I have mentioned this before. It is very difficult to find a skilled craftsman these days. George W. Bush is responsible for much of this. His ‘No Child Left Behind’ Act destroyed trades education in public schools. NCLB tested for math and English, but NOT for the trades.
And woe to the districts whose schools scored low on the NCLB tests! So as a matter of self-preservation, most school districts eliminated their trades programs. The trades students were shoved into advanced math and English classes - classes they neither wanted nor needed.
The urban high school where I taught had a superb carpentry program. It was probably the best one in the state. It’s gone now, thanks to George W. Bush.
Wood shop 1st hour, my mother still has the cherry coffee table I made her. I’m 70+. Learning about the trades is a very valuable knowledge set. Even if you never work any as your primary job. I feel sorry for the younger set. Ignorance is not bliss.
The high school my kids went to still has trades…automotive,carpentry,and culinary arts. Maybe others.
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Never saw a guy turn on his base like W
Today my ex told me she’s having a bathroom remodeling job done. Today a workman was stumped about something and said he needed to check on something. She walked out to his truck to ask him something and he was looking at a YouTube video on the topic.
Obama also tried to wreck trade schools with his 'Gainful Employment' regs, which were deliberately designed to get rid of for-profit vo-techs and trade schools with impossible-to-meet standards. For example, 70% of students in every graduating cohort (divided by training type) must be employed in their trade within 90 days of graduation. If, say, 2 students in a subclass of 5 graduating in metal fabrication aren't gainfully employed in metal fabrication the whole school fails and could get shut down.
Fortunately GE was stopped in court. Obama tried to resurrect GE in 2015 but Trump killed it. A few months ago Biden resurrected GE to try to nuke the trade schools once again.
On the other hand, I ran into a refrigerator repair man in the 1990s who said he was still working because he could not even find someone to teach to take over his business. He had been looking for 10 years.
I think the push to college started before Bush. High schools were rated by how many were accepted into college.
Then we hd the whole give-away of our manufacturing...
Makes me ill when I think about it.
Clinton also. Turned every trade and voc school into a COLLEGE so he could say that college enrollment increased under his watch.
Oh it started long before Bush. It was going strong in the late 70s when I was in elementary school and the teachers would go on their monthly diatribe “you need to study and stay in school or else you’ll wind up a ditch digger”. By the 70s the trades were something you were supposed to avoid and we spent a lot of time beating that idea into our kids. Even though they’re pretty useful.