either a college admission, a job offer, a trade internship, military enlistment or a gap year. This seems terribly unfair unless a ton of additional manufacturing or service jobs are coming available.
What are your thoughts, and please try to keep it apolitical.
Link - ( New Window )
That's exactly my thoughts.
+1.
If you don't go to college, fine. Get a job, join the military, or do an extra year of trade/vocational school training before you get a diploma. And it'd be best if that last two years of HS was the trade component for the most part.
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I think it is an excellent idea. In practice, it will be an epic failure.
That's exactly my thoughts.
Yep.
High school does not teach you enough to make your career decision.
Agreed. I think it's an admirable goal, just not really feasible.
If you aren't going to college, don't have a job offer, not doing a trade internship, not going to the military wouldn't a "gap year" be a fallback for everything else?
But, that doesn't seem legal to me ...?
Eventually, this will end up being decided in a court (I bet).
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either a college admission, a job offer, a trade internship, military enlistment or a gap year.
If you aren't going to college, don't have a job offer, not doing a trade internship, not going to the military wouldn't a "gap year" be a fallback for everything else?
I don't think it's a "gap year" unless there's something on the other side of the "gap." But I could be wrong.
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what other options are there?
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either a college admission, a job offer, a trade internship, military enlistment or a gap year.
If you aren't going to college, don't have a job offer, not doing a trade internship, not going to the military wouldn't a "gap year" be a fallback for everything else?
I think by a "gap year" they mean you have something lined up already for a year later. Like, you got accepted in 2017 for admission to college in 2018, but you'r taking a year off to work or travel or something.
I don't think it's a "gap year" unless there's something on the other side of the "gap." But I could be wrong.
In general a gap year I've always thought to be a year where you take off to figure out what you want to do.
Some kids get a job, some take classes at a community college, some do volunteer work (peace corps used to be popular during a gap year) some just travel. some do combinations of those things.
Anyway, it seems like the thought process is to get students motivated and thinking about their futures and even plan for their future, but the threat of not graduating seems about as legitimate as telling your kids "I'll turn this car around" unless like I think the gap year can be anything and doesn't require a commitment of any type beyond the gap year.
The problem isn't creating a mechanism to enter higher education or the workforce, it is adequately setting goals and expectations for students when they first walk in the doors of a high school - and adjusting the metrics by which high school counselors, teachers, principals and school districts are measured - namely college acceptance.
College retention, graduation and job placement should be the true measures of efficacy.
We have managed to brainwash our youth by telling them that the ultimate success of a high school student is to gain college acceptance. This is a metric used by students, educators and most problematic, parents. Parents don't want their kids to go to trade school, enter apprenticeship or work for a living out of high school. That gets in the way of personal pride and the notion of "success" that has been ingrained in our society. This cannot be understated.
High school counselors do an unbelievably poor job of helping students adequately explore options outside of the traditional pathway for young people. They do them a disservice by focusing on higher education and end up pigeon-holing students into a win or lose proposition.
Meanwhile, I know 19 year old Welders making $90,000 in six months and taking the rest of the year off. I know a Pipefitter in Louisiana who just turned 22 and made $110,000 working on a petrochem job on the Gulf - he just bought his first house, a brand new truck and is getting married to his high school sweetheart. It's stories like these that need to be told. There are a wealth of possibilities for students who are not college-bound for one reason or another.
But high school counselors, principals, administrators and school districts don't want to highlight the kids who successfully navigated high school and created a pathway to success that does not involve college. That is an absolute shame.
And the fish stinks from the head down. Our government has slowly eroded Career & Technical Education programs by decreasing funding, focusing on Common Core and in some cases de-funding programs altogether. This continues under the current administration (and the whole story is yet to be told based on initiatives talked about to include career readiness, infrastructure, manufacturing, etc).
This legislation is a ham-fisted attempt to address those students with seemingly no "plan" upon graduation. But the idea that graduation is somehow the "success" is where we've failed our young people. For that reason, as I said, I respect the sentiment in Illinois - but it's an ill-thought attempt to incentivize students for their futures.
