead to the ability to obtain gainful employment it has failed in one of its major objectives.
6
@Mon Ray That is clearly one valid and important objective.
An even more important objective is equipping graduates to be good citizens. That means that the Bill of Rights is just as important as the Pythagorean Theorem. American history and civics class is as important – in fact, more important – than shop class, accounting, or algebra, regardless of the student’s career goals.
If an education does not lead one to obtain the skills necessary to be a good citizen in a republic, it has failed in its most important objective.
4
We don’t spend too much on education at any level! We spend too much on corporate welfare, tax cuts for the rich and the military industrial complex and its sibling the intelligence industrial complex (spying). We spend very little on our people whether they are students, children or adults or our infrastructure.
Consider the source.....
6
This discussion makes the assumption that everyone can either go to college or master a skilled trade. But today, 32 million adult Americans can not read or do math at a 3rd grade level.
3rd Grade! At that point (3rd grade) education was free and available to everyone without college focus of any kind. Read the discussion of IQ distribution in an earlier comment. American jobs have changed dramatically over the last 50 yrs. 50 years ago a person with no skills and no reading or math ability could work at a repetitive job in a factory or ride a tractor hour after hour. Those jobs are all but gone.
Add to that the generational anti-education bias in some families and the USA high school dropout rate that is still over 15%. So the problem becomes millions of Americans with no saleable skills resulting in many social problems that multiply the cost in long term government support programs.
This why I support programs like the "earned Income Credit" that helps people with low paying jobs supplement their income to reach a living wage.
2
@Edd,
It might interest you to know that prison systems estimate how many "beds" they'll be needing in the future based on 4th grade reading skills. While I was initially startled to learn this, it very quickly made perfect sense to me.
@Edd
That's why all public high schools should be required to offer remedial education to any member of their community who wants it. The K-12 system failed these people, the K-12 system should be responsible for fixing it. If they don't like having to fund and teach endless remedial classes, then they should do a better job the first time around. This problem should not be pushed on to the community colleges, where students must pay for remedial classes that don't give them any credits, and they end up both discouraged and in debt. Remedial basic education should be available to all, for free. There's no excuse for having so many adults unable to read.
"For the roughly $100,000 that the public spends to carry many students through high school and college today, we could offer instead ..."
There's no point in reading beyond that "instead." Whatever the problems with post-secondary education in the US may be, spending too much public money is not among them. Spending it in counter-productive ways (especially costly and byzantine student-financial aid system instead of free or low-cost tuition, and the dorm/stadium arms race), saps money from real education support, and that needs to be reformed.
But absent such reforms, creating a publicly-funded vocational track should not come at the expense of the already insufficient funding for academic tracks. Replace that "instead" with "in addition to" and we can talk.
3
I’ve been saying this for years. America has only one path to success. Europe has many. We need to offer apprenticeships to students in vocational jobs. Nice article
3
Vocational training is a path to success only if the vocations can support a successful life. Ask workers in the construction industry of 20 years ago what happened to that. People like Mr Cass are happy to direct others into work that has no prospect of economic security. Hint: it's not just the misdirection of support to useless and unachievable educational goals. it's also (possibly mostly) the financialization (mis)allocation of compensation for the "work" that he and his colleagues "produce."
25% of the students in my local community college are mentally and or physically challenged young adults with very limited capabilities. Each of these students is usually accompanied by an attendant. Many of these types of students aged out of the local public school systems where they also had one on one attendants. This is paid by our state and local taxes. Special transportation included.
We must consider the final outcome(s) of these types of students, which is more or less very expensive day care.
Will they ever put back into the system anything financial? Doubtful.
Whereas gifted and talented students aren't getting their full share of support when they in fact will be contributing to the future of society. Which group of people should be given more of a chance? Not saying those with challenges should not but they should not also be given a higher, disproportionate amount of educational funding either.
4
Yes, we need to focus on "trade" skills in high school. What are they? Math is the most important trade skill in our society, followed by the ability to write a coherent sentence. History is a skill and knowledge we want all citizens to have to support our democracy. In this economy, where manufacturing jobs are more likely to involve programming a robot than hammering a widget, the skills for a "trade" path are the same as those for a "college" path.
So what is the Author's goal? To cut funding for education. Don't be fooled.
7
Thank you, Mr. Cass - - America needs to hear more of you.
Your recent book is also on my Christmas list.
Colleges today are primarily vocational training anyway. We have many degrees that are blatantly preparation for the work world.
This is one of the best articles the NYTimes has published recently. We can learn from Germany how to give people skills that can transfer to employment in areas other than traditional college skills. If we consider college as a form of vo-tech training, which it is in a very large degree, we can more easily accept putting resources into non-college vo-tech training.
We should also demand that employers bear more of the financial burden of training workers for them.
We have a great deal of work to do on our education system. When students today can graduate from high school, choose a college degree, succeed and graduate, but with massive debt and a degree that returns below median career salaries, with little hope of repaying that debt, that is if they picked a field with a good job market. No student should be able to graduate high school without learning the skills to make informed decisions about their futures.
1
The stats in this article are highly cherry picked leading me to mistrust the argument. However, our High School stopped Vo-tech because the liability insurance was unsustainable. In addition public schools are judged on how many kids go on to higher ed and how high SAT scores are, therefore administrators and school boards push staff in that direction to keep taxpayers happy. Touting a great vo-tech programs does nothing for property values. However the training in regular High Schools is usually out of date and almost useless in order to land a job, it is more important to teach students the tools to learn anything on their own, that is how I keep up in my field. They also should teach students how to run a small business, even if they end up working for a small business, understanding how it works will help them immeasurably.Imagine a High School class where once a week a local plumber, roofer, auto mech or landscaper comes in and talks about estimates, bill collection, workers and insurance. These kids might decide to go on to their local community college with a goal in mind. This could be a class that everyone might want to take and wouldn't need expensive equipment or current expertise. The only one knocking on the door for HS kids who don't want college is the military.
6
I've taught for almost 30 years from KG to Adult Ed, Special Ed. to AP, ESL to IB, from NYC to rural Maine and Switzerland; currently I am a Gifted and Talented Consultant.
We even do a poor job preparing some of the academically gifted students because their grade level curriculum is not sufficient to meet their needs. Good Grief, some gifted students want to work with their hands as well as their brains.
Our entire education model is the outdated 'factory model,' which was twisted to falsely ensure everyone would become a doctor or lawyer.
6
Having taught undergrads at a state university for 35years, I agree that voc-tech education needs much more financial support. However, I do not buy the facile dichotomy between voc-tech and a university track. Management philosophies of corporate, trickle-down largesse, are skewing this financial picture. At my university, the managerial elite jettisoned the vocational function and its faculty; reduced tenure-track faculty to a small STEM elite; turned all intro classes into online games packaged by ed corps and monitored by slave adjuncts. They then took the remaining money and gave themselves and the football coach six figure salaries. My point is that the funding is there, it needs to be redirected. Reduce the number and the salaries of administrators, coaches and star faculty. Return to faculty/community and vocational governance, and pay the rank and file teachers a living wage. University administrators are the new fat cats licking the cream while those who do the work squeak by (to mix a metaphor). They and their co-manipulators in the university biz will not give up their cushy jobs without a fight.
10
Yes, not every student is best served by going to college, but the push we're seeing right now to take money away from colleges and spend it on other tracks (assuming that it really would be spent on other tracks; this is liable to be a bait and switch) primarily reflects the belief of many right wingers and especially of their large donors that colleges turn people into liberals and even "radicals". What they want is a less educated, less analytical and, so they hope, more docile population. This is about education only insofar as education can promote critical thinking (another honorary four-letter word among the same group). Unfortunately, it means that real help for people who would do best with a non-traditional college track is likely to get lost amid partisan politics. However, a lot more people, if educated properly in K-12, would benefit from college than some people are trying to argue.
2
I'm a high school teacher. So glad to see this article.Some responses make certain social class assumptions which are not true though. I live a life where I regularly meet people of all classes and who can claim to be from both working class and the educated class. For instance in another city I had plumbers who held History and French degrees but preferred plumbing for the pay and the hours. In my current city my arborist -the heavy work kind with the giant ladder trucks and the trained crew taking down a 70 foot tree in a half day safely-well that guy has an anthropology degree. He has 3 kids and they are headed for college. I have a friend with a 6th grade education ( an immigrant with a green card) who makes over $100,000 annually with an excavator and this is net after he pays a crew of 3. They may not seem typical but life is unpredictable and people are complex.
Younger people today have a hard road though. The disappearance of the vocational track is an American tragedy . It's bad for everyone including those of us who need to hire plumbers and carpenters and heating and air guys. My carpenter by the way sings in a nationally ranked choral group.
The idea that a person with a vocational career is a beer drinking, wrestling watching dolt is very ignorant.
Everyone needs to know the principles of mechanical systems and construction for their own good. And these are excellent careers if your body does not fail you-which it may.
Teaching now : those phones are ruinous.
163
@Consuelo - Excellent points. Failure to recognize these (un-)conscious biases are in good measure responsible for our current political situation and especially it's 'leader'.
7
@Consuelo @Lisa In light of the fact that automation and robotics are taking over many hands-on, labor-intensive tasks, it seems foolish--at best naive--to plan to guide many of our young people toward vocational training.
The author fails to mention what specific jobs he has in mind for those in the vocational track; surely many of these are targets for increased automation. And which companies are going to offer the "subsidized internships" the author calls for?
As I see it, in the not-too-distant future there will be those who instruct and manage the robots, and those who are replaced or managed by robots. I know which group I would rather belong to.
6
Public education isn’t, and shouldn’t be, job training. “Vocational education” at the high school, even middle school, level is an outgrowth of the early 20th century practice of “tracking” students onto “college prep” classes vs vocational ones. But the idea behind is was that all the less bright students, especially at that time Eastern European immigrant kids, weren’t fit for anything but factory jobs. This slowly morphed a lot of the public’s thinking that schools in general should be run like businesses, preparing students for the work force. That was never the original purpose of publicly funded education. It was to help citizens understand and intelligently participate in a democratic society. That’s why all students should still be learning higher level languages arts and history. The world of employment now changes so quickly and with so much high cost technology, schools can’t and shouldn’t be expected to provide all the same. Let employers do the specific job training with educated employees.
5
@Science Teacher Actually if schools don't provide training who does? On the job training is gone, the purpose of an education is to prepare students to meaningfully contribute to society, that includes equipping them with tangible skills that will enable them to perform necessary jobs for society. I can understand that there is already a lot that is expected of teachers and perhaps there is a need for an extra year to help students prepare for work, but this back and fourth of schools complaining its not there job to teach work skills and workplaces complaining students dont have work skills is exhausting. If Americans don't incorporate work training into schools there is a chance workplaces will look to other places that do!
1
@Vish what list of “skills” would you prescribe schools to teach? To teach to the millions of students, how can high schools possibly guess at which jobs to be preparing their students for with the specific skills needed for each? And the equipment and tech for each? And the qualified teachers for such skills?
We don't spend "too much" on college students; we spend too little on all of it and far too little on non-college bound.
5
Germany has the answer to this.
Solid apprenticeships developing deep skills.
Companies get fully trained workers.
Individuals get an education in things that will help them earn a living. The real world teaches as much or more than do books.
All at no or little cost to the government. And no debt overhang to the students.
There should be a massive apprenticeship movement.
14
The idea of changing high school is being put to use in Kansas. The state is toying with a variety of high school models that would help Cass's second student. The other area where Kansas is doing well is allowing high school students to take classes from technical colleges for free while in high school. This is known as SB 155. While students still have to finish high schools devoted to liberal studies, which is not great for some students, they get an advantage toward their two-year technical degrees that might be outside liberal studies. There are paths toward success for students that are not interested in traditional college. Students have to be willing to take advantage of them.
The problem is even worse.
If a college diploma were a "ticket to the middle class," then we should just stamp out college diplomas and give them to everyone. Or we should designate an Education Czar -- or more of an Education Wizard of Oz -- who could wave a wand and endow everyone with a college diploma. Problem solved, right?
Of course not, but what there is this idea that everyone should go to college, and that idea amounts to nothing more than waving a wand.
The problem with the policy prescription of encouraging everyone to go to college is that it ignores a self-selection constraint: Folks who are faced with the real costs and benefits of college will decide whether or not to go. This business of heaping subsidized debt on marginal students (who are less likely to finish college and more likely to end up saddled with debt) amounts to distorting the self-selection of students into (or not into) college. And with colleges amounting to little more than bread-and-circuses, it's not obvious that students are learning much, anyway. Alas, the big beneficiaries of the system of subsidies ends up being the academic bureaucracies, not the students.
2
Not every one should go to college.
College tuition should be more affordable.
However, those that do go should consider the pursuit of Arts and Sciences to be a near sacred enterprise. That's how we discern what truth and beauty are, and what is important in life.
Mr. Cass and many others crudely assume that the University's main objective is to confer chits that have utilitarian value in the marketplace.
8
@Joe
Does this mean that those who don't go to college, for whatever reasons, can't study or appreciate the arts and sciences? Joe, a properly done plumbing or wiring job is a thing of beauty, and the person who does it may well have a better grasp of "the sciences" than many of us who graduated from college.
Perhaps the perception that college does little more than simply provide a "chit" is grounded in what colleges actually seem to do: Go-go Big Sport, too sad English Department.
It’s hard for me to believe that Mr. Cass, of the Koch brothers funded Manhattan Institute, has the best interests of students at heart. You can bet that under his proposal it’s those of us in the lower classes who are going to vocational training. I’ve heard Mr. Cass talk about on and off ramps for those who want to change paths - you should live so long. In the world of the Kochs students will be segregated by class and protected from learning dangerous, egalitarian values. The children of the wealthy will go to college to learn how to rule the lower classes and the lower classes will learn to put their shoulders to the wheel. Everyone will have to learn that the lower classes do not have any rights that the rich are required to respect - you know separate and unequal. I’m holding out for classes like Mr. Cass probably took in how to convince people that what’s bad for them is really good.
