Vocational Education Advocate - Arnold's the One

Dan Walters writes in today's Sacramento Bee (http://www.sacbee.com/content/politics/columns/walters/story/12062067p-12932245c.html) . . . . " . . Not only will a relatively small percentage of today's ninth-graders graduate from college, but the needs of society would not be met if all, in fact, became college graduates. Society needs competent auto mechanics, carpenters, plumbers, electricians, landscapers, electronics technicians, bookkeepers, truck drivers, retail clerks, medical technicians and other blue-collar workers to function, and in many of those vocations, there are acute shortages of trained workers, with many thousands of high-paying jobs going unfilled.

Given those immutable facts, does it make sense to gear the entire high school curriculum to the assumption that everyone should attend and graduate from college? . . .

Finally, however, somebody is paying attention, and that somebody is the state's most popular and influential political figure, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. He included expansion of voc-ed in a list of education reforms he touted in his State of the State address, and his budget sets aside $20 million to improve what's now called "career technical education" at the high school and community college levels. One important aspect of the plan would boost the production of voc-ed teachers, which has been a vital element in the decline."