(sorry for the length. TWSS)
I'm entirely convinced the problems with public education in America are made intractable by politics. Like healthcare, until the money is out of the elections, truly good ideas and real reform will be obstructed by those earning their living off the systems currently in place.
Good excuse for a press conference though.
The problem isn't creating a mechanism to enter higher education or the workforce, it is adequately setting goals and expectations for students when they first walk in the doors of a high school - and adjusting the metrics by which high school counselors, teachers, principals and school districts are measured - namely college acceptance.
College retention, graduation and job placement should be the true measures of efficacy.
We have managed to brainwash our youth by telling them that the ultimate success of a high school student is to gain college acceptance. This is a metric used by students, educators and most problematic, parents. Parents don't want their kids to go to trade school, enter apprenticeship or work for a living out of high school. That gets in the way of personal pride and the notion of "success" that has been ingrained in our society. This cannot be understated.
High school counselors do an unbelievably poor job of helping students adequately explore options outside of the traditional pathway for young people. They do them a disservice by focusing on higher education and end up pigeon-holing students into a win or lose proposition.
Meanwhile, I know 19 year old Welders making $90,000 in six months and taking the rest of the year off. I know a Pipefitter in Louisiana who just turned 22 and made $110,000 working on a petrochem job on the Gulf - he just bought his first house, a brand new truck and is getting married to his high school sweetheart. It's stories like these that need to be told. There are a wealth of possibilities for students who are not college-bound for one reason or another.
But high school counselors, principals, administrators and school districts don't want to highlight the kids who successfully navigated high school and created a pathway to success that does not involve college. That is an absolute shame.
And the fish stinks from the head down. Our government has slowly eroded Career & Technical Education programs by decreasing funding, focusing on Common Core and in some cases de-funding programs altogether. This continues under the current administration (and the whole story is yet to be told based on initiatives talked about to include career readiness, infrastructure, manufacturing, etc).
This legislation is a ham-fisted attempt to address those students with seemingly no "plan" upon graduation. But the idea that graduation is somehow the "success" is where we've failed our young people. For that reason, as I said, I respect the sentiment in Illinois - but it's an ill-thought attempt to incentivize students for their futures.
(sorry for the length. TWSS)
B, it's hard not to get political about the point I'm gonna make, but I'm gonna try.
In 2012and 2015 Obama pushed for huge increases in funding for vocational education. This was something the country needed; training for both HS and vocational college students so that they could learn marketable trades and make excellent livings w/o going to college. But of course it didn't get anywhere with Congress.
Link - ( New Window )
This funding mechanism supported the American Technical Training Fund that would provide grants for shortterm/accelerated job training programs in high-demand fields of occupation according to the BLS and other government measurables. The funding increase for career and tech ed provided technical assistance support for projects under ATTF only. This represented a difference in grant funding to individual states (and centric programs) in excess of $170 Million and limited opportunities to grow programs nationally.
In NYC, the goal is to make HS graduates "college and career ready". Except the focus is almost wholly on the college part, with career ready really piggybacking off of college. The reality is that there are many students who are not ready for college or will never be college material. But, that doesn't mean they are the hopeless lots they are made out to be. NYC used to have very good vocational HS. Now, the schools may still exist (Automotive, for example), but the most of the programs are gone. There should be a lot more invested in vocational/trade education in our public high schools.
In the end, everyone who academically qualifies for a diploma will get one. There will be plenty of ways to get around this or game the system. It's just going to be another piece of paper that guidance counselors are going to have to fill out.
The problem isn't creating a mechanism to enter higher education or the workforce, it is adequately setting goals and expectations for students when they first walk in the doors of a high school - and adjusting the metrics by which high school counselors, teachers, principals and school districts are measured - namely college acceptance.
College retention, graduation and job placement should be the true measures of efficacy.
We have managed to brainwash our youth by telling them that the ultimate success of a high school student is to gain college acceptance. This is a metric used by students, educators and most problematic, parents. Parents don't want their kids to go to trade school, enter apprenticeship or work for a living out of high school. That gets in the way of personal pride and the notion of "success" that has been ingrained in our society. This cannot be understated.