11
@jc
Working --- doing real work, not just shuffling papers around --- is always good for humans. So says all, from Marx to MLK. And This article by Mr. Cass pretty much echoes that noble principle.
1
@boroka
If you check the hands of all the paper shufflers in Washington, on Wall Street and in all those "think tanks," I don't think you'll find any callouses!
@boroka
Then let’s hope Mr. Cass finds productive work instead of writing “thoughts” like my child did in first grade.
I think this article makes very good suggestions. I am a retired engineering professor and have long found that "vocational training" is actually just as valuable a method to learn academic skills as simply studying out of a book without hands on experience. Some of the best students I have worked with actually were graduates from vocational high schools. For example, learning how to handle tools is a very good way to get an intuitive sense of geometry, and if taught correctly, to acquire skills in algebra. These are the essential basis of mathematics. Students would be well prepared to handle the engineering curriculum with this training. A half and half approach as suggested here (1st 2 years of standard high school and 2nd 2 years a more vocationally mixed community college curriculum) is a great idea. This should not deter or delay anyone from pursuing a college degree immediately after high school. The integration of community colleges with high school would seem to be a fairly easy step in most places to achieve the goal allowing students to be prepared for useful and rewarding career immediately out of high school or go on to college. Furthermore, there is no reason to believe that students leaving high school with this background would be any less intellectually capable or less enlightened than the typical college graduate.
6
@Chrisvk, you might have mentioned that the students in your engineering classes have already met rigorous academic standards. Engineering programs do not accept students with C's in their required writing, math and other general education courses. So yes, those in engineering programs, who graduated high school with good academic skills and entered college prepared to succeed, can learn on their own initiative.
1
College is becoming more expensive due to administrative bloat. Cut that back and you can cut back all that money you're investing in college-bound students and funnel it elsewhere. Although I would point out that having highly-skilled workers is a boon for our rapidly-changing economy.
6
And too many gymnasiums.
Community colleges should be free so students who choose vocational education will have the same monetary benefit as students who choose to go to four year colleges.
7
Our attempts to be completely egalitarian benefit no one - certainly not those students highlighted in this article, nor the more academically proficient and oriented.
Our school system now disdains any form of "tracking", wherein students are placed in classes with others of comparable academic abilities. This unwillingness to recognize differences among students is a reaction to the norms of a prior era, when certain students - mainly minority and working class - were shunted towards the trades, while the children of the white middle class were on track for college. (Interestingly, the suburban Catholic high school I attended in New York in the 70s had no shop facilities, as the working class parents of the postwar era had wanted to make sure their children could only be on the college track.)
But the pendulum has swung completely the other way. We don't allow ourselves to differentiate those who will thrive in college from those who have little interest or ability in that direction, pretending there is one best option for all. All classes are paced with "No Child Left Behind" as the controlling ethos, and the more academically proficient kids are completely bored.
The perhaps-impossible trick is this: how to design a system which allows students to follow their own interests to whatever degree their abilities allow, without defaulting to the prior system of biased preconceptions and predestination.
And I was finally able to take shop classes in college.
9
As another reader pointed out, we are heading into a world of AI and automation. Robots replace humans in monotonous factory jobs. While we're creating this educational divide of college vs. vocational, schools should teach all students to balance a checkbook, pay bills on time, practice conservative use of credit cards, use a library, and cook healthful meals instead of existing on fast food and snacks. High school is failing to focus on the practicalities that will help a student survive after graduation. And the obvious problem that NO ONE will discuss: we are currently overpopulated for the existing job market. Please add birth control and responsibility to the curriculum.
6
@Daphne
Most, if not all, of the skills you list used to be taught by parents. It’s not the teachers’ responsibility to raise a child.
@Kb
You are right that parents used to teach these skills, but for their own reasons, they no longer do that.
If we want our society to succeed, the schools have to fill in the gaps. Teachers are swamped with trying to deliver subject matter, encourage lazy and unmotivated students, maintain lesson plans and records, and meet with parents, among other items in their job descriptions. What is needed is an additional curriculum and more teachers. Perhaps one more hour of school per day would be useful.
In my hometown, we had three high schools - two regular and one vo-tech. The vo-tech school was the failsafe for middle school counsellors in dealing with marginal students but especially brown and black kids - hey, learn a trade and you'll make a living. Although it was a really good trade school (freshman year - try a variety of skills, years 2 & 3 - concentrate on subject, year 4 - apprentice) - the actual academics were very lacking, (one week trade, next week academics). (Note: my brother went to this school and eventually got an engineering degree. But I went to a regular school, took honors classes and also got an engineering degree. But he also claims that the academics were equivalent - I don't think so....)
The problem with vo-tech high schools is that the student doesn't really know what he/she wants to do for the rest of their lives - and maybe the skill learned is out-moded (our vo-tech offered typesetting, for example.) What I would suggest instead is rotating ALL HS students through a semester of vo-tech skills introduction, so students can get exposed to various trades and work with their hands and see what they like doing. If the student doesn't want to go to college, then he/she can enroll in community college (say after HS junior year) and finish training there. Instead of dropping out.
14
This article understates the value of community colleges.
Community colleges are often life-savers, making up for what was lacking in high schools.
In my experience in several states, public middle and high schools may not offer enough but also don't ASK enough of non-college bound students. Even non-advanced academic classes should be challenging in their own ways. And differentiated instruction is really hard to manage in the classroom and teachers deserve extra training in this skill.
More importantly, we as parents, educators, and citizens, must insist that our public schools offer daily and curricular practice in critical thinking, history, ethics, and civics, so that students can be better informed citizens to advocate for themselves and a better society no matter what path they take.
6
Like many, Mr. Cass assumes that the reason for going to college is to get a job. That has never been true (except for some of the STEM majors) and will likely not change. College is to "educate" people for living in the US culture as citizens and contributors. The same goes for K-12.
Education is about teaching kids how to continue our culture's values through collaboration, following rules, complying with authority, being responsible, and getting rewards for effort and concentration. Kids who succeed in those tasks will likely earn more money in our culture. College is the finishing school for those priorities.
We need to stop assuming that the purpose of college is to get a job.
13
@cheddarcheese You contradict your own point by saying that schools don't teach information, just compliance and perseverance so they "will likely earn more money," presumably because they got a job.
1
What a most excellent article! We must radically change how we approach post-high school education. It is a disgraceful that we put so much effort funneling children into college since the alternative is a "McJob." It doesn't have to be. There are all sorts of really good jobs for young Americans with modern blue collar skills if only we invested in training them.
If we really wanted to bolster the middle class and revitalize the "small economy" - the one where most people live - as opposed to the Economy, where the only thing worth measuring is GDP and 401Ks, this would be a great first start.
Please next presidential candidate hopeful - Mr. Kasich? - please take up the suggestions in this article and make them a central part of your 2020 platform, while the Democrats continue to promise "free college."
4
A senior fellow at the conservative 501(c)(3) non-profit think tank, the Manhattan Institute, thinks that society is better served by making cheap labor increasingly available? I'm in shock that someone on the conservative gravy train would want to defund even more public education at any level.
The real problem with university education policies is that governments, especially state governments and state universities, have stopped paying for universities over the past few decades, and increasingly the debt burden has been shifted to students through oppressive student loan programs.
And as governments have radically decreased funding, universities increasingly have turned teaching over to part-timers known as adjuncts who rush from institution to institution to teach their scattered courses and increasingly rely on textbooks and multiple-choice exams. Students rarely write or need to demonstrate thinking, but only memory for text-book facts. The quality of a university education surely has dropped as financial support for it by the governments has dropped drastically, although governments have increased support for loan programs that provide profits for the investor class.
Pushing people out of universities does not provide futures for them, although it makes larger the pool of entry level workers available to profit seekers whose interests are those of conservative think tanks like the Manhattan Institute.
7
@Che Beauchard I disagree with the notion that supporting vocational education is simply creating a pool of cheap labor. My child graduated from high school but took vo-tech classes in the last two years and went on to a year at a technical institute and now has highly sought-after skills and her choice of jobs that pay very well. Her partner at age 20 is likewise employed in a mechanical field and is earning $35/hour. They work hard and love their jobs. Vo-tech education is not about supplying the world with cheap labor and part-time minimum wage jobs, nor does it deny students facets of a liberal arts education.
5
@weary1, community colleges and technical colleges require that their students take courses in reading, writing, math, and general ed as required on the basis of their admissions tests.
Students who, unlike your daughter, lack such skills--such as second-language youth and those who attended poor high schools or dropped out--spend three or four years obtaining two-year degrees or trades certifications. Taxpayers pay twice--supporting high schools and post-secondary technical programs--to provide these students with the academic skills essential to employability in a high-tech economy.
The most needed remedy is to make sure that high schools do their core work of preparing grads to read critically and with full comprehension and to solve basic problems with math and science skills. Those who are prepared in these academic skills as well as your daughter was can then make the progress financially that motivates them to invest in and conserve the democratic structures that benefited them directly and benefited all of us indirectly.
1
I think the article makes a good point, as I understand it: we spend way more money on supporting and subsidizing college education than education based on technological knowledge and hands on type labor. I believe that because technology has changed and become more complex over the decades our society must improve its support of training people to achieve knowledge which keeps up with technology. Plumbers, electrician, automobile mechanics, even truck drivers need to be educated to operate and understand machines which are so much more sophisticated and complex than they were decades ago. This requires mathematical knowledge, physics knowledge, mechanical dynamics knowledge, not academic knowledge, such as history and philosophy and the arts. There is only so much a brain can absorb! It would be wonderful if our educational system could prepare everyone for everything, but reality is different. I think we need to subsidize the “education” of people who don’t choose academia as much as we subsidize those who do. I think colleges charge way too much in tuition compared to institutions that prepare people for a technical education. There is a certain amount of snobbery in our midst with regard to going to college being preferable to getting well educated in a trade. And of course our economic system reflects that. That’s GOTTA CHANGE!
6
@Manuela Bonnet-Buxton as the proud parent of a child who chose the trade-school route and is now thriving in a job she loves--and who uses a far greater understanding of physics and chemistry and computer codes (essential in car repair and maintenance) than her college-educated mama ever had--I appreciate your comment greatly!
2
As a former NASA engineer, I hate to make the obvious obvious but it is likely than in the next 50-60 years a significant portion of labor driven manufacturing will disappear, not replaced by lower cost labor, but by technology and automation. We are at a point where a change in resources coupled with the ability of Turing tested AI coupled with network distribution, breakthroughs in processing and robots such as those from Boston Dynamics will lead to plants, vehicles, ships, hospitals, warehouses and farms with a need for fewer people. This article is skating to where the puck was, not where it will be
11
@Marston Gould It's a great point, but technology moves fast in some ways, and not fast enough in others. We all thought we'd be in flying cars by now, but in fact we're still commuting via 100+ year old train and subway infrastructure, for example. We're still mass-producing garments and furniture with mostly human labor, even if that labor is outsourced to low-wage countries.
I think we can do both things at once, i.e. prepare for the current and near future needs, while also thinking ahead to a fully automated world.
5
It's worth looking at the origins of the "college-readiness" push for all students. Tracking (determining a student's career pathway well before graduation and teaching accordingly) was used as an excuse to under-educate minority students for decaddes in this country. I'm a public school teacher, and I agree that college isn't the best path for many, many students. However, we're in this position because of the desire to equalize educational opportunity. Any sytemic change towards elevating other career pathways in K-12 have a high burden of proof to show that they're not reverting back to discriminatory practices.
5
@Johannah: Years ago a classmate observed that New York public schools were good at two things: educating folks who were ready to be educated, and warehousing everyone else. So, everyone had equal opportunity, but results differed. Now we direct more resources at the folks who would otherwise have been warehoused, but are these same students performing better.
Where I live, more of them are going to college. And I really hope they get something out of that college experience. But I don't know what they, since they go in with math and writing skills that a good 8th grader would exceed. It is not obvious that they come out much better prepared.
My city throws enormous sums at such folks. Some of them may complete college. But it is not obvious if the policy of promoting everyone really supports more than a few souls who would not have gone to college but would actually benefit from the experience. And that's what a good policy should ideally do: Identify and then support those folks who would get a lot of benefit out of going to college but, absent government supports, would be unlikely to go to college in the first place.
The author sets up an erroneous straw man, university education.
Public universities have been starved for funds and are now for the most part public in name only. That is less than 10% of operating budgets come from state funds.
I completely agree that k-12 education has not been funded or run properly. There is too much attention on standardized tests and not enough attention on real teaching.
I also agree we need to fund technical and trade training. High schools should have shop classes.
Everyone should have the opportunity to attend college. We should make sure that there is a path out of poverty.
We have confused that with Everyone should go to college.
College is not the best choice for everyone.
But we need to make sure that every child from preschool on has access to high quality education and has choices about the best path for that individual child.
We are no where near this now.
But to say that is is caused by overfunding universities is just false.
This type of factually incorrect statement detracts from the message that we are failing students in the lower grades.
6
The solution that seems to be proposed by the column is withdrawing some of the resources that go to college and university education and repurpose some of that money toward vocational training.
Speaking as an unconventional degree holder, I agree that we need more resources for vocational tracks. There are solid middle-class jobs in the building trades, maintenance and repairs, among others.
However, I do not agree that we need to take money away from the higher education system in order to do it, nor that we should make higher education even more inaccessible due to funding. We already tried a more capitalist system for university degrees. More children were left behind then than now.
It might help if we moved our public universities away from one of their other alternate tracks, namely sports. College league sports are a pathway for athletes to get to college, but they are too often expoited—all while their coaches are the best-compensated campus employees.
