By Mark
NBC News ran a story last night about Siemens and their 3400 un-fillable jobs despite an abundance of job-seekers out there right now. The segment (embedded below) also featured small businesses who also have an abundance of openings–one owner noting something to the effect of "we can buy all the equipment we want, but it's no good if there is no one skilled to use it."
The piece discussed the "skills gap" between what the jobs require and what the prospective employees were trained for or capable of doing… and thankfully stopped just short of blaming American public school teachers for causing this, the failing economy, or current debt crisis in Europe.
The solution to the skills gap, according to the report, was more training (not testing) in math and science. Okay, that's fine. But how about training in skills?
Several of us here at SfS have beaten the drum about the need for more investment in vocational and career and technical education at the high school level. This got me thinking: what if we took every penny currently dedicated to statewide testing and test prep at all levels and instead invested it in vocational and CTE programming starting even well before high school? What about devoting funding toward funneling kids toward voc/tech speciality schools after high school instead of always talking about "college readiness" as if enrollment in a four-year is the only indicator of a school's success?
Alas, in a cursory search, I was unable to find clear numbers about the cost to taxpayers to adminster and assess all the state tests. Certainly, vocational and CTE programs can be quite expensive due to specialized equipment or facilities needs, but still, I feel like when we look at the problems facing the country, we're mismanaging our investment.
One of the first and most important lessons I learned as a pre-service teacher was to examine the needs of my students and adjust my response, rather than just dish them a canned curriculum regardless of their needs. When I consider what our economy and country apparently need from public schools, it isn't kids who can pass tests. We need kids with skills… and report after report highlights that skills gap. Our schools apparently are not arming the emerging workforce with the tools they need to be successful.
Instead of using tests to punish schools for what we're supposedly not doing, why not fund programming to help schools do what we ought to be doing?
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Every summer as I tackle home maitainance/improvement chores I am grateful woodshop and drafting were still required courses when I was in middle school. We have done such a disservice to our students and society by making the vo-tech route second rate to college. I have yet to meet someone liscensed in electrical, plumbing, or masonary struggling to find work (they may have dry spells but those don’t last long) Whereas I know far too many unemployed/underemployed college graduates.
Kristin is absolutey right: people need jobs with wages that allow them to support a family. The promise of a college education being the ticket to that dream is ringing pretty hollow these days. Time to consider other options to preparing students to be “work ready”.
Mark – I’ve seen a lot of those signs too, but you can’t really support yourself working at a coffee shop. It’s a good part time job while you’re living off mom/dad/partner/student loans, but the kinds of jobs the desperately unemployed are seeking are jobs that can support a family and have benefits.
It is shortsighted, narrowminded and a big mistake for us to be eliminating vocational education. I know many people who have happy, healthy, financially successful lives working with their hands. In fact, sometimes while I’m sitting at my dining room table grading endless student essays, I wish I worked with my hands.
While there are still opportunities for graduates to go to technical colleges and be trained for this, a lot of the people I know discovered their life’s path in a high school voc ed class, not a high school literature class.
I really worry that while we’re shoving, “But you’ll all be prepared for college! And college equals the happiest life!” we’re forgetting that not every child is going to find his life’s work in the pages of Madame Bovary.
That is a good point, Rob. And I don’t suppose we’re talking about the kinds of skills for which a company will provide relocating and mortgage assistance (do they even do that any more?) …especially for several thousand people.
What surprises me is the number of “we’re hiring” and “help wanted” signs I see just in the day to day around town stuff we do this summer. I’ve seen them everywhere from small business coffee shops to Office Depot. I doubt the skills gap is at play there, but who knows.
Okay this isn’t related to education but it speaks to the interconnectedness (is that a word?) of education and society. Workers are often unable to relocate to jobs because they are not able to sell their current houses in the depressed housing market.
Much of what we teach is already driven/informed by stakeholders such as the Business Roundtable, who for years have decried the lack of skills in THEIR workforce.
Sometimes I wonder if we’d be better off letting 16 year-olds choose their own track for the last three years of high school.