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We already have a network of tech training institutions in our community and technical colleges. I'm a member of the advisory committee for a technical program at one of these colleges. The existing programs have the same challenges any new one would face.
Many students come out of high school totally unprepared for employment or continui…
We already have a network of tech training institutions in our community and technical colleges. I'm a member of the advisory committee for a technical program at one of these colleges. The existing programs have the same challenges any new one would face.
Many students come out of high school totally unprepared for employment or continuing education. The things these kids don't know is staggering. An inordinate amount of time needs to be spent teaching students things they should have learned in high school.
For our program, math is a particular challenge. In our area only 40% of students graduate high school performing at grade level in math. Which means we have students coming into the program unable to do the required math. The options are either, adding math classes, which increases cost and time for the student and risks turning a two year program into a three year program, or teaching the math they need in the technical classes, which diminishes the value of both.
We risk weeding so many students out of the program, with math requirements, that the program no longer attracts or retains enough students to justify its continued existence. Many students come out of public schools incapable or unwilling to grind through any challenging subject matter. This is college algebra and trigonometry we're talking about here, not calculus.
This is a long way of saying that you can't boot camp people who can't lace their own shoes. Until the public education system produces competent students, we're just papering over the cracks.
The primary education system is in desperate need of reform, and for largely the same reasons as the higher education system - decades of DEI standards destruction.
Steve Jobs said this decades ago: needs to be a voucher system. It’s extremely hard for new private schools to compete with taxpayer funded government childcare. When a parent pulls their kid out they don’t get to spend that $17k / kid elsewhere. That’s what my school district was spending per person.