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A college degree is becoming like home ownership yet not all people are smart enough to be in college or disciplined enough to have a mortgage.”

We have a WINNER!!!!

EXACTLY!!!!!

The school boards have removed almost all of the vocational classes- welding-—woodworking-—shop-— mechanics-— even home economics where a person can at least learn how to cook, since they are surely going to eat for the rest of their lives.

Employers looking for machinists, carpenters, cabinet makers, fabricators who can weld.... they are crying.

I ask them: When in your entire life have you ever gone to a school board meeting and discussed with them about the lack of training for those who are definately NOT college material????

They look at me with the deer in the headlights look, and say never..

Not even when their own kids were in school. They are leaders in their communities—Rotary- Kiwanis- Elks- Chamber of Commerce-—and none of them think for 2 seconds about hammering the school board to put those classes back into the schools.

Now everyone bitches about “jobs going out of the country”. We have brought some of this on ourselves, acting thruout trhe entire 13 years of a kids public education as tho having any kind of a blue collar job is just “not done”. Teachers are the second generation of the NEA influence. We are stabbing ourselves to death.

Until we turn this around- we will have thousands of seats occupied in colleges by kids who are only proving they can warm up the seat. They will never be productive from the classes they will eventually drop out of.

Pushing them with tutors, etc, gets them possibly thru college, but only ends up putting a kid into a job they hate, IMO.

When her teachers lied to her and gave her “A”s the student very likely thought that, yes, indeed, she was ready for college.

My kids started community college at the ages of 13, 12, and 13 so I had an opportunity to hang around the community college ( especially the math lab). Every student who attended that community college took a placement test. It was very surprising to me that students who had earned good grades in high school needed remedial courses. Evidently, their teachers had lied to them. An “A” in English or Algebra II in high should mean that remedial courses would not be necessary, but that absolutely was not the case.

Also,...Why is it that the community college did a great job in getting these kids up to speed when just 10 to 12 weeks earlier the high school couldn't? Same kids. Same rotten dysfunctional families. Same economic status. The kids are working the same grunge jobs at Mc Donalds. But...The community college does a great job and the high school doesn't.

Finally, why arent’ these community college placement tests given to all students in government high school who may have plans for attending college? Shouldn't they know a year or two ahead of high school graduation that their H.S. diploma won't be worth the paper it is written on?