High school counselors do an unbelievably poor job of helping students adequately explore options outside of the traditional pathway for young people. They do them a disservice by focusing on higher education and end up pigeon-holing students into a win or lose proposition.
Meanwhile, I know 19 year old Welders making $90,000 in six months and taking the rest of the year off. I know a Pipefitter in Louisiana who just turned 22 and made $110,000 working on a petrochem job on the Gulf - he just bought his first house, a brand new truck and is getting married to his high school sweetheart. It's stories like these that need to be told. There are a wealth of possibilities for students who are not college-bound for one reason or another.
But high school counselors, principals, administrators and school districts don't want to highlight the kids who successfully navigated high school and created a pathway to success that does not involve college. That is an absolute shame.
And the fish stinks from the head down. Our government has slowly eroded Career & Technical Education programs by decreasing funding, focusing on Common Core and in some cases de-funding programs altogether. This continues under the current administration (and the whole story is yet to be told based on initiatives talked about to include career readiness, infrastructure, manufacturing, etc).
This legislation is a ham-fisted attempt to address those students with seemingly no "plan" upon graduation. But the idea that graduation is somehow the "success" is where we've failed our young people. For that reason, as I said, I respect the sentiment in Illinois - but it's an ill-thought attempt to incentivize students for their futures.
(sorry for the length. TWSS)
I agree with your post other than that the high school counselors, or any staff at the high school, are doing a poor job with providing options. Their hands are tied just as everybody else is in education. Until the government gets their corrupt fingers out of the cookie jar, this will never end. We have career and vocational positions in my county that go unfilled because there is nobody left to teach them. All of the vocational teachers in my school get paid to teach six classes because we can't get enough teachers to fill the positions for the numbers of kids we have in the program. When I was in high school (mid nineties), every single high school in the county had an Auto Shop. Every school had an Auto Cad drawing program. An Electronics program. Woodshop. No more. Now kids are bused to one location in the county for a specialty center. It's not nearly enough supply to meet the demand, but hey, the dollars need to go to high stakes testing.
You said it yourself, the options are gone. What other options can they present them with? It's the government that's driven the agenda of college or bust. No Child Left Behind. Mainstreaming. Standardized Testing. All kids can be doctors and astronauts.
It's completely politically (and dollar) driven. You wanna real eye opener? Google Pearson testing and see how much money they make from the United States government to administer all of the standardized testing. And they're not even American based!! Not to mention the secrecy in which they prepare and administer the test.
The government has completely blown up American education. Been saying it on here for years.
But high school counselors, principals, administrators and school districts don't want to highlight the kids who successfully navigated high school and created a pathway to success that does not involve college. That is an absolute shame.
I think that this, at least partially, can be blamed on media that publishes ratings of HSs based primarily on college acceptance and parents.
B, it's hard not to get political about the point I'm gonna make, but I'm gonna try.
In 2012and 2015 Obama pushed for huge increases in funding for vocational education. This was something the country needed; training for both HS and vocational college students so that they could learn marketable trades and make excellent livings w/o going to college. But of course it didn't get anywhere with Congress. Link - ( New Window )
There are 50 states, 1 district and thousands of communities who should take the lead on that and who probably know what their needs are better than a bureaucrat in Washington.
Thanks, B.
Appreciate that pal.
The problem isn't creating a mechanism to enter higher education or the workforce, it is adequately setting goals and expectations for students when they first walk in the doors of a high school - and adjusting the metrics by which high school counselors, teachers, principals and school districts are measured - namely college acceptance.
College retention, graduation and job placement should be the true measures of efficacy.
We have managed to brainwash our youth by telling them that the ultimate success of a high school student is to gain college acceptance. This is a metric used by students, educators and most problematic, parents. Parents don't want their kids to go to trade school, enter apprenticeship or work for a living out of high school. That gets in the way of personal pride and the notion of "success" that has been ingrained in our society. This cannot be understated.