I am not saying get rid of all college sports, but it would be useful to at least partially divorce them from universities and establish a semi-pro league that includes both university and regional teams.
8
I would support this argument if someone would answer two questions. 1) Why are some students "academically talented" or "college material," and others aren't? Is it genetic?Maybe if we could get to the heart of that issue, we could look at other changes that need to be made. 2) If "internships" and "workforce training on the job" will produce more workers that employers want to hire, why do we have to subsidize them? If the companies need the workers, why don't they pay for the training themselves? (Hint: many do.) If they don't need the workers they won't hire them regardless of their training.
Just wondering.
3
It seems that colleges can raise their ticket price at will, and the government will find a way to subsidize it all.
College faculty and administrators are a privileged elite...but they do have to put up with other people's children.
It's true that the non-college-bound are basically given a "don't let the door hit you on the way out" when they graduate from high school, and that is really a bad thing. By all means we should help them more, although the biggest help of all is a fair economy that has manufacturing as well as office work.
On the other hand, I haven't read college being described this cushy in decades. In fact we constantly hear and ourselves see the opposite. Looking at numbers, I can tell that the $10K a year the author mentions in one case is a pittance compared to college costs. And do we really begrudge our college students smoke alarms? Seriously?
It was a lot harder financially than the way this author makes it sound even when I was in college, and that was thirty years ago. Sigh.
5
First--where I agree: Yes, ask any high school teacher and we will all tell you that what we used to call "vocational" education is sadly missing from our educational system. Teachers have been telling administrators and district officials this for years. Not everyone is cut out for IB or AP (Honors--Advanced--whatever you want to call college prep classes). When we have stated this we are accused of wanting to "track" students, or of being elitist. Nope. What we want is for every student to use THEIR form of intelligence. This has fallen on deaf ears. Until now, when companies large and small realize they are about to have a labor shortage on their hands. And believe me, 16-17 year olds do NOT know how to find you! So seek them out and keep telling districts to get with the program. Also, companies--put some of your mega-profits into training programs and make them accessible to students. We tried, as teachers, but no one listened for twenty years, so wake up if you want an educated, knowledgeable work force!
However--and this is where I disagree with the author, when he states that "...the second student has done nothing wrong." Actually, sometimes they do--though here I fault parents (and yet again administrators) as well. Many students do themselves no favors when they are perpetually late, perpetually on their phones and utterly distracted. Slacker students will end up working a low wage job, and sometimes that IS their fault.
20
So the "success" of education is measured in the amount of money education has provided a person. Producing hyper-efficient widget makers is surely that which a capitalist system wants, but it doesn't speak to the actual needs of humans. Education exists to improve the human condition, not increase profit margins for the wealthy. The problem with our education system is we have lost sight of the purpose of education and view it as a mechanism to oil the machine of capitalism.
13
Most developed countries have found effective ways to deal with this issue, to the point that it has become a political non-starter. We are actually quite pleased to see Americans refuse to offer relevant vocational education to their children, aka future workers. Please continue with your elite-driven, laissez-faire capitalism that doesn't take into account that the greatest resource a country has is its people. Keep on stunting child development as much as you can by depriving kids of food, healthcare & education, not to mention the lead in the water supply. Hang on to those tax breaks for the wealthy so that none of their hard (un)earned money is spent helping someone else. We all know you do it because you sincerely believe that the less government services provided, the better, especially for those elites & their kids who don't have to deploy as much effort with less competition. The rest of us, whom you disdain as socialists, understand what is needed to train highly skilled workers for the information age. We also see the need to construct an open system that translates vocational education into university credits, making it easier to transit from a technical background to a college education, so no door is shut when someone is 16 yrs old. You make our lives easier by providing us with way more opportunity than if there were the equivalent of another 200 million highly trained Germans, Finns, Dutch, Canadian & soon, Chinese workers to compete with. Thank you!
15
This is an excellent idea which is why it will never happen.
In the private sector, a manufacturer whose assembly line produced things at a 50% defect rate would soon be out of business. Similarly, a haircutter who botched 50% of the haircuts or a burger joint that miscooked half the burgers would disappear.
But the majority of universities graduate fewer than half of the students who enter as freshman. For some the graduation rates are in the 20% range, year after year after year. Most of those non-graduates should never have entered colleges. Yet they provide lots of money to these universities who trundle along as though nothing is wrong. Actually, this is a national emergency that is failing millions of young people.
1
@tanstaafl, I worked for a college president who grew the university by 1,000 students a year to increase his revenue from the state by $4.5 million. When half of the new students flunked out the first year he criticized the faculty for not working harder to help the students. The faculty explained that it was difficult to help the student who did not attend class, did not study for exams, and exhibited a poor attitude toward higher education. To your point, most of these students should have never been admitted but that would have sunk the president's primary goal--more money for him to spend on his pet projects.
The data referenced in this article seems to indicate that the 1975 level of a bachelor's degree or higher was 13.9% while the 2015 level was 32.5%.
While neither number is cause for celebration, it seems the uptick is significant.
1
I don't think the fault lies with spending resources on educating the intellectually talented. I think the fault lies with corporate union-busting which made working in the trades (overall) an undesirable path. When unions were in their glory, the non-college educated could work those jobs knowing they could pay the bills. Today, very few industries hire union talent. Which means that our high schools have given up on vocational training because the demand is relatively low. Hence the push toward college, even if those student are not cut out for it.
This all starts with what people are paid for their labor. Pay people more in blue collar jobs and the demand for training at the high school level will necessitate more funding.
10
@Sabrina - unfortunately, unions priced themselves out of the labor market. $25-30/hr plus great benefits and a pension at 55 turned out to only be affordable for a generation or so. $25/hr plus good benefits and a 401k? Now you're talking.
1
@Midwest Josh Honestly? When CEOs are raking in tens of millions each year and companies are doing buybacks with the truckloads of cash they have in reserve instead of investing in their people, I have very little sympathy for this argument.
1
@Midwest Josh I have little sympathy for this argument when CEOs are raking in tens of millions each year and when the truckloads of cash on hand is being used to buy back stock instead of investing in workers.
I work at an institution that connects local high schools with community colleges at our automotive shop for vocational automotive training. (I have enjoyed watching these kids get passionate about automotive work and I know many have improved in their other high school classes as a direct result of our program.) An anecdote I heard working here is that auto mechanics are so in demand these days that one might make $60k a year in that job. If true, that puts a mechanic in roughly the same financial class as myself, with my undergraduate and masters degrees from prestigious universities. Plus, the auto mechanic doesn't have to worry about paying back a $50k student loan debt. Makes me wonder who the smart one is?
7
What about stay at home dads/moms/homemakers? This is also a noble and challenging pursuit. Wouldn’t it be great if one income could support a family again so one could also choose this path if they’d like? I know my family would benefit immensely from this structure and it’s something I think I’d be good at and would enjoy. Really doesn’t seem like an option at all anymore for those in middle to lower class income families. Don’t know the answer to that one way or another... just a thought.
8
Why doesn't the much-vaunted invisible hand of the marketplace solve this problem of vocational training? I thought capitalism was the answer to everything. And so instead of recommending that, "To reverse the system’s regressive nature, we should shift our college subsidies toward funding this new pathway" of job training, I recommend that private, for-profit businesses shift THEIR many subsidies toward training their workers. Let the capitalists invest in their future of exploitation. I mean, in the future joy their wage slaves will take in the dignity of work.
7
US education is a prime example of adults co-opting an essential service to enrich themselves at children's expense. Our Darwinian education system works well for the wealthy the lucky and and the very strong leaving behind the masses of kids born into unfortunate circumstances. Put the funding and effort into early childhood, cut the university administrative bloat ( ever read the volume of titles within a university?).
Kids are the customers here but they have no voice. They depend on us. The ROI: a healthy, engaged workforce. Why is that not a federal and local priority? Kudos to the low-paid, hard-working teachers - the rot is at the top.
2
Good piece. Also, I believe that many of the college 'underperformers' result from inadequate high-school preparation (i.e. much of the money spent in college comes too late).
3
One of the first steps should be to get rid of the high school teachers who denigrate honest labor and tell all their students that they need to "make something of themselves" and "reach for their dreams" etc. by going to college.
3
@Anne
Blaming the teachers when the entire social system proclaims this message — with its funding, programs, and prizes — just perpetuates the flawed system. As Eva from Minnesota writes, academic teachers have been highly disturbed by the disintegration and denigration of vocational training programs in our public schools. They have been vocal with school boards and politicians who give lip service and don't do enough to change anything. I applaud Oren Cass and those like him who want to reverse a "regressive" system by coming up with workable proposals. Hopefully, some people out there in the corporate world and think tanks are reading this piece and thinking about the ways to help our young people, not by blaming the teachers in the current system, but by becoming agents of change.
3
@Anne
Wow! That's harsh. Certainly, college is not the only way to make something of oneself or to reach for one's dreams, but this seems like a simplistic and punitive solution.
The Netherlands and Germany have addressed this issue. America should look into their approaches.
22
@Brad We lived in the Netherlands when our son was in 5th grade (Group 7 in the Dutch system). In 6th grade, all Dutch students are given what is basically an IQ test to place them in one of three tracks. From that point on there is basically zero movement between tracks. The Dutch accept it because they know that even if their kid places in their lowest track, they will have a job that will provide enough income for a good standard of living, they will have healthcare, one month off in the summer and a pension. I’m not sure American parents would accept a system where the future of their kids is determined at 12 years old.
1
When people use the word "reform" they should remember that reform means to make changes in something, typically a social, political, or economic institution or practice, in order to improve it. We have not reformed public education. The problems of inequity that Mr Cass so accurately describes today have always been there. Always.
7
@mary bardmess
One has only to read John Taylor Gatto's "Dumbing Us Down" to understand public education. Economic bracket also enables students to get ahead faster than they can appreciate. Basics are important: learning to read, write and to pay taxes. Where are income taxes taught in school? They wait until college to teach students this whole system.
2
@Babsy
I and my classmates learned about income taxes, insurance, and mortgages from a young sixth grade teacher who had just bought his own house. I did not learn as much from a university management accounting professor.
Many academically marginal students do go on to college--they just wind up in less selective schools and go on to complete watered down degree plans. I can say this with some measure of certainty as I teach these students. The shameful truth is that these young people leave college with little more than a piece of paper and a not insubstantial amount of debt. Over the past few years, I've come to feel as if I am perpetuating fraud every time I submit grades.
43
@H.L. Our goal should be to develop the potential of every student. I worked with students with learning disabilities. They had many abilities. I attended good colleges; there are many besides the Ivy League. The key is to value the abilities of all and find ways to develop those abilities. The public schools, open to all should be our target. There is nothing wrong with private schools, but the foundation of our democracy should be good public schools. That was the purpose of public education: to educate for participation in a democracy.
3
@Joan Staples I agree wholeheartedly. Part of the trouble is that we do not allow for difference with respect to ability. Everyone should have the opportunity to realize his or her potential, whatever that may look like. Moreover, we must decide that every person has inherent worth and dignity and that these exist independent of intellectual capacity, credentials earned, job title...Doing away with the habit of referring to education as an opportunity to "better" oneself would be a good start. The phrasing suggests that those who do not pursue formal education are somehow inferior, and inferior by choice.
3
Great article which speaks to the reality of the situation; high risk and low-return is the norm for many who instead are steered, at tremendous costs to all--to college. I taught at a community college, tutored there as well. Some "graduates" of high schools do not know what a vowel is. Why don't we do this the European way? Gymasium takes students from middle school and separates for career paths. Trades are respected and protectedin manhy countries, or guilds. Here we had unions and the work was respected because it had power. The statistics here are dismal. I didn't realize to the extent that they are and the losses in money and "focus and the best pathway that we can construct..." is if not lost, certainly bifurcated.
8
@Katalina agree in some ways, but one thing that sticks with me is that multiple Europeans I know who have settled in the US tell me that one of the best things about the US is that your fate I not sealed in middle school. You can go back to school at any point and retool.
The overwhelming majority of Americans parents simply will not accept their own children being placed on a vocational, rather than a college-bound, path.
5
@Josa not sure that is true at all across the board. My kids go to a low income school and many discourage their kids from going to a 4 year school because of cost. This may be the right course for many of these kids, but certainly not all. The school spends a lot of resources informing the kids of various higher education opportunities. Even going into a trade or becoming a cop requires some sort of higher education these days.
@ josa.
One completes a vocational course only to find that the vocation no longer exists. Learn to drive a truck and find that the trucks are driven by robots. Expert diagnosticians replaced by artificial intelligence. The only people not in such danger are those writing to support the conservative agenda of places like the Manhattan Institute. The "good old boys clubs" make themselves immune to the diseases they pass on to others.
I have grandsons at a state university, doing well in challenging STEM majors who have never read a biography, and who will graduate with whatever knowledge they have of the world barely remembered from one high school class.
While thoroughly decent young men, they are not prepared to be citizens with voting responsibilities in a complex world desperate for wisdom.
They and their peers view education solely as a means to a lucrative job, an attitude reinforced by society and government.
No wonder US "democracy" is generally sold to the highest bidder. And as the world leader, the US has successfully exported "extreme capitalism", with force if necessary, thus
the economy rules rather than values and culture, and the state of the world reflects this.
A broad education is necessary for life in our democracy whether choosing a college or vocational training.
The value of liberal arts/humanities needs recognition, and our society needs to value quality education for everyone more than it does at present.
For the richest country in the world, the US is really cheap except when supporting the military.
111
@Lucy Cooke Every college student should be required to take two years of the traditional liberal arts. They can then major in whatever they want in the next two years,
5
@Lucy Cooke
I agree. This entire article is about creating worker bees. And while I have great respect for plumbers, electricians, HVAC guys—I could never do what they do without making a half-dozen mistakes along the way—the writer of this article never mentions Civics or citizenship. We need high school graduates who can evaluate arguments (or propaganda) and make decisions as citizens in a democracy. We’re learning just how important this is. The Manhattan Institite needs to balance their priorities.
