Posted on 03/19/2019 5:20:45 AM PDT by reaganaut1
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For every 100 American students who begin the ninth grade, 18 will fail to graduate high school on time, 25 will earn a diploma but not enroll in college, and 29 will enroll in college but fail to complete a degree. Even among the 28 percent who graduate from college in a timely fashion, 12 will end up in jobs that don’t require college degrees anyway. Only 16 out of the 100—call them the Fortunate Fifth (and it’s more like a sixth)—will move smoothly through the high-school-to-college-to-career pipeline that we pretend should be everyone’s goal.
And the picture is not improving. Despite a more than doubling of per-pupil spending in real terms since the 1970s, standardized test scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) have remained flat. SAT scores have declined. In 2013, the national board responsible for the NAEP mapped test scores to a threshold for college preparedness. Fewer than two in five high school seniors cleared the bar in either reading or math. The reading scores allowed for historical comparison and showed a decline over two decades, both overall and within racial groups. At no point from 1992 to 2013 did even 20 percent of African-Americans or 25 percent of Hispanics achieve reading scores that would indicate college readiness.
Where progress appears to be happening, it is more often a consequence of lowered standards—and sometimes, outright fraud—than genuine improvement in outcomes. High school graduation rates have gotten better, at least marginally—from 79 percent in 1970 to 83 percent in 2014—but such results are hard to credit, absent improved test scores. Pursuing higher graduation rates, many states have eliminated requirements, created “alternative” diplomas, or manipulated their data.
(Excerpt) Read more at city-journal.org ...
In 1982 I paid $2,300 for a ten month, four night a week course in COBOL and IMS DB/DC. That became a six figure career that has served me to this day (Though I’m now a BA).
One of my classmates, with two years of community college (with an average C grade) before the course, went on to become a CIO of a fortune 500 company for over a decade and, when he retired, cashed out almost $10,000,000 in stock options.
So yeah, College is way over-rated.
After vocational ed students get their first job, they can take, and would be well advised to take, enrichment courses that give them a better understanding of how the world works, i.e., history, economics, government, etc. There are non-left schools that teach these courses inexpensively online, such as Liberty University and Hillsdsle College.
“In 1982 I paid $2,300 for a ten month, four night a week course in COBOL and IMS DB/DC. That became a six figure career that has served me to this day (Though I’m now a BA).”
I completed a program like this in 1986 at NYU. Learned COBOL, JCL and BAL60 and received a certificate. In the 33 years since I took that course, I have held every position in an IT department with the exception of CIO. In 2017 I received my MS in Operations Management and now I am finishing up my MBA in IT Management. I have one position left to fill before I retire and it will be as a CIO.
Then I plan on living somewhere tropical, enjoying my retirement and being an adjunct online professor teaching IT.
I have been saying for YEARS we need a 2 tier post HS system with parralel tracks for college and vocational.
The tiers should be equal with vocational getting grants and loans just like college.
And BOTH should require the institutions to have a LOT more skin in the game than they do now.
The difference between your story and mine is that I pursued no formal education after that school. In hindsight I wish I had.
If I had it all to do over again, I would have joined the Canadian Military out of HS. I could have been retired by now. I did not sign up back then because I firmly believed that if a ‘shooting war’ arose, Turd-owe Sr., PM at the time, would have sided with the Soviets.
While I had no fear of fighting against any and all invaders, I was NOT prepared to fire at relatives in the US military, especially when it would have been SOVIET aggression.
Being older now, I understand that while Turd-owe would likely have been sympathetic to the Soviet ‘cause’, he was pragmatic enough to understand that he could not side with the Soviets. His little boy, our current PM, lacks such basic intelligence.
“Then I plan on living somewhere tropical, enjoying my retirement and being an adjunct online professor teaching IT.”
I spent my many years in college and worked every term (have yet to graduate). I washed dished in my fraternity and eventually became structural manager (using tools to fix things that ‘no-one broke’ and I was the only one with knowledge and skill to fix it).
Transferred from a Pac-10 (now 12) college to a smaller state college.
