Free Republic

Hands-on skills are staging a comeback at leading-edge districts, driven by high college costs and demand for more career choices.. In America’s most surprising cutting-edge classes, students pursue hands-on work with wood, metals and machinery, getting a jump on lucrative old-school careers. School districts around the U.S. are spending tens of millions of dollars to expand and revamp high-school shop classes for the 21st century. They are betting on the future of manual skills overlooked in the digital age, offering vocational-education classes that school officials say give students a broader view of career prospects with or without college. With higher-education...

Edgar was a pain in the neck. Or maybe we should say, it was difficult for some of the teachers at Edgar’s high school to appreciate his distinct learning style. Edgar was disruptive. He had a smart mouth and tried to talk his way out of everything, including his poor grades in core classes. Today, barely out of high school, Edgar is the lead foreman for a California-based union carpentry company that designs and builds upscale retail shops for high-end clients like Louis Vuitton. He is well established on a lucrative career path at a time when some of his...

As school funding became a matter of standardized test scores in reading and math, the budget tightened for classes that taught woodworking and printmaking. From the 1990s to the early 2010s, students took fewer credits in shop class — or as it is now called, Career Tech Education — according to data from the National Center of Education Statistics. Instead, the priority turned toward securing students spots in four-year degree programs. But with more job openings in the trades and more questions around the value of a four-year college degree, high schools are turning their attention back to equipping the...

<p>DOVER, N.H. — A New Hampshire high school student shocked so severely in shop class that his heart stopped beating is suing his teacher, the school district and the city of Dover.</p> <p>Kyle Dubois and his parents claim teacher Thomas Kelley did not warn Dubois and other students of the dangers of the electrical demonstration cords in their electrical trades class.</p>