7
@Lucy Cooke--Agreed. This is why I teach English and why we read literature.
3
Mr. Cass seems to believe that the only purpose of advanced education is to make more money. If an education helps reap the lucre, then it is a good education; otherwise , it should be curtailed. My plumber makes more money than I do. He never graduated high school, and I have several college degrees. I do well enough and do not need more. He's a nice guy but a boorish man---a hard worker who drinks beer and watches wrestling matches for relaxation. He is doing very well, nice house and so on. Still he says he wants his kids to get a good education, and not follow him into plumbing. He senses that he is missing something. Is there more to an education than a high income? Should we consider men like Gandhi, like Buddha, and like the writers and artists whose works were not appreciated until after their deaths--failures? They did not make tons of money. But they created great ideas, marvelous works that enrich our lives; their legacy was not built on money but on something more lasting and harder to define. On the other hand should we think of our present president, who owns at least a billion in assets, a highly successful product of our educational system?
As far as how to finance education, in spite of this article's biased slant which suggests taking funds from scholarship to support technology--that is, moving funds from history to plumbing---it would be healthier for our culture if we fully supported all types of education. Both are extremely important.
50
@shigmr
Gandhi had a law degree.
2
This great injustice of our educational system, in plain sight, is the main reason for our two-tier society. Most readers of this paper probably know this, but have found educated ways to rationalize the ethical issues. Most NYT readers have used publically supported education to invest in themselves and their children, wisely believing that it would help provide them prosperity and security in the modern world. They know that if ALL Americans had the benefit of such sound judgement that they would have it harder. Their education-dependent prosperity hinges on the fact that many, if not most, others do NOT act the same; it depends on them being exceptions - and it's unethical (according to Kant, at least). From my understanding, in Germany, university professors are rotated to help insure that these public institutions remain EQUIVALENT in quality - which they are. The situation is VERY different here (not to mention their trade/technical school system). We SEEK OUT selective schools here. The taxpayers' COST PER CREDIT HOUR for a college that a typical taxpayer could attend, i.e. second-level state university or community college, is an ORDER OF MAGNITUDE less than taxpayer support for an Ivy League or prestigious state university. It's obscene. Since less than ten universities account for around 90% of our national-level politicians and journalists, it's no wonder that they despise Bernie Sanders. And If Trump's "trailer trash" entered the pipeline with their kids....
3
This article misses the point. Early education is where students get the foundation for whatever they want to do in life. However, our public education system is failing most kids and too many are leaving high school as functional illiterates.
I recall a study that was done in the 1990s. They took a selection of students from three different schools in Michigan and gave them the same tests. One group graduated from high school in 1973 and the other group graduated in 1993. In comparison to the students who had graduated in 1973, the students who graduated in 1993 had the equivalent of a ninth grade education
We may not be a manufacturing giant anymore, but we still need mechanics, carpenters, electricians, plumbers and welders. Personally, people who can do those things are far more valuable to my everyday life than some guy pushing money around on Wall Street.
13
College allows for students to network/socialize with a curated group of people and credential in accordance to a specific career path.
It's impossible to appraise the value of these two functions. For example, many people end up marrying someone from their college, or end up loving their career so much that any cost/benefit analysis would be meaningless.
Otherwise, I don't think anyone can truly know the precise economic value of college versus any other form of training or apprenticeship because there is too much privilege in play that is confounding the real world data.
6
You don’t think these could apply to folks at Im a trade school environment? Smh.
I don't exactly get the point of this. The author seems to want to get to some form of utopia where by the school somehow can cater to the interests and strengths of every individual. That might seem like something feasible but it only shows the author's distance from reality - if you work with schools you will realize just how hard a task teachers have already.
Not to mention the fact that the US is a modern digital economy - if you don't have digitally relevant skills - you are goign to struggle in this workforce.
5
I think there is a big difference between a one-size-fits-college-for-all curriculum and a custom program for every individual. What they are arguing for is an alternative track for students who are not academically advanced but who can be trained for a highly skilled workforce job. If anything, this would save teachers from having to differentiate learning so that a kid who really is not going to pass calculus to be able to study the kind of math needed to succeed in a vocation, not to succeed on the SATs. The other argument, and the main argument, is that upon graduation there be subsidized programs for non-college students rather than having their college-bound peers obtain an education subsidized by taxes on their minimum wage paychecks.
7
"If a good alternative existed, they would be well served to take it. Certainly, the choice should remain theirs. But to decide wisely whether college is worth the cost, they need to actually face the cost."
Your remedy: vocational schools for other people's children.
This observation will remain relevant for another 100 years; unless the harm done by pursuing a college degree given the time and cost commitment is well understood. Currently, it is not. Also until a plumber, a carpenter, a welder can rise up to socioeconomic elite of the society. Currently, they cannot. Despite exceptions, we want to cohabit with people who share our values, and the key differences today are as insurmountable as ever. My neighbor thinks of enriching his grandchildren, his carpenter is thinking no further than Friday night. I know who I want for a neighbor.
You are identifying a problem that has deep sociocultural roots. Government involvement in solutions (spending more money), will produce sub-optimal results just as do the current subsidies for the children of white collar families headed to college.
You are also ignoring a fundamental political challenge. The republican party can have no appeal in the absence of disaffected, angry, unemployed, dependent people who hate someone with passion (e.g., Reagan's welfare queens, Nixon's 'law and order'). Where would Trump be without people feeling socioeconomic powerlessness?
3
As a community college English instructor for 40 years, I have seen firsthand the bizarre emphasis put on college-track programs at the expense of voc ed and now even remedial ed. The newest push by clueless politicians and higher ed administrators is called "accelerated learning," in which academically marginal high school graduates are placed on a fast track for university transfer. Funding for other programs has been drastically reduced to finance this latest, greatest political trend. The result is predictable: ill-prepared community college students are being passed along to the universities while the many, many students who could have benefited from vocational or remedial education after high school and are instead dropping out, accepting minimum-wage jobs with little hope for a career.
12
Apprenticeship programs are what's needed. Solidly financed, well run plans for giving non-college bound kids something to latch on to. Yes, they've been tried but often failed because they're vulnerable to the bottom line. Embed them in the tax code in such a way that they become irresistible to industry. What a waste of money and aspirations to send a kid off to college when he's almost sure to quit after a semester or two.
9
When I was in high school in the '60s, we had several "vocational training" classes. Auto mechanics, wood shop, metal shop, drafting, home economics (which taught cooking a sewing skills among others), and typing for secretarial skills. I can't believe such programs are no longer in public schools. If reinstituted, I would add plumbing and electrical training, as well as other pathways to skills that are truly the backbone of society.
12
Mr Cass is a libertarian from the Manhattan Institute. He bemoans that we spend much more on college-bound students than on vocational schools.
As a libertarian, his solution, of course, is to spend LESS on colleges.
Let's look at the numbers on college spending: Cass is shocked (shocked!) that "... combined with tax breaks, loan subsidies and state-level funding, the annual total exceeds $150 billion."
Yet we just heard that the President, acceding to the last people who jawboned him, wants to increase the annual defense budget to $750 billion.
And he declaims the increase in Federal funding over the past thirty years (mostly by subsidizing student loans, n.b.), while ignoring that state direct funding of higher education has dropped sharply over the same period, and that many students pay substantial and rapidly rising amounts to go to college.
So: I'm all in agreement with Mr Cass that we should invest MORE in vocation training. Countries that do so, like Germany, have a more prosperous working class.
But notice that Mr Cass simply assumes a fixed pie: if we spend MORE than the very small amount currently allocated to vocational education, he assumes, that means spending LESS on higher education. Why should this be the answer?
How about cutting the defense budget a little instead (since the US already spends more on military costs than the next seven countries around the world, including Russia ad China, combined?
76
There are so many ways to slice this pie, and sadly they're always presented as a binary choices. Spend on college prep or vocational? Spend on inner cities or suburbs? Teachers or computers? Gifted or special ed? How about this one -- Let's commit to equalize education spending across the urban, suburban, and rural landscape. Let's federalize the funding. Totally. And then let's try to meet every child's needs without forcing them all to be average. Let's give the teachers a raise, but demand more from them in return. How about putting $1000 a year in a 529 account for every year that a child stays off drugs and doesn't have a child of their own? Let's pass a law outlawing the practice of offering tax breaks and public funding of infrastructure development to lure businesses to a particular city or state, to end the fawning competitiveness that deprives our schools of the resources they need.
5
Nice sentiment. Let's deal with reality. Until politicians stop rating public schools on their graduation rates, NONE of this matters. We're graduating students who can barely, read, write, do basic math and have zero ability to function because "get'em through" is the motto these days. No wonder so many either never go, or never make it through college. Let's start by holding students (and their parents) accountable so they have a shot at even functioning in society after graduating high school.
You have no idea what's coming and how bad it will be.
5
As a soon to be retired teacher of 33 years in the classroom, I have begun to conceptualize a piece of writing I intend to compose on the state of our educational system as experienced by me. This article aligns somewhat to my overall thesis that our system fails miserably to meet the learning and interest needs of at least 50% of our students. Having taught all levels K-12 I can attest to the alarming apathy and disinterest that slowly overtakes a large percentage of our student population. I won't go any deeper than this for now as the root cause analysis will take much longer to define. We need to dig deeper and I hope the Times will do so.
13
@Citizen 080
I retired as a high school English teacher earlier than I should have. I simply couldn’t take it anymore. The endless fad of the month computer programs and rotten textbooks I was forced to use were bad enough, but it was the students who finally did me in. The apathy is epidemic. They quite simply don’t care about anything except whatever is on their cellphone. They are so addicted that they (and their parents) will get in a fight with you if you attempt to take the phone away from them. Cellphone addiction is going to destroy this generation.
We in the US used to have vocational education pathways (1940 - 1970) but "someone decided" that college was for everyone - wrong! Those vocational education systems built the US middle class and a very strong innovative economy. Too bad people do not remember but became greedy for money and focused on power; little did they realize that their wealth was a function of a lot of non-college people working hard and being paid well. We lost our vocational standards and went out of the manufacturing business. djm
6
There is merit to this idea. But it is also important to encourage a development of curiosity about and life long pursuit of some area of knowledge besides ones's job training. There is more to education than preparing for a job that can enhance a person's life.
23
@David Bible: Exactly! The article takes for granted the idea that education is all about career training. There is nothing here about citizenship or personal development. If corporations need workers with certain skills, they can provide apprentice opportunities, internships and training programs. Our public contribution should include much more than just preparing people for the reuirements of future employers, they should prepare people for fulfilling lives. Someone who is going to work in healthcare should have a solid understanding of the wonders of astronomy and physics, as well as music and literature -- just to be a happy human being, engaged in the world around them. Even if there is no money in it.
6
I agree. Being an electrician, carpenter, plumber, landscaper —all good. But having a college education will enhance your life no matter what your career choice. I tell my students “You can never be poor with a college education. “
1
The article says:
"One explanation for this bizarre state of affairs, in which society invests heavily in those headed for economic success while ignoring those falling behind, is the widespread belief that everyone can be a college graduate. "
Another reason is that no parent wants to admit that their children are inferior, which is how we tend to view those who do not go to college. Of course that myth is perpetuated by the fact that most help goes to the college-bound students, leaving the vocational types to their own devices.
4
If we financed a military only big enough to destroy the world twice over, instead of five times over, we could afford to educate everyone. A smarter population would be a better investment than being able to destroy the world for the third, fourth, and fifth time. Educated citizens might elect a government that would address climate change, which is poised to destroy us even before the military has a chance. We might adopt a healthcare system like the ones all the other intelligent countries have! Educated citizens, if they live in a country governed by and for the people, make decisions that favor the many over the few. (That's why the Republicans put Betsy DeVos in charge of destroying the educational system.)
Be that as it may, give or take a handful of outliers, everyone wants to go to college. The kids that do are the ones whose families can afford to send them. It's as simple as that. And it's worth mentioning that 60% of the jobs in this country are minimum wage, and half of those jobs are held by people with college degrees. Those outliers, free from college debt and making the same miserable wages as their college educated co-workers might be smarter than you think - they take home ~$21,000/year, while their educated co-workers get to keep less than $20,000 after making their loan payments. Those stats about college educated workers making higher wages paint a rosy picture, but the reality going forward isn't looking too good.
6
@Peter Can you back up the statement that except for a few outliers everyone wants to go to College? What are you basing that on? I know quite a few people that had absolutely no desire and are doing well in their chosen fields. And I think it's enough to not call them outliers.
2
@Peter
Oh, please stop throwing out fake numbers. According to the BLS (2016 data):
"Together, these 2.2 million workers with wages at or below the federal minimum made up 2.7 percent of all hourly paid workers."
And note that these at or below minimum wage earners represent about 1.5% of all workers.
As for the military budget, sure, cut that in half. How far will the available $300 billion go to enhance spending on higher ed ($600 billion now), federal and state health care ($1.8 trillion), and other greater society goals?
@Bob Krantz
Speaking of fake numbers, are you really saying $300 billion/yr. is chump change?
$300b/year would go a long, long way!
I looked at data from 2013, where 24.9% of workers made less than $10/hr. When we look at recent college grads vs. high school grads (a major point of the article) the situation is much worse. I admit my numbers were skewed, but not fake, and not nearly as skewed as the BLS statistics.
1
The authour, Mr. Cass, identifies a serious problem in the American educational system but does not discuss an even more fundamental problem that springs from the grade-organization which is more of a bureaucratic convenience than a component of a system designed to maximise education for all children.
