In NYC schools vocationals are on a downward trend. There are many new career oriented schools opening, but the positions require academic work beyond HS. Things like journalism, media, finance etc. The old trade schools,except maybe Aviation HS, are falling by the wayside. Yet the city and surrounding areas have a dearth of people who can be carpenters, dry cleaners, plumbers, a/c repair etc. These skills are left to the for profit schools that advertise on afternoon TV, and whose record of success and honesty is not always believable. You’re quite correct about the college for all nonsense. I don’t know how many barely literate 8th graders I saw from Queensbridge Houses who told me they wanted to be a lawyer when it was unlikely they’d ever learn enough to even serve a subpoena.
Verily, it’s a sad state of affairs in the public schools. We’re in a pendulum shift right now, and as you say, the *for profit* schools are filling that void. Perhaps we’ll live long enough to see a shift in the other direction.
In our state, Pratt & Whitney used to be the largest employer...now it is the casinos. Young men and women with or without a HS degree could get a journeyman job in a tool and die shop and live the American dream with that income. I’m hard pressed to think of a small tool shop I know of anywhere, when they used to dot every corner and back lot.
The times have produced a need, here, for large numbers of workers with rags and window cleaner to wipe down the slot machines; from observation, a lot of these workers are Orientals, probably the *first generation* Newt mentions.
Historically, 75% of the students who reach age 16 in the City of Hartford, CT drop-out of school. The *hooks* that keep them interested in learning, like shop, woodworking, small engine repair, home ec, health, sewing arts have vanished from the curriculum.