High school counselors do an unbelievably poor job of helping students adequately explore options outside of the traditional pathway for young people. They do them a disservice by focusing on higher education and end up pigeon-holing students into a win or lose proposition.
Meanwhile, I know 19 year old Welders making $90,000 in six months and taking the rest of the year off. I know a Pipefitter in Louisiana who just turned 22 and made $110,000 working on a petrochem job on the Gulf - he just bought his first house, a brand new truck and is getting married to his high school sweetheart. It's stories like these that need to be told. There are a wealth of possibilities for students who are not college-bound for one reason or another.
But high school counselors, principals, administrators and school districts don't want to highlight the kids who successfully navigated high school and created a pathway to success that does not involve college. That is an absolute shame.
And the fish stinks from the head down. Our government has slowly eroded Career & Technical Education programs by decreasing funding, focusing on Common Core and in some cases de-funding programs altogether. This continues under the current administration (and the whole story is yet to be told based on initiatives talked about to include career readiness, infrastructure, manufacturing, etc).
This legislation is a ham-fisted attempt to address those students with seemingly no "plan" upon graduation. But the idea that graduation is somehow the "success" is where we've failed our young people. For that reason, as I said, I respect the sentiment in Illinois - but it's an ill-thought attempt to incentivize students for their futures.
(sorry for the length. TWSS)
That was a remarkable, honest post.
Some of these counselors aren't talking to students about topics like debt load, non-traditional occupations for young women, the importance of general and soft skills from a workforce readiness standpoint, employment in areas of need in the American economy, etc. Not to mention the myriad opportunities in the workforce - outside the realm of higher education - offering an unbelievable chance to earn a great living and contribute to society. And I'm not completely blaming them - it's not completely their fault.
I know young people graduating from college a couple hundred grand in the hole, with no real marketable skills, who become mal-employed. This means they're working outside their field of study or simply not working at all. This accounts for about 36% of four-year Higher Ed graduates. That's a disturbing number.
So here they are - with a piece of paper - $200,000 in debt, living at home, a dead-end job and a bleak outlook. It's enough to drive someone mad. They aren't contributing to society, they are woefully behind the earnings curve of their peers, etc - making it more difficult to establish credit, buy a home, get married, contribute as a tax-paying citizen, etc. They end up calling me and I can't hire them because they don't have any experience!
This brainwashing that I mentioned in my first post is an epidemic. It is ruining the lives of young people by the thousands (sorry to sound dramatic, but it's true) every year.
Having been in several countries where the apprenticeship programs are strong, we have a lot of hurdles to clear in pushing that way of career development, and funding is really a small part of it:
Meanwhile, I know 19 year old Welders making $90,000 in six months and taking the rest of the year off. I know a Pipefitter in Louisiana who just turned 22 and made $110,000 working on a petrochem job on the Gulf - he just bought his first house, a brand new truck and is getting married to his high school sweetheart. It's stories like these that need to be told. There are a wealth of possibilities for students who are not college-bound for one reason or another.
Culturally we need to change as well. I'm not going to make the blanket statement that entitlement runs rampant, but it goes deeper than that. In Germany, you have color-coded uniforms for certain roles. Blue might be for manufacturing people, green for delivery drivers, etc. I don't think as a society, it would sit well to have people "forced" to fit in like that. People don't look at the trade industry from a wage aspect, they have an aversion to it because they consider it to be beneath them in ways - or the result of a failure that you didn't progress through the educational system as intended.
"Dirty Jobs" was a fantastic show because it highlighted that if you're willing to get "dirty", you can not only make a buck, but you're useful and productive.
I just don't think American parents are ready to accept that Little Johnny is grading out to be a tradesman, or that their child will be best suited to enter the military and learn a craft and discipline. Until it stops being considered a failure to not proceed with higher education, this gap will exist, funding or not.
There are a lot of kids who aren't booksmart, but they have an affinity of working with their hands or having the strength to do strenuous jobs. Instead of encouraging them to utilize those strengths, we belittle them for not having sharp minds.
