Wednesday, November 23, 2005

Real World

News from the real world…

“More than 80 percent of manufacturers report that a moderate to severe shortage of skilled employees is hindering their ability to meet customer demands, according to a report Tuesday by the National Association of Manufacturers. Technologically sophisticated factories are struggling to find a younger generation of machinists, technicians, and engineers to replace skilled workers entering retirement, the report said.”

It’s not just the manufacturing sector that has this problem; construction jobs require skilled workers as well and they can’t be found. And this news is not likely to get better. Our high schools are simply not delivering that generation of workers needed to fill those jobs. Schools focus their energy on delivering every student to the front door of the university.

And at the same time, the schools (in California) will allow 50,000 students to leave high school this year without a diploma. They didn’t fit the “university mold” and they didn’t pass the exit exam. That’s not a failure on the part of the students, that’s a failure of our society to address the real world educational needs of all of our children.

And these 50,000 non-students won’t simply disappear, they become the unemployable and next year they will be joined by 50,000 more.

3 comments:

  1. Back here in Maine they have vocational schools for kids not inclined to attend the university. There are programs for boat building, small engine repair, auto shop and body work, nursing, dental hygenist, food worker, etc, etc. The problem the state faces is that these kids go on to places like California to make money and fill the needs there.

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  2. Now that makes Maine a progressive state! I guess you have real people involved in government there and not actors.

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  3. It has been a pretty common sence State until the New York and Mass. liberals moved up here. The balance has been shifted a bit and there is a move from a more direct form of democracy on the local level to a representative form. In one town for instance a memorial was going to be built for firefighters but the town councilors decided it wasn't PC to have God in the "Firemans prayer" luckily the people are less apathetic than in the highly populated states and there was an uprising. The PC crowd lost.

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