Children of entry age are unequally prepared for learning and without redress of their varying states of unreadiness are doomed to educational performance. But, irrespective of their state of readiness, an attempt is made to teach children concepts and skills for which there is no background knowledge. Whether or not, children master a lesson, when the time to move-on, they must move to the next higher level. The net effect is to create an increasing sense of failure in children who started with a deficit of knowledge and/or skills.
By the time children reach the graduation stage, many are functionally illiterate and innumerate. What I call the inverted pyramidal effect of educational deficiencies has taken its toll.
Due to the failure of mastery at the initial levels of education, the proportion of ignorance, relative to expectations increases at each topical and grade level and depending on the initial deficiencies, the level of ignorance may be profound.
Without a proper foundation, in any basic knowledge or skill area, attempting to build an educated citizen, is doomed to failure. This seems to account for most of the failure at higher levels.
3
Wow, free fire alarms! What more proof do we need that colleges are overfunded? Spending is up 133%, mostly for nice gyms and bureaucracy-dream fulfillment. And, by the way, if students are going to benefit from college, they should bear the cost.
Let’s inject a little reality in this brain-dead, dead-end, paternalistic-sadistic argument.
Other wealthy countries don’t expect students to pay for their education.
Everything not manufactured is more expensive than it used to be. Day care and lawn care. And education. State and federal spending, though, have not kept up. Conservatives at the Manhattan Institute pretend — pretend, because they know better — that federal support for education caused the rise in tuition. They live to point out the lavish campus facilities. They never acknowledge first, that Americans live in bigger houses and drive nicer cars than they once did, too. More glamping, less camping. Or that other, unsupported education, such as private high schools, have risen at similar rates. So: no cause and effect.
What is directly responsible for the rise in tuitions is the concomitant drop in state and federal support. More prisons, less money for grants. It’s easy to measure, and our esteemed author failed even to take note of it. But he had room for fire alarms. (I wonder, has one life been saved? Would that make the spending less reckless, at least?)
I’d have more sympathy for the author’s argument if it were made honestly.
9
Decades of teaching gives me enough ground to criticise, but I believe one simple act would improve the US more than any other:
Question your answers. Especially the dearly held ones.
And this should be the cornerstone of our education system
2
I agree that more vocational training is needed and should be supported as an option to some students. But the Op Ed is missing a big part of the educational problem. In most public schools, especially those with a wide spectrum of student abilities in urban settings, don't lavish money on the students with a chance at college. Instead most of the resources are spent on the underperforming children that are forced to go through a curriculum they are not interested in. Gifted students sit by idly while the teacher spends time and resources trying to get the bottom quartile of the class up to C level. In many cases the gifted students end up being teacher's aides helping classmates gain understanding. Both parties would be better served with a vocational option for those students that struggle in an academic setting, allowing the students that are motivated to pursue college their own resources. Both parties lose in the current environment.
29
As a realtor, I work frequently with plumbers, electricians and other contractors, and they all say the same thing.....They are desperate for help. There are countless jobs available right now in the trades, many that pay quite well, and yet hardly anyone is applying.
Is it because college is what you're "supposed to do" after high school? Are today's young people not willing to do physical labor? I don't know the answer. But perhaps if more funds were available to support apprentice programs, we'd have more skilled tradespeople and fewer young adults with useless degrees.
15
@shstl The answer I've heard from several small business people of my acquaintance is that the minute a potential hiree hears that the company will be drug-testing him or her (their liability insurance and/or state law requires this) they are never heard from again. This is only going to get worse as marijuana becomes more accessible through legalization.
5
@shstl I'm skeptical about a trades shortage. Part of it is from seeing so many "shortages" turn into gluts, like the "tech shortage" and "nursing shortage." I'm also from Boston, where the trades are a de-facto closed shop and connections are everything. Whenever I hear someone wonder who will take over for retiring tradespeople, I want to say "their kids."
1
I agree mostly, except - what technical jobs will there be, assuming the world survives the Trump times? I did go the former (university) route, but nearly chose mechanics, so I understand the issue. However if only 1 in 5 navigate the high school to college path (I didn't, and after the Marines used the GI Bill), what do we do with the other 4/5 of Americans? Despite Trump's empty promises that he'll bring back manufacturing jobs, another a lie, one of way too many, where will the blue collar jobs be? There may be need to some renewable energy technicians, and a few other technical jobs, but the rest will have to be satisfied with minimum wage jobs. I agree that technical institutions and community colleges should be free or very inexpensive, but again, what fields will they teach.
4
@M.S. Shackley Aloha, My thinking is that our country's entire infrastructure including roads, bridges, airports, power grid, public buildings including schools all need to be completely rebuilt and renovated and in many cases we simply need to construct new systems and buildings. This is where the jobs will be. Construction workers, plumbers, electricians, technicians, architects...It is a 20-30 project and is needed to move this nation back to the forefront of innovation. Let's shift 50% of our defense spending and make it happen. It's the way forward!
7
@M.S. Shackley the mechanics, plumbers and electricians around here make decent wages. About as much as a teacher does in the first five years. Tree removal services are big. In other words, repair and maintenance.
1
Vocational training is sorely lacking in this country. But just dumping money into training is not going to cut it. Trade qualifications and quality standards need to be vastly improved first. Being well trained doesn't help much when anyone can call themselves a x-tradesperson and likely compete by being cheaper (i.e. hardly any investment / likely inadequate equipment).
I am handy enough to be dangerous and have given up hiring so-called professionals that in most cases do a horrible job, by any standards. Trial by error - sifting through the incompetents is not a realistic option in finding the true professionals that would do the job right.
3
On the other side, this is the age of the ignorant and strutting administrator, who know nothing and is proud of this. The person who had gained wealth, power and position not through expertise but through glad-handing and networking. The person who understands that all the hard work can be farmed out to controlled nerds kept in their cubicles. Those who climb the heights of faux meritocracy.
8
At least in New York, the most common and in some districts only path to a vocational program is to be a "classified" student in a special education program. Thus by definition you are only eligible for such a track if you have been identified with an educational disability. While this path might indeed be well suited for youngsters who "struggle" with learning in the conventional sense, it is also quite appropriate for the many others whose skill set departs from the "typical" college bound kid.
5
We don't adequately fund education at all levels. Pitting a college education against vocational training is a false equivalence.
Doubling of funding for colleges over 40 years is meaningless when it takes $4 today to buy what $1 did in 1978. That trade schools and apprenticeships are even more weakly supported is the result of a devil's bargain. Society needs both but which do you fund when a bloated military budget and giving tax breaks to the already rich are the priority?
26
I'm surprised no one in the comments section has yet mentioned the real problem: whatever you can teach to your non-college-graduating, low IQ student in a vocational school, will be easier to teach to an AI. Especially since once you teach one AI, you've taught them all. Society is headed for a serious reckoning in the next 50 years, maybe sooner. Universal basic income is the only solution I can see.
5
@Sophie AI cannot clear or install our pipes. AI cannot inspect or sweep my chimney--and I wouldn't trust it to. AI cannot fix my old refrigerator or teach my child violin or install custom cabinets in my home.
1
@Sophie I see your obvious prejudice about students who pursue vocational education. It is dead wrong to think they are "low IQ students." There are many very bright students that learn mainly through their hands by doing the work and building projects. The BOCES(Board of cooperative educational services) in NYS vocational programs for many trades need students who are capable of advanced math and problem solving skills. I suppose your hair stylist is an intelligent person who can "read" your hair to create the best cut and perhaps dye for you. The plumbers or HVAC workers who keep you warm in the winter and cool in the summer also be able to find the cause of many divers problems. So please do not think of those who follow the trades as LOW IQ people.
How do we know that those not "academically inclined"aren't those ignored (or worse) by one or more teachers along the way, or treated to the wrong teachers (some of whom might be fine for different students, others of whom might be good for none)? As long as this elephant stands tall in the room, ideas such as this seem like little more than excuses.
...Andrew
3
To the contrary: we don't spend enough on either.
10
We spend a lot of time on workplace readiness and, thanks to 70 years of union busting, not enough time forcing the workplace to be anything other than Walmart- minimum wage no real benefits...a drag on the local community and corporate wealthfare for Walmart shareholders. Until we admit that every penny thrown off by the business is not the “shareholders piece of profit” this train wreck will continue. There needs to be a reasonable distribution of money across all players in the economy so that localities are not subsidizing big business and all money isn’t flowing far away from the locality.
Greed......
6
If you are going to subsidize post high school education there should be an even playing field between those who go to university and those who want to learn a trade. And, there are many high tech and health care jobs that do not require a college degree in a practical sense. Just look at Germany https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/10/why-germany-is-so-much-better-at-training-its-workers/381550/ where apprenticeships are used extensively. Wouldn't we love to be exporting 100 billion dollars worth of autos every year?
9
We used to have vocational high schools in New York City. What happened to them? My father taught in one of them -- Alfred E. Smith High School in the Bronx. Although my father's school taught a number of trades, I believe there were also vocational high schools focused on single trades.
5
@Susan My brother, a former chef, taught commercial cooking at Prospect High School in Brooklyn. The students he had who paid attention could leave high school and get an adult job with a future. Millions of dollars had been spent on beautiful kitchens. During Bloomberg's reign vocational programs were being shut down, and those beautiful kitchens were torn out.
5
@Susan In my parents day, people were steered toward trasdes based on socioeconomic factors. Vocational programs were a way to keep non-white kids out of college. When they graduated, they often encountered hostile unions. If they were lucky, the union would let them join the auxiliary, which meant they paid dues, but weren't eligible for any jobs.
@Liz It's not your parent's day.
We have been forced more and more to push students towards the college track. As a teacher, we are expected to follow the curriculum set up by the state. Over the past several decades we have seen a decline in programs that help students actually have daily skills from classes like wood and metal shop, home ec, and so on. They are being pushed into computer programming and math. While there is nothing wrong with computer programming, in reality a very small number of students will actually end doing this kind of work. So what about carpenters, plumbers, electricians, and welders? In many cases, parents do not want their kids in these professions. When was the last time you fixed your own plumbing? Crown moulding? Fix your own car lately? Most Americans don't even have the basic skills in these fields. To assume that all kids should go to college is ridiculous. Many of the blue collar professions are highly technical and skilled. We have thrown away the ability to teach a huge segment of the population. The fault lies in the fallacy that college is the only road to success.
22
@Chris It bears repeating so I'm glad you did.
If we hadn't been so eager to dumb down our schools to account for the psyches of those that couldn't keep...e.g., social promotions...we wouldn't have the necessity of "college" to remedy the failures of our elementary and secondary schools.
And when you consider the trillions that is has cost us to accomplish this, one has to wonder who should be allowed to vote.
The idea that everyone needs a four year degree has not been good for colleges either. As a college math instructor, I spent a lot of time teaching middle school level math to students who never finished a degree.
Yes there are students living on gorgeous campuses with yoga classes and climbing walls. But my students commuted on public buses while trying to work full time, parent full time and go to college. Far too many job listings require a four year degree for no discernible reason.
39
One reason for this mess is the high schools are staffed by people who made their careers by going to college. I’ve worked in high schools and the staff actually has no real idea how one enters a trade. They do know about about how the college system works and so they encourage it, often completely ridiculously inappropriately. The trades and vocational programs need to step up their presence in the high s books so that students -and staff- become truly aware of these options.
14
Like so many technocrats who push education reform, Oren Cass seems to see education as nothing more than an instrument for training young people for the labor market. True education must be much more: it must teach critical thinking and writing skills; it must produce young people committed to civic engagement with a deep understanding and love of democracy; it must promote a clear-eyed, honest assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of America and the world; and it must send students out the doors with the tools to live a rich, fulfilling, human, and humane life.
I have no trouble with finding pathways that help people who don't need or want college to make a life. But an education that sees that post-graduate life in no terms other than a job and a wage is an arid, sad thing undeserving of the title "education." If Mr. Cass wants to yoke his call for reform to a demand that high schools fulfill all the goals of education for all students -- not just job training for the working class -- then he will actually be making a contribution.
10
@Gary
True enough, but the perspective that promotes higher education only in terms of social and political goals is equally wrong. Yes, we hope that all people have personal skills and knowledge that let them participate in democracy, but don't we also want them to have skills that let them contribute economically?
3
When it is funded with the precious resource that is our tax dollars, it absolutely must be focused and efficient. That means identifying students for placement in appropriate tracks as early as possible to prepare them for the tasks required by business, industry, the military and government. Such a plan would also substantially mitigate the cost of education by providing only that required by the line of work that a student is tracking to. There is little reason to allow retail stockers to go beyond the sixth grade much less high school. At the N.Y. state average spending of more than $20,000 per pupil per year, just one Walmart employing 100 people who need only a sixth grade curriculum to accomplish their jobs represents a waste of $12 million of tax dollars.
1
The author acts as if the fact that high school graduates with above-average earnings earn more than college gradates with below-average earnings would stay the same were his plan to introduce vocational training programs into high schools implemented.
It seems to me that were his plan effective, it would lead to an increase in the number of skilled and trained workers, thereby putting downward pressure on their wages--and obviating the difference in wages he points to now.
Of course, healthy unions would help, but I wouldn't hold my breath for those to come back any time soon.
1
We fail those students who aren't bound for college for one simple reason: Our educational system has been predicated on the principle that all students should have the opportunity to succeed at the highest level, and that means college attendance.
We have refused to separate students into college and non-college preparation tracks at an early age, probably 14. This would be necessary if vocational education is to be effective at the secondary level.
We therefore have not designed separate secondary education programs and facilities tailored to the needs of students who will not attend college. Those facilities would need specialized faculty and specialized equipment, as well as relationships with the community and businesses in order to provide apprenticeship and work/study opportunities.
"Tracking" has been a dirty word in educational theory for over 50 years. Everyone is on the same track, in theory. We do not want to designate students as 'non-college' material, and there is outrage when that suggestion is made.