Lol. Tradesman that works an hourly wage is going to make more money than the mid-level cubicle career office guy and never have to worry about having a job. Electricians, PLC techs, fabricators, and plumbers to name a few make way over the median income. And since there are relatively few of them, they are pretty much always in demand.
While true, nobody would force them to spend the rest of their lives engaging the skill that they pick up in that extra year. Meanwhile, it would probably go a long way towards preventing going aimlessly into adulthood without the marketable skills needed to at least provide a decent standard of living for themselves.
Look at the flipside - it seems like this is heavy handed and unfair of government to force students to taken an extra year of schooling, but from the other perspective the cost of educating these students will go up dramatically. In an environment where young adults pay through the nose for education, they should take whatever they can get for free and run with it.
And as far as students "not knowing what they want to do at 18 years old" - that's a huge issue, but perhaps not in the way that the poster intended. Their accessibility to information, testimonials, examples of success, etc in the workforce outside the traditional educational pathway is very limited - especially from certain counselors, teachers and programs.
Teachers should be held accountable for connecting their students with opportunities to engage business owners, hiring authorities and employers.
Teachers should be held accountable for connecting their students with opportunities to engage business owners, hiring authorities and employers.
Good stuff B - although if it comes down to teachers being the ones responsible for doing this we won't get as far as we'd like. In my experience, teachers just don't have as many contacts outside of education as they should to be able to do this well.
Furthermore, teachers tend to give extra help to the students who work for it. This would then give an extra leg up to students who work their relationships with their teachers, further handicapping students who are completely apathetic in H.S. Unfortunately, many of these students already come with limited access to community resources (fewer familial connections to industry insiders, etc.)
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Teachers should be held accountable for connecting their students with opportunities to engage business owners, hiring authorities and employers.
Good stuff B - although if it comes down to teachers being the ones responsible for doing this we won't get as far as we'd like. In my experience, teachers just don't have as many contacts outside of education as they should to be able to do this well.
Furthermore, teachers tend to give extra help to the students who work for it. This would then give an extra leg up to students who work their relationships with their teachers, further handicapping students who are completely apathetic in H.S. Unfortunately, many of these students already come with limited access to community resources (fewer familial connections to industry insiders, etc.)
I've seen it firsthand, Dan. A business owner rolls up in his brand new pickup truck (and I always suggest they attach either their bass boat or motorcycle trailer to the back) and starts talking about money and opportunity - kid's eyes light up and the light bulb finally shines. It's an amazing experience.
I know hundreds of teachers who reach out to local employers. Unfortunately, many are too apathetic or disenchanted - or their classrooms have become dumping grounds for the discipline cases and teaching has devolved into baby sitting. Very sad.
One of the interesting BLS stats from a couple years back was that the median income for a plumber was higher than for a general practitioner.
We have a very, very good tech program in our district, but it is tough for kids to get into if they aren't keeping up their other grades.
In my school (alternative) we had a teacher join us a couple years back who is outstanding. She put together a field trip for our alternative students every fall to visit employers and learn about high-paying jobs in our community that don't require a college education. It's been very good for our school. Having said that - in almost every visit we make they say the same things - get good at your math because you're going to need it.
Some of the most popular trades among the students are welders and linesmen. The students are often surprised to hear employers telling their students that learning algebra is probably the most important thing they can be doing to prepare for a career in welding.
We also do a good job of getting the military recruiters out to our schools, but many of the students perform really poorly on the ASVAB and their options are very much limited by that. I try to tell them to take it seriously, but overcoming apathy is obviously one of our biggest challenges.
In my experience most successful learning happens for these kids AFTER they get the entry-level jobs they want. That's when they come back and ask me questions about formulas they have to use, etc.
And great point about math. That's another thing that counselors and parents don't understand - a pipefitter or electrician or E&I tech has to do a ton of math in order to be proficient in their trade. It's not about some lug hauling sacks of ready-mix or throwing cinderblocks off a demo'd building. Much more to these types of jobs than meets the eye.
Problem is, it is a step down.