Learned lots of computer tech stuff, began working at a tech company, travelled all over the US and into Europe teaching our proprietary hardware/software and managing my 11 employees spread throughout the US. Then another tech company (eventually purchased by Oracle) offered me a training/certification position.
After 9/11 there were layoffs and I began anew...
Eventually taught as an adjunct Professor in my university system for more than a decade teaching software applications. The teaching was excellent, the administrators were totally incompetent (I know as I actually ran the entire state-wide program TWICE while the university was looking for ‘appropriate’ managers — I was not allowed to work over 20 hours and I grew the program, the last manager shrank the program with 2 1/2 full time staffers...it’s gone now).
Wishing you the best, FRiend.
My plumber makes more than the vast majority of the advanced degree holders I know.
I’ve been saying for year we should bring back voc training on the middle/high school. Mandatory cursory vocational classes in middle school promote discipline and give kids basic skills for a lifetime. Elective voc classes in high school burnish those skills. College track guidance only is miss-guidance.
You’d have to be stupid not to understand that we need people with hands-on skills. The need for plumbers, electricians, carpenters, bricklayers, mechanics, heating and air conditioning specialists, and so for will never go away. Yet our “educational system” acts as if no one needs those skills and that they’re too good to teach them.
I’d like to see schools return to teaching general math; in fact, I think ALL students, college bound or not, needs to have a “consumer math” class in high school. Not everyone needs to know algebra; everyone needs to know things like how much an item will cost when sales tax is added on.
I’d also like to see a “home ec for everybody” course, too. We should teach people how to do things like sew on a button, cook some simple nutritious meals, do basic home maintenance, and for that matter how to check the oil in their car, change a tire, and so forth.
I have a buddy, whom I went to elementary, and eventually high school with. We drifted apart after HS and he contacted me about 15 years ago. As he was a bit of a ‘wild child’ in HS, I figured that he might be contacting me from jail, looking to scam an old HS friend. As it turned out, he was a Captain in the Canadian Army.
At the age of 27, living in his mother’s basement, unemployed, uneducated except for HS and partying whenever he had money, he decided to make a change. He walked into the local recruiting office and signed up. Now, 30 years later, he is preparing for retirement in a few years.
Well done, Captain!
Took a 1600 hour course in HVAC at a Tech School in 1982-83 for a shade under 6K. Best money I have ever spent in my life. I have been in the trade since then in one form or another and have always been able to turn a buck with it.
Some of the best teachers I ever had. Electrical theory class alone was worth its weight in gold. Was taught by a retired Air Force officer who formed a lesson plan from that service’s manual.
The value of vocational training especially to today’s generation can not be overstated. We are losing an entire generation pursuing worthless degrees.
Took me 38 years to get my bachelors. There is always time.
Listening to local NPR this AM-—an area politician is trying to expand tech high schools in MA-—there is a 3000 student waiting list for the kids that want to attend.
Maybe the kids are catching on.
.
Took me 38 years to get my bachelors. There is always time.
I’m almost 66 and will be retiring soon. I already teach on the one subject that really matters to me: Christianity and the bible. The rest of my time I spend working my property and playing bass - and visiting with people.
I really do see this world, with the internet and search engines, as a world where an actual college degree’s primary function is to get one a job - with the exception of STEM of course. I tried that DIY brain surgery and everybody sez I’ve not been quite right ever since.
I agree.
They want people to be dumb and helpless.
Nothing like working with your hands and creating something.
Tremendous satisfaction.
” I tried that DIY brain surgery and everybody sez I’ve not been quite right ever since.”
LOL. I really do admire you for what you have done and what you are doing. What kind of music do you play? I play guitar, but have been severely hampered due to arthritis in my hands. I only lay now to help me keep my fingers loose, but I cannot get through an entire song which is frustrating.
I do agree with your wife on taking challenge exams. I took a few of those challenge exams a long time ago to gauge how much I actually knew. Did pretty well. I think each test was 85 dollars and if you passed you received three credits which was transferable to college. I also wrote papers for 5 project management courses which I received 15 credits. I saved over 6 grand by doing this.
Good luck to you and thank you for the responses. Pleasure talking with you.
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