Good post. Trade schools matter everywhere. And in a perfect world every high school would have a robust trades curriculum.
But consider all those standardized state exams kids must take. None of them test for trade skills. Until that changes the trades will be ignored.
I would agree but they're only as good as the people running them.
Back in the early 90's my company hired a young quality engineer that I had met playing racquetball.
After almost a year, he quit and was hired by Focus Hope down in Detroit. Within a year he quit there and was rehired by my company.
His tale was typical of all govt. subsidized training programs. The minority trainees had no work ethic, were constantly absent from their jobs and there was no one at Focus Hope that really cared.
The only thing the organization was concerned about was the enrollment numbers since that determined the amount of fed. monies. Instead of booting the dead beats out, they kept them on the rolls to keep the funds coming in.........