Vocational Programs in Disarray
Decline of our Future?
By Daniel Muniz
High school vocational education in the United
States has always been a rocky experience. Some states embrace
vocational programs and earmark money for it while other states
leave it up to the individual school districts to appropriate an
acceptable level of funding. But this form of career or technical
education focuses mostly on one question. How many students will go
to college and how many will not?
Unfortunately, among the educational elite,
quite a bit of snobbery is involved. The bigger question among the
education snobs is this: Why devote resources for kids who are not
going to go to college when you can prepare them for higher
education?
In an ideal world, that is an excellent
question. In fact, some places have tried to destroy vocational
education in favor of trying to get every high school student into
college. Over 20 years ago at the height of his influence in Texas,
Ross Perot was partially responsible for the substantial decline of
vocational training in the Lone Star State. And many other states
experienced similar crusades in an effort to recruit more kids into
college.
And to the perverse delight of many educators,
dismantling vocational education is actually seen as an improvement
to the school system.
But many education snobs do not want to face a stark reality.
There are plenty of kids who are unable to go to college because
of finances or simply a lack of desire. Some high school students
happen to have other plans like first joining the military upon
graduation. And then there are the ones who are simply unwilling to
be a part of higher education.
And worse yet, that even with the best
intentions, there are many high school students who enter collegiate
life unable to adequately finish even a few semesters thus becoming
college drop outs. The bottom line is that college is not for
everyone. And regardless of how the snobs feel about that, this is
the reality that they ultimately have to face.
Not having a college education does not
make you less intelligent. It may make you less of a learned person
but that in no way diminishes your wisdom which is totally different
than intelligence.
But try telling that to the education snobs.
A friend of mine who was once employed as a
custodian for a school district recounted a story to me about being
at work one day. Some of his co-workers who were doing yard work
outside when they heard an elementary schoolteacher admonish her
students about getting homework done. She further explained that if
they did not get their schoolwork done, they could end up being
janitors like the ones who work out here when they grow up.
One of my friend’s co-workers immediately went
to the principal and explained the incident. Afterwards, the teacher
was forced to apologize to her class.
Now do incidents like this happen all the time?
Probably not, although I would suspect that these ideas are in
the back of the mind of some of the education snobs. But ultimately,
why project the stigma of not having a college degree?
Wisdom is totally separate than knowledge. Any
individual can have a wealth of knowledge due to higher education
but still not be any wiser than a 16-year-old adolescent.
And contrary to popular belief, college cannot give you wisdom.
By taking a cursory glance at what happens at Spring Breaks and at
college parties ought to tell anyone that college life is not
necessarily the foundation of sound judgment and good
decision-making.
And besides, how many times have you seen people who obtained
almost completely worthless college degrees?
Like, that is sure a lot of effort and money for that piece of
paper in order to make something just above minimum wage in a dead
end job.
Perhaps the hardest thing for the education
snobs to accept is that there are many blue collar jobs that do make
a lot of money such as electricians, plumbers, HVAC, etc. Even more
money than teaching, yet those types of professions are not going to
get the same kind of praise and recognition from the type of work
performed by people with college degrees.
I don’t expect snobbery from the education elite’s to ever end
but I do expect that our tax money should provide a better sense of
reality for our schools and for the future of our students.
There is absolutely nothing wrong or terrible in not going to a
university or in not having a college degree. It is time for all of
our schools to provide the proper balance that such
vocational programs offer.
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