On the other hand, if all vocational education is postponed until post graduation, what would be the role of secondary education in preparing students for later vocational education?
5
I totally agree with this. The fact that such support is not yet available reflects, I think, an opinion that not all jobs are important, and that's so wrong. There's no such thing as an unimportant job. Most of us depend heavily of people whose jobs don't require a college degree. I don't know what I'd do without my car mechanic, my plumber, my hair cutter, and the people who clean my office at work. They're so important. They keep entire communities moving.
17
Mechanics and plumbers not only do not incur $100,000-200,000 in costs to learn their trade, they often learn it while on someone’s payroll. As such, they cannot reasonably expect much in get way of income nor status since they haven’t made the investment.
1
@From Where I Sit
Mechanics and plumbers cannot expect much, but they get it, even though they have not made the investment.
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@5barris
Because we sheepishly buy into the meme that such work is beyond our comprehension and ability. The service industry is shameless in its arrogance. Look at the charges on Amazon for a simple smart switch installation or on Task Rabbit to assemble an IKEA dresser. It’s obscene.
1
Public educators understand the underlying drive, rational or not, to have both equity and excellent in education. But it's not a realistic goal.
Because the most common form of public education funding is provided by local taxpayer bases, equity and excellence take the form of "all students are on a college track" because it is the most cost effective approach. With the exception of the wealthiest districts, there just isn't enough money to provide funds to allow different types of educational paths, so we all set a high bar and hope the lower performing students will rise with the rising expectations.
"Tracking" has become a bad word in schools, but on an international level, those countries that provide meaningful training and educations for multiple career trajectories typically have the highest performing students and highest test scores. The high flyers are allowed to soar and the low performers get the supports they need. In the US model, the high flyers usually have to navigate the rarefied air on the own, the low performers get extra attention and the teachers teach to the middle. The pressure to graduate students at a high rate means some standards just won't be met.
This is the reason why the US is middle-of-that-pack when it comes to international test scores - we are teaching to the middle.
6
A fair amount of vocational training, e.g., in the skilled trades, is done by local community colleges, which are indeed supported by taxes and, in some states, free.
It is somewhat peculiar that the article doesn't mention the models used in many European countries.
Starting community college earlier is probably a good idea. What distinguishes countries like Germany, Switzerland and Austria is that vocational training involves paid apprenticeships, typically starting after grade 9 or 10, with a formal diploma after 3.5 years. Students alternate between on-the-job training, formal training in the company, and vocational school, including general-education subjects. For example, they might spend two days in school and three on the job. Starting pay is about $1,000 per month for a tool and die apprentice. Industry in the US does not seem to want to fund apprenticeships, and the unions who did have been greatly diminished and are not a factor outside a few large cities.
16
Having been a HS principal for decades, I worked hard at negotiating cooperative agreements with community colleges in our area and businesses to establish the kinds of workplace training, albeit primitive, described in this article. I also repeated the narrative that college is not for everyone---in fact, even for those whose talents lend themselves to a college curriculum, the specialized academic skills pushed in that curriculum are designed for future professors, not, the noble goal of becoming educated. I will admit, however, that my efforts, although seeing some success, were minimal in a culture where the everyone needs a BA degree is a strong meme. Added to that meme is, as this article described, no vocational infrastructure to make that track easy to navigate. So many of our academic and behavioral problems in schools could be solved/eliminated if we stopped trying to force square student pegs into round college holes. We serve students bodies with diverse interests, abilities, and talents---and yet, we have designed a one size fits all curriculum.
10
We also need to teach life skills in middle/junior/high schools. How to lease an apartment, how to negotiate and get a loan/mortgage, how to buy a vehicle, how to maintain a vehicle and house, the basics of cooking, how to create and maintain a budget, how to save for retirement, etc. Many children learn these skills at home but many do not and thus are thrown into adulthood with no idea how to proceed. And don't tell me you can learn everything on the internet these days because some things you cannot, and not everyone has access to the internet.
9
How about this problem. I have a huge amount of experience in recycling in fact I go as far back as to when it was simply called "scrap". Now our scrap company had another company called Landfill Recovery Systems this was back in the late 70's and our job was to salvage as much recyclables before sundown then of course I had to find markets to sell the scrap. At the time there was absolutely zero knowledge and zero education within this industry. Yet when cities decided they wanted to recycle they ONLY would allow candidates with a college degree regardless of what that degree was is. Our country has written off everyone who doesn't have a degreee yet these same people rely on people w/out a degree but were educated on the job in the real world therefor they are looked down upon. So our current system looks down on those who build your house, do your plumbing, repair your car, electricians, paramedics, police, etc.. Why must we look down upon those who do valuable jobs and do it well?
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@joe Hall This is so true! So much talent wasted due to class barriers and HR incompetence. And half the people with degrees appear to have no common sense anyway. This should be Oren's next article.
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@joe Hall--Exactly! It is ridiculous! I totally agree, and believe me, so does every high school teacher I know. In fact, at our school we often tell kids that our custodians know more and are more valuable than every administrator. We are stuck with out them and they fix everything. Their knowledge is indispensable.
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Excellent. This information needs to be widespread. There are too many debt-laden baristas with unmarketable college degrees - but who had a grand time at taxpayers' expense. And too few motivated, productive, skilled high school graduates.
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@Jack Schmedeman, Most "debt-laden baristas" did not have a grand time at taxpayers' expense. Many states, including Red states like yours, have been starving state colleges and universities for years, starting with Reagan. Perhaps if Red states backed their public universities the way that Blue states do, Red states wouldn't be the net drain on our country, and wouldn't need to be supported by those in Blue states, whose education has gotten them higher paying jobs. The resentment goes both ways, my friend. Folks in Blue states are getting tired of folks in Red states who don't want to educate themselves and want somebody else to bail them out.
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@Henry Hurt
If only the world was that simple.
Decadal and longer term changes in state support are hardly red vs. blue. For example, NY and TX may be up, but so are WY and ND. Meanwhile, MI, OR, MA, and CA are down, and more than MS or SC (source Illinois St U).
According to a Pew analysis, higher ed, on average, is the 3rd largest spending for states. And most states have NOT decreased taxes. Where has the state money gone? The state portion of Medicaid, now the second biggest budget item, has pushed higher ed down.
And please stop with the red-blue redistribution meme. States don't send and get money, people do.
@Henry Hurt
How arrogant! I'm in a blue state, and embarrassed by this way of thinking. Many of us blue-staters want to understand how we can work together to make life better for everyone. College for all is not the answer.
Brilliant piece outlining just what's needed today. My one child is attending a private college with a partial scholarship; she's not one of the students Cass is writing about. But in my community I see many, many young people, especially boys, who are not college material but could forge careers in areas that do not require a 4-year degree. Lacking support, many of them wind up in dead-end jobs. We should be investing in them; the returns over time would be profound.
Not everyone needs a college degree. But those who don't should be given some help to establish themselves in life. It's a win-win -- the future skilled worker, the taxpayer, and society as a whole would all benefit.
9
One of the key problems with our educational system though has been who decides which students are “college material.” The bias involved in such a life-altering decision has been crippling for generations of some groups of students.
2
Amen to this. We need so many people to help us; so many opportunities which require skills not obtained in college. We do pay too much for college because money to pay is sold in the form of easy to borrow but hard to pay back loans. Anyone who calls a for-profit college to inquire about enrolling will be told not to worry about the cost; loans are available, and sometimes entry fees are lowered to set the hook.
2
I am one of many who would have been better steered toward a trade. I'm over-educated and have always struggled in corporate environments. The trades offer skills, but they also offer a sense of family/brother- or sisterhood. This is often lacking in offices. If I could do it over, I would have gotten into a trade, it would have been a much better personality fit.
14
Westateclearly: All of us, except Mkoo, are well above the post-grad level of college. We are totally helpless when it comes to the daily survival skills such as fixing a leaking faucet, setting up a computer network, changing a tire, replacing a broken window, painting a wall, changing a water filter, etc., etc.
It's not that we feel that such mundane, pedestrian knowledge and task performance are beneath us (although they really are), but we get frustrated whenever we call a "trades person" if needed, and have to pay an arm and two legs to get such menial tasks performed.
Let's support those who are less fortunate as to not attain our level of intellect and sophistication as us. Dedicate more money so that competition among such persons for the same task performance is bolstered so that using them costs less.
Thoughts, fellow readers?
4
A couple thoughts. Most of the aforementioned menial tasks could be tackled with a google search and little patience. And an attitude of "I can do it". OK, I'll admit that setting up a computer network may be a bit difficult. And you don't always have to pay journeyman prices if you do elect to hire someone for task. There are plenty of "jobbers" out there, it is just a matter of talking to people and networking with who you know. But sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and pay a professional. And last, if you choose to enter a career where everyday repair is Greek to you, you've opted to use a portion of your (usually higher than average) income to pay people to do stuff. Having said all of that, I do like the articles proposals.
3
@Drs. Mandrill, Koko, and Peos Balanitis with Srs. Lele, Mkoo, Wewe, and Basha Kutomba
You are a group of intellectual snobs! Your only interest in subsidizing others is so that you can to pay less for the "menial" tasks that you consider yourself too good to perform. Those tasks are not "beneath" you; they are above you. If a crisis arrives, those with "survival skills" will fare much better than you. They are certainly not "less fortunate" than you! You should respect rather than demean them. A skilled worker is invaluable, and you should be grateful that they are around to rescue you.
FYI, I too, have a post-graduate education, can do little of the necessary survival skills, and am thankful that there are people with the types of education in which I am deficient.
Wow - your arrogance and elitism towards humanity is alarming. Let’s let the intelligent people learn how to maintain our own homes, educate the miscreant low intellect people with better vocational training so their wages are suppressed through increased competition, and really have winners and losers in society.
Buddy - I have a bachelors degree and can do just about any physical task in my home, because I built my own home and know how to read books. That’s right - they make home improvement books - and since your so bright you should be able to follow along.
Of course many intellects are physically uncoordinated and not mechanically inclined. Skills and people come in all shapes and sizes.
1
While I agree with the majority of the author’s argument, I have to ask why we have to pay for one program (the vocational track), at the cost of the other, more traditional one? My husband and children are Swiss, and Switzerland manages to finance both tracks WITHOUT the burden of loans for college students. Before other readers shoot back about onerous European tax burdens, I will remind them that the marginal tax rate in Switzerland is actually a few percentage points LOWER than the U.S. Like everything, financing universal education remains a question of national priorities.
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@Aubrey Mayo Maybe the Swiss tax rate is lower because they do not have to provide a 50 year safety net for vast numbers of people that did not learn the skills needed to support themselves for the rest of their lives. Those 4 years in high school are critical to a lifetime of self sufficiency.
The long term lifetime costs of having no saleable skills is staggering.
I taught mostly high school for 37 years and saw it first hand; I agree with everything you have said. My mother's experience in high school makes your point even though we are talking about the 1920's. In high school she chose the business curriculum while her older sister and friends chose the college track when college was an impossibility back then. After she graduated Ma became a secretary and ended up secretary to the president of the company. I think the best my aunt ever did was selling gloves in a store. Solid vocational education is needed and it must be supplied by non-profit schools and high schools who don't rip off students; think Trump U.
6
The educated elite who run this country will never stand for this. They want subsidies for their kids, not the lower middle class. Bernie Sanders is offering them free college, which would be the biggest giveaway to the upper middle class since we made mortgage interest tax deductible.
.
Mr. Cass will find a particularly hard time finding sympathy here in the NYT, which is a mix of rich college graduates and college graduates who feel the world owes them a free education because they were so virtuous and intellectual they studied something that yielded no marketable skills.
8
It’s interesting that you decided to polarize this discussion by making broad generalizations about “liberal elites” and people who read the New York Times when in fact, if you read the comments above yours, you will see that others don’t see this as a political issue.
1
@Tomo am a “ liberal elite” college professor who reads the NYTs, and I agree with Mr.Cass. College isn’t for everyone as I have seen students struggle and then drop out because they are unprepared or unsuited for college course work. We need electricians,plumbers, mechanics, chefs and trained folks who make things and keep our lives humming along. My mechanic is more valuable than you could possibly know.
2
Those advocating college of any level for everyone have little or no experience in high school classrooms after their own graduation. In my experience, most students in the average high school either are incapable of handling college or are simply not interested. Students who cannot comprehend how "Animal Farm" applies to their world, the importance of solving for x, or basic cell construction and function need practical training, not a futile attempt at a degree that is beyond them.
19
Vocational training is a great idea. If we expand government funding for it, however, there need to be vigorous accreditation requirements. "Public private partnerships" and "harnessing the innovation of the private sector" sound great. But we don't need to be dumping money into vocational schools that are Trump University by a different name.
11
We used to have a vocational education track in many schools when I was growing up in the fifties and sixties, but it was also low status. Kids who went the vocational route were considered not smart enough to go to college. So already, they started with low self-esteem unless they had a blue-collar family that strongly supported them.
But even if we had a strong voc-ed system, what would we train the students to do? High-skill jobs like machine tooling, welding, construction, or auto mechanics begin with workplace training, called apprenticeships, where the hiring institution provides and pays for the necessary on-the-job training. This is often as it should be since employers can train workers for skills they need right now. We all know that technology changes so quickly that schooling can’t keep up with it.
The community college also fills a crucial niche here, offering moderately priced training and certification for those just starting out or seeking a career change. We need to offer commensurate financial support for these students as we do for the academically inclined.
As it is, our primary and secondary schools aren’t doing such a great job preparing the college bound either. But that’s for another rant.
8
@EAK, All good points, and I would add that many of these jobs have and will continue to become jobs that are handled by robotics. It makes no sense to have nationwide apprenticeship programs for jobs that robots will all be doing in 5-10 years.
1
@Henry Hurt
If you fear automation, then you should worry more about white collar and even professional careers, and the justification for educational funding.
I think a skilled electrician or welder has just as good a chance, or maybe better, than an accountant, or even a lawyer.
1
Two issues not covered in this piece. First, the focus on achievement in lower and lower grades, to the point of penalizing elementary school teachers if their students don't learn to read fast enough, has obscured the real task of elementary education, which is to get students excited about learning. This is not something easily quantified, but it certainly can be discouraged by focusing solely on quantifiable achievement measures.
Second, it is way past time to get rid of the pernicious and corrupt system of educational loans, which by law cannot be discharged in bankruptcy and are thus a inescapable and ruinous burden on those who do go to college. This law was a give-away that created a swarm of private corporate lenders with guaranteed profits enforced by the federal government. One of the most appalling scams in recent political history.
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If it is in the interests of America to see what college graduates have really learned, besides guzzling bear and smoking dope, it is essential that all students expecting to graduate college have a defined set of skills. Decades ago colleges had rigid requirements that students had to fulfill before they were allowed to graduate. Those requirements were waived when we moved into the 1970's. Instead, students didn't have required courses for a balanced college experience, they had electives. Thus, in some colleges students would take whatever they wanted. The result has been college graduates who have no education in anything other than their major study area.
Why don't we have a national assessment test for all students expecting to graduate, given at the beginning of their last year. If they don't do well enough on this test they have to take additional, non elective courses to correct their deficiencies. This would probably revive the necessity of students taking required courses, but I for one, having seen the lamentable state of knowledge of literature, theater, music, poetry, the fine arts, and philosophy among recent college graduates, would be happy to see that happen.
2
Low wage earning college grads are not failures! Consider the average teacher salary nationwide: approx $39K. ALL OF THOSE teachers went to college. Lots of college grads go into non-profit work, too, and some into the arts, where salaries are also low. The financial measure is a poor one for discounting the value of a college degree.
42
@Michael Most of those teachers have master's degrees. But that is a somewhat unique field, in which the people working are criminally underpaid.
7
@Sam Rosenberg Most? But I'm with you 100% on the salary injustice.
@Michael Well perhaps not. But in New York State you need a master's degree, or you need to be in school making progress towards one, to teach in a public school.
It's not an either/or. I'm teaching my daughter to take on board both "academic" and "vocational" skills. People with that balance are better able to respond to changing employment environments, to a wider range of other people and, believe it or not, the two cross-pollinate very well.
Maybe "the system" likes to have people think this is an either/or fork in the road, but history--both global and personal--have taught me otherwise.
4
What about teaching civics? What about teaching the common good? I believe there is (or used to be) a uniquely US moral and ethical tradition that spans all segment of our society---independent of specific religion or economic status. Shouldn't we have more education at every level in the vocation of living a good, productive, happy life?
I mean, look at the US president.
21
@ANNE IN MAINE
We don't care about civics or the humanities anymore in America. All students learn nowadays is STEM, and apparently nobody cares whether or not they can name the three Branches of Government, or tell you how many times the US Constitution has been amended.
1
A very successful local builder told me recently that he often must turn away lucrative business because his firm cannot find enough tradesmen. He and his business partner attend high school and community college job fairs and offer to train students as carpenters, plumbers, electricians and so forth but find very little interest among the students, even with the promise of internships leading to steady jobs that pay well by local standards. Kids - even those who are not college bound - tell him they just don’t want to do any kind of physical labor, or that learning a trade will take too long, or that they will make lots more money doing almost anything else. He thinks our celebrity-obsessed, media saturated culture may be as much to blame as our educational systems - no one notices, according to him, that a good carpenter is someone who is also “really, really smart.”
20
I agree that our system of basic public education is woefully underfunded. Or, more accurately, half of it is.
When you look at comparisons of US student achievement with those of other countries the top half of the median is doing quite well. But the bottom half is not.
One needn't be an education expert to see why. Schools in wealthier districts provide excellent pay for teachers and provide students with a solid education, including music, art and physical education. Those schools funding is augmented by high property taxes.
The bottom half lacks a similar robust tax bass and the result is they similarly lack the program, facilities, staff and amenities that their wealthier school districts have.
Not only do we have an archaic means for funding our schools, we are still using 19th century assumptions to prepare students for 21st century life. Everything from when classes start to what is taught clings to a time that no longer exists.
The only way to change this is for an entire state to make a radical change in their entire state's system. Only when other states see the results will they gather the political will to change.
17
The primary thrust of education in America is to teach the student how to take a multiple choice test. It has been so for at least half a century. I graduated from high school in 1969, college in 1973, and medical school in 1977. While individual teachers at each level taught their subjects, the overall thrust was the tests. In medical school, we had lectures in test theory leading up to part one of the National Boards. Sadly, I already knew the content of those lectures.
10
A headline that read, 'We spend too much on the Military and not enough on everyone else.' would make more sense. Funding education properly at every level (k-12, comm.college, vocational, higher ed.) benefits all. The fact is that state budgets have been cutting funding drastically to their colleges and universities for years. Articles such as these give the appearance that universities are awash in cash at the direct expense of public schools.
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@MG
Articles like this state the factual evidence that federal funding sends $150 billion to colleges and $1 billion to non-college tertiary education.
4
@Tom
And how much does the US federal government send annually to its military and to the military of other countries? How does that compare to the rest of the developed world? The latest military budget proposal is 750 billion which most likely will get fully funded.
6
@MG
Because the military is a jobs/work program, much of the money spent there should be compared to traditional ed funding
A jalopy is still the same even after the seats are covered with pigskin leather. We have been trying to change, reform an education system that is rooted in the industrial revolution and fundamentally based on knowledge transfer in schools. Today, knowledge is easy to find but methods of finding, evaluating, and using it creative ways elude many a college graduate. Trust me, I have spent over four decades in teaching, the last 36 at a well-known liberal arts college. Students blossom when we trust them to make decisions, choices on what to learn and how to learn it. But the system is so afraid that they may make a mistake and fail. How short sighted. Education is far too entrenched in teaching where the fundamental function and outcome should be learning. Most lose sight of this simple fact, a very important fact.
I used to tell my students in every class at the beginning of every semester that they should not be afraid of failure so long as they are ready to learn from their failures, get up, shake the dust, and keep walking. That is after removing the obstacle that made them fail for the people following their paths.
The education system needs a replacement not new seat covers.
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@Cemal Ekin As a fellow educator, I agree completely. Our educational system and our penal system are archaic and verging on self-destruct. Trust is the foundation of love and learning. Thank you for your intelligent comment.
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@Jane Bernard, I wish the higher ups could hear our voice and do something about it. I ran one course in which my only requirement was for them to do something campus-wide to bring forward the importance of learning. Then, I set them free. What a semester, what an experience! For all of us.
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@Cemal Ekin
I absolutely agree. One-size education fits no one. Given the existing fallacies of the present system, combined with the economic/tech challenges of the future workforce, we should have the impetus and the opportunity to try some radical reforms.
Example: I once observed my health nut brother, who struggled mightily but unsuccessfully with academics, doggedly perusing an extraordinarily fat book on nutrition with an equally fat dictionary at his side, (pre Internet). He looked up every term he didn't understand, of which there were many. Shocked, I realized then that his strong motivation to learn, in a topic that interested him, far surpassed my lazy achievement of A's in my academic career. Somehow, our teachers (governed by our public school systems) over 12 years had failed to identify and tap his capacity for learning, while they failed to challenge me. School only taught him that he was a failure. It taught me that I didn't have to work too hard to make the grade.
As a result, my high verbal skills easily vaulted me into college, where I could continue to get good grades, a liberal education, a Master's degree and exit with zero idea of how to find a productive career. My brother struggled through 2 years at a vocational school, achieved a degree and never found work in the field for which he trained. Neither my brother nor I emerged well-served by our educational system. Radical change is needed, beginning in elementary school thru college levels.
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Students with poor academic records are eligible for federal student loans at the same interest rates as good students, even though the weak students have lower college graduation rates and loan repayment rates. So effectively the worst college students are subsidized the most. We should return to a private student loan market which will charge students based on their likelihood of repayment.
You mean the kids who went to the good schools in the wealthy areas?
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Eye-opening: The sheer numbers of high school students who don't - or can't - navigate a smooth transition through college demands a re-prioritization of federal subsidies for our education systems, including vocational / technical training, community colleges and arts programs. So much talent deserves development and will repay our economy and enrich our society.
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Education fails to motivate kids. It merely sifts out college-bound material and leaves the rest on the mill floor.
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College is the last frontier where the inadequacies of the secondary education stand a chance of being corrected.
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Schools don't educate. They school.
If a person's IQ is too low, then he or she will never be able to learn their ten-times table, let alone achieve greater mathematical competency. And it is cruel to force them to do something they are incapable of doing.
The mean arithmetical average IQ of humans is 100 by definition. The distribution of IQ is roughly normal. The standard deviation (SD) in IQ is about 14. Roughly two thirds (68.27%) of a normal distribution lie within one SD either side. Hence, roughly two thirds (68.27%) of humans have an IQ between 86 and 114.
95.45% have an IQ between 72 and 128. 99.73% have an IQ between 58 and 142.
To obtain a Nobel in physics or a Fields Medal in mathematics requires an IQ of at least 160.
About one sixth of the US populace, so roughly fifty-four million, has an IQ of less than 86. For that segment, it's debatable how much benefit they will get from spending any time being formally schooled.
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I don’t understand the purpose of this comment. Only high IQ people should be educated? We should simply warehouse those with lower IQs? That one’s life is preordained by their IQ?
I think within your comment is the belief that only those with so-called lower IQs would go into the trades. That’s preposterous. We need intelligent plumbers, electricians and craftspeople. We have seen many without any intellectual chops go to Ivy League schools because of a fortunate accident of birth.
An education belongs to all children, to prepare them for whatever they choose to do with their lives. Equal support should be there for those who do not aspire to higher education. Their choices are just as valid.
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Student #2 is also more likely to become a Republican with misplaced and easily manipulated feelings of aggrievement. Which is why the Republican Party traditionally underfunds education.
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@William Johnson..
True. But for the others, they are staunch Democrats until they sense that the Party is more interested in taking what has been earned than they are in actually helping people in need.
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We spend more on education that every other country in this world and get less in return. Our schools rank 17th out of 40 in overall educational performance, 38th out of 71 countries in math and 24th in science. That's what you get when you have a president and a major political party that deny science and cut taxes that fund health care and education. In states like Kansas and Oklahoma, K-12 schools are so poorly funded they can only stay open four days a week.
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@Christy that's what you get when you live in a country that doesn't value intelligence, education, or anything that might upset the status quo. And it's what also happens when you refuse to spend money to attract intelligent people into teaching and when you treat teachers and education like an afterthought.
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@Christy...
Don't blame the educational mess on Trump...Not even Obama or Clinton could be held responsible.
Education is one of those political issues the responsibility for which is exclusive to the states.
And the decline in our education systems began almost half-a-century when the unions and their legislative enablers chose to believe that a degree in "education" was essential to creating a good teacher.
Much to the contrary, all it accomplished was to fund colleges for a useless degree and to turn out 'teachers" unfamiliar with the subjects they are supposed to be teaching.
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Of course this administration will make things worse if it can, but I'm not convinced that our education system was so great before Trump
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Those who do not complete college will continue to be subject to increasing competition from foreign labor. The jobs that people get are not just a matter of what they know, it is who they know, or what institution stands behind them. The chances of real economic advancement are much better for those who can get into the right social pipeline.
Actually the best training for many jobs is on the job itself. Maybe more money or incentives should be devoted to encouraging business to do that focused training.
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I’m having a hard time with the disdain for giving students fire alarms. Of all the things to get twisted about.
Fire alarms.
I clicked through the link and they aren’t especially fancy things. Just regular smoke detectors.
It seems like a thoughtful, low cost way to help off campus living be a smidge safer. Especially in cheap apartments that may not have alarms in place.
Picking it out as a lavish perk seems persnickety and mean-spirited.
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@Nicole I agree, "free fire alarms" is a lame argument the author uses to bolster his case. But then, the author does work for the Manhattan Institute, so I am not surprised by this right-wing "that's outrageous" cherry picking. However, the real question is why must the University buy smoke detectors for off campus housing, when most US municipalities require landlords to install and maintain smoke detectors in every housing unit they rent?
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@Nicole Boston has a large student population and expensive housing Every few years students die in fires, usually in illegal rentals. Free student fire alarms would be a very good thing.
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@Nicole
I didn't think the author was "picking it out as a lavish perk," but rather pointing out that the other individual who isn't in college doesn't get a fire alarm paid for (potentially) by federal education funding.
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Mr. Cass makes no mention of the noneconomic benefits of higher education, a glaring omission. The whole point of living in an affluent society like ours is to enjoy the luxury of not basing all our decisions on money. What about education for leisure -- for the third of the day when we aren't earning a living or sleeping, but can appreciate the arts, read books, and commune with nature? (In other words, to engage in those activities that are the end rather than the means of life.) Surely that's as important a part of total human development as any. And a college education prepares for it like no other.
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@J. Kardan you're missing the point: not everyone is college material, we need to acknowledge it and create tracks that support those individuals' opportunities as well.
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@Daisy Everyone needs a higher quality education for citizenship.
And if more parents were educated about the value of quality parenting in the early years of a child, and if high quality child care were available to everyone, you would be surprised at how many would benefit from and enjoy higher education, even if they choose to be a plumber, builder or a cop..
And the nature of US society and government might be dramatically changed for the better.
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No matter which side of this you come down on, we should all agree that removing inefficiencies, which allow a group that could earn $10-25K more annually to instead go spend a pile on college only to receive pay cut, is something that makes sense.
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Sure, not everyone should be tracked to go to graduate school. But college, whether community college or any of the other widely varied types, is necessary for all citizens.
Libertarians and other Republicans seem to like having citizens able to be manipulated -- people who do not know how to look up evidence on Google or Wiki, who do not understand history, totally unaware of the rest of the world (MAGA means nothing without context).
Most colleges are doing more and more to take care of students requiring support. And many who seem unprepared just need some extra tutoring and guidance.
The answer is to focus on solid college education, some combination of general liberal arts and some specific career prep as needed.
We do not need a reserve army of workers able to be manipulated.
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@JustThinkin - So why not just learn all that stuff in elementary and high school? That's the way it used to be. Those in the 12-18 age group have plenty of unused capacity, and could know more than the average college graduate if they buckled down.
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@Jonathan
You ask, "So why not just learn all that stuff in elementary and high school?"
1) It's just not available at many high schools. Here in Texas, for example, the teaching of history is often assigned to football coaches, as something easy for them to do. That's because they throw out a set of names and dates -- no context, no explanation or interpretation, no historiography. Often sociology, anthropology, philosophy are just not taught. Same goes for international studies, feminist studies, environmental studies, etc. Some excellent high schools have prepared teachers able to teach some of this. Many do not.
2) There is a lot to learn, and high school years are simply not enough.
We could reorganize all of education from K-12, provide more resources, and better prepared K-12 teachers. This would require many years of politically and financially difficult policy changes. It's probably easier to continue improving the post high school opportunities and support (while, of course, putting more effort into improving K-12.)
This op-ed is a cover for leaving a whole set of our children unprepared for our complex world.
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I don't think we'll ever change things until we start framing this question differently. This article uses the typical framing: the "academically talented" go to college, and those without "academic talent" should go to the trades. How might the world be different if we framed this the other way around: those with the talent to do high-quality hands on work go to trade school, and the others go to college? Or even better, encouraging *all* students to go whichever route best matches their skills and interests, as both types of careers are critical for a well-functioning society?
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@Lisa In light of the fact that automation and robotics are taking over many hands-on, labor-intensive tasks, it seems foolish--at best naive--to plan to guide many of our young people toward vocational training.
The author fails to mention what specific jobs he has in mind for those in the vocational track; surely many of these are targets for increased automation. And which companies are going to offer the "subsidized internships" the author calls for?
As I see it, in the not-too-distant future there will be those who instruct and manage the robots, and those who are replaced or managed by robots. I know which group I would rather belong to.
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@Lisa
The system you describe is the way it is done in most European countries, especially the most successful ones.
One major difference is that in those countries they understand the concept that investing money in their younger citizens is beneficial to their society in the long run. They apply that same concept to building and maintaining infrastructure.
Of course, they also don’t spend insane percentages of their budgets on a bloated military.
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@Mon Ray
This is a straw man argument.
But besides that, the automation argument you are making only applies to factory jobs, and many of those have already been eliminated. At this point, it's probably easier to automate a lot of typical "white collar" jobs than to program robots who can, for example, go to everyone's house and fix their electrical system. Any job that requires one-on-one, in-person attention is probably safer in the near future than something that can be done automatically and remotely. Why? Because individual (physical) robots are more expensive to build and maintain than a bit of code that can be written and dispersed without leaving one's chair.
Both "practical skills" and "book smarts" (I hate those terms) will always each be needed. The way they will be applied will be always changing, and never entirely predictable.
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I worked at a career tech high school for two years. I did academic support that included intensive fractions review for students in the building trades and food programs. Guess what? They had not mastered fractions previously in school, but using them in a meaningful context made all the difference. They had to pass a difficult test and every student did. What was particularly rewarding was to see certain students excel in this school, but had very poor academic achievement in their home school.
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Without a doubt the system of broken. Currently, every student is eligible for post-secondary loans and poor students are given Pell Grants (up to $5,600/year) without a require for repayment. In addition, states provide huge subsidies for state 2 and 4 year schools. In all cases, these monies are essentially spent without regard to outcomes. In the case of state subsidies which are effectively tax payer transfers, local politics not quality of student outcomes dictate where the money flow e.g. why do we continue to subsidize community colleges with single digit graduation rates (BTW - much worse than the much maligned for-profits). In the case of student loans, loans are given regardless of the quality of the school or major. A simple solution would be to charge students an interest rate commensurate with the effectiveness of their choice. In other words, if you choose a school with an abysmal student repayment track record or a major, you'd experience much higher interest rates forcing the schools to improve their outcomes. Today, far too many schools and students get away with bad decisions coupled with bad schools
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If by huge you mean not enough then I would agree with you. Effective education for all citizens throughout their lives is essential for an enlightened society to move forward. The implication of the article that the tradeoff between academics and trades is imbalanced is really due to an imbalance of educational spending versus other government spending.
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@JohnMark - John, the answer to every problem is not more money. The US higher ed system (like healthcare) is not lacking in money, it's lacking in accountability. While I do agree there are re-allocations, the current system doesnt limit access to Vo-tech training - both are eligible for Title IV loans and Pell. The system is massively inefficient and its costs have risen 2x the rate of inflation for over a generation. Compare this to Germany, Japan, India's (IIT"s), UK's universities (with a 3 year bachlors) and you will find that other than the top 5% of the 3000 4 year schools, we run a bad deal of quality vs cost
1
"One explanation for this bizarre state of affairs, in which society invests heavily in those headed for economic success while ignoring those falling behind, is the widespread belief that everyone can be a college graduate."
Want to know the real reason? Those who run the country, the affluent professional classes, are certain that their children are going to be college graduates, and use their power to direct resources to the colleges and universities. These people do pay the bulk of the taxes, but they get a surprising amount for their money - or maybe it's not a surprise.
Not having a vocational path ensures that those who don't graduate from college - other people's children - will never be competitive with educated college graduates. This solidifies the control that the top fifth has over everyone else.
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@Jonathan--I would agree to a certain extent--but I actually think this is an unconcious bias. Yes, the power structure exists and yes, they want to maintain it...but now they are realizing they won't have people to work for them unless they DO something, and fast. So the impending labor shortage and mass retirements of the baby boomers may change that. It amazes me that Europeans and Americans don't realize what a boon immigrant labor has been to this upcoming dilemma...Merkel was smart in realizing that Germany, with zero population growth, was going to go the way of Japan UNLESS immigrant labor came in. Their education programs are already in place, so all they have to do is get their new immigrants into programs in the next ten years. What are we going to do with our stagnant educational policies, our vast income disparities and our derision against immigrants AND technical programs? Hmmmm....
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@Jonathan. The super rich pay a lot in taxes in absolute dollars but proportionally they pay less than the average person AND even more importantly these taxes are on monies that would go not for necessities of living but for extras like a second home or a boat or lots of expensive designer clothes or thinking up ways of avoiding even more in taxes and passing it onto the next generation.
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@B. Rothman - That is not correct according to IRS statistics. Their numbers show that each decile of income pays a higher percentage of their income in Federal tax than those below them.
The top decile consists of households with incomes over $175K. The bulk of them make between $175K and $500K. They are at the top, and they pay the highest percentage in tax.
The billionaires are not statistically significant in macroeconomic terms.
Vocational education post high school (as well as in high school) is important and should be publicly supported. Two things have happened to sabotage that. In the 80’s funds for such programs were reduced or eliminated and never restored (Reagan). The gap was filled by for-profit “schools” that used shady methods of attracting students, taking their money, and not providing quality training. The other factor was the belief (exemplified by No Child Left Behind-Bush) that all students should (and could) learn the same things at the same time as demonstrated by ridiculous multiple choice exams, administered repeatedly. Governments (federal and local) should support a variety of paths for individuals, but should NOT be cowed into supporting for-profits.
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Good article, but maybe an easier solution is to allow kids not interested in to attending a university to go to a junior college their senior year in high school for vocational training. We need to pump more money into junior colleges which over the years has been a great back stop to some of the shortcomings of high schools.
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the us was once the world leader in educational attainment. We no longer are. This conservative recommends we retreat from
even the goal of universal high school. Dr dubois a century ago identified this as the problem of Mr booker t Washington and others. His critique applies here: vocational education alone is insufficient even for vocational workers because vocational skills atrophy in a changing world. what is needed is a trained mind
with skills, so that that mind can keep those skills honed and up to date. Failing to get through high school will not create that trained mind.
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@Rhporter I have little faith that most high schools create "trained minds".
But they could...
Probably the ability to think and learn, needs to be encouraged very early.... how wonderful if our society valued parent education and truly quality child care
What if a stay at home parent could get social security credit as the child care employee gets...
Our society has evolved strangely where people are mere economic assets or liabilities, and most importantly, consumers.
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@Rhporter--I agree that EVERYONE needs to read literature, to understand mathematics--and not merely arithmetic; everyone likewise should understand history, the forms of government, economics, psychology, and so on. A liberal education is what we aim to provide at the school where I teach. However, IN ADDITION vocational or technical education is necessary as not everyone has the desire to attend college, graduate school and so forth. That is the difference between being a skilled tradesperson, making $65,000 and making minimum wage working a fast food job or being a cashier at Walmart. The difference that would make in poor students' lives would be incredible.
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@Rhporter
"Get through" says it all.
While I don’t necessarily disagree with the basic premise of this article, it is very important that we do not conflate education and job training. Of course... we are probably doing an even worse job educating students than we are training future workers.
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I have taught at Ohio State, referenced in this article, for 38 years. Five out of seven of my children earned bachelor's degrees from it. However, when the eldest who graduated on the eve of the financial crisis in 2007 couldn't get a job that paid a living wage in the US, I started recommending to the others that they consider a trade. They all ignored me but I still feel strongly that vocational education should be subsidized in precisely the same way that those pursuing a BS or BA at an academic institution are.
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@Susan. V. Germany which has such a system. Also a more equitable social support services system. Doesn’t eliminate problems but it helps.
8
Who but a cynic could say that Cass's Op-Ed piece is the latest disguised demand to return the nation's elite universities to their pre-sixties exclusionary practices?
6
We spend too much money on university athletic coaches' salaries. When a sports coach earns millions more than a university's entire cadre of adjunct faculty, there is systemic corruption. College administrations are bloated, filled with talent-bereft time-servers... overpaid charlatans and hucksters.
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@Red...Athletic Departments fuel their own economy and provide Universities with a cash source. Athletics cannot be compared to academics.
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@merchantofchaos
Ah yes...here in the land of the $7 million a year coach. If athletics is the giant source of revenue, lets send that coach to Southeastern Switchgrass Community Teachers College as head coach and see what he earns.
Athletics is a source of revenue because of the University's size, stature, history, huge alumni base and statewide identification. In other words Athletics are financially successful because of the university....not vice versa.
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@merchantofchaos
Due to the arms race between colleges to field the best possible teams that money usually gets spent entirely on more trainers, buildings and coaches, etc. Very few athletic programs break even , let alone contribute to a college's budget. Along with that come "students" majoring in basket weaving or some other equally intellectually stimulating subject, and the pressure on faculty to pass students who don't even show up so that they can play big time sports.
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vocational education should start by 8th grade if not sooner and should be widespread as it once was.
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My maternal grandfather was pulled from school in the coal company town where he grew up as soon as he was large enough to do factory work - at age 12. He served two enlistments in the US Navy, the second beginning the day after Pearl Harbor. My one father left school in the middle of the ninth grade to tend the family farm. Neither one of them spent a single day unemployed up until the day they died. We need to use an aptitude testing method like the ASVAB to assign all male public school students to learning tracks that align with the needs of businesses and industry. The Army never has too many lawyers and not enough truck drivers, both of which are serious economic problems written about on these very pages.
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@From Where I Sit
Why only males, dare I ask?
1
The confused priorities of our educational system represent completely the confused priorities of our society. A well functioning society provides a place for every member, but our society has moved in the opposite direction. If this whole exercise is not correlated with decent jobs it becomes meaningless.
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@Reuben Ryder
Feudal systems had very well-defined places for every person, but I am sure glad we moved away from that.
In general, societies with well-defined places provide little freedom or equality (or both).
Cass' article is loaded with statistical problems. For example, Cass asserts that SAT scores have declined. However, there is no evidence offered suggesting that the questions are of equivalent difficulty from year-to-year.
5
@5barris Are you familiar with the concept of validity in testing? The College Board publishes statistics related to validity year-to-year specifically so that scores can be compared over time. The information is available on their website under "Research." Of course, this only shows that students are or are not successful at answering certain questions from year to year; it is a dubious measure of achievement. Testing companies, however, are *not* short on statistics to satisfy questions like yours.
8
Our educational system fails to educate students K-12 who finish high school with any meaningful skills. Where I live - the administrators will push anyone through (whether they come to class or not or have the skills to move up) to keep their jobs - they don't want their numbers falling too low so that the state steps in. It is dismal. Kids cannot do basic math (add, subtract, divide), can't write coherent sentences and certainly don't read. We need an apprentice system and a trade school system in addition to our core skills. And we need radical change.
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@Anita
Yes, we need a high school system that focuses on producing either university ready scholars or productive workers with marketable skills. Trying to force every student into the scholar mold ends up producing neither, as the non-scholars hold back the scholars, while learning little of any use in the employment marketplace.
.
The radical change would involve re-training (in some cases, replacing) half of our teachers who are only capable of following the university scholar model. A mix of teachers with teaching degrees and teachers with marketable skills to teach (some part-time) would be needed to better teach vocational studies, which would require a great deal more flexibility with certifications and pay rates than current teacher union contracts allow.
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@Anita
I agree. I think one result is that we need to fund remedial education through public schools. Instead of what is happening now, where many students enroll in college and need to take (and pay for) remedial classes for which they do not earn credits, remedial education should be offered in every public high school. It is the K-12 system that failed these people; it should be the K-12 system that is responsible for teaching them until they achieve competency. School administrators should not be allowed to kick the can down the road until it lands on someone else's turf.
3