We need more trade schools

[Edward Weber]

Just saw this story today
https://www.siliconvalley.com/2024/0...nging-it-back/

[Dave Fritz]

Our granddaughter's school has an apprenticeship program. https://www.mcfarland.k12.wi.us/scho...e%20experience. Our granddaughter is currently working at a cooperating bank as a teller and plans to go to college and study finance. She'll be able to work at this bank all through school if she chooses to do so. Maybe the issue isn't the lack of schools, rather the lack of students willing to put forth some effort or not having the vision to see opportunities available to them.

[Jim Becker]

Dave, there are many factors at play here as has been noted. It's complex and varies with geography, too. There has been less emphasis on vocational training in lieu of "go to college to get ahead" for decades and that has affected both physical infrastructure and attitudes, including those of students. I hope that change and quickly because frankly, we are running out of folks trained in the trades and other occupations that society needs to function.

[Peter Mich]

Wisconsin has a large network of Vocational Schools. There are several issues at play, one, legislatures require more and more from the curriculum and place an emphasis on performance testing without adding additional resources. Some classes cost more to have, for example English is a much cheaper class to have than shop class. Chemistry and associated lab sciences are also more expensive than social studies etc. We also have school employee shortages. Aids can make more at Target than working in the school. Teachers ability to organize and have a say about working conditions and salary have been taken away. Better to sell insurance and be your own boss. Legislatures have also given tremendous power to parents, so much so that demands are made on schools and kids are able to get away with almost anything and there's no option for discipline. The authority of the teacher has been taken away. There is no accountability for misbehavior. I feel sorry for kids that are in classes with disrespectful spoiled kids whose parents are suppositive of their kid. The "good kids" suffer in the end.

All very important issues to consider when discussing school change and improvements.

School funding is another tough nut to crack.

The drive to privatize American education through such things as charter schools and voucher programs and home schooling has produced an educational landscape that is far different from the public school system that many of us experienced back in the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s when shop classes may have been more plentiful. In Wisconsin, families can sign up for a voucher that covers $8,000 to $9,000 in private school tuition costs for a student exiting the public school system. Their home district then sees a cut in state aid equivalent to the cost of the student’s private school voucher. State law also prohibits districts from levying taxpayers to cover those losses. Per pupil funding in Wisconsin was increased for school choice programs, but remained flat for the traditional system despite the inflation that occurred. It is tough to maintain class sizes, pay teachers, preserve programs, much less create new shop programs, when new funding is consistently less than the rate of inflation and choice options have the effect of siphoning off limited monies.

[Rod Sheridan]

As far as I know school wood shop and farming isn’t even considered a trade anymore. With everybody looking for a reason to sue, I can understand shutting down school woodshop. I took wood shop in school and made a career from it. I’m the only one that I know that did..

the last cabinet makers union was in KC. There all just carpenters union now..

Hello Jack, is cabinet making a licensed trade in the US?

I agree that the loss of shop classes is a tragedy for students, some students used it as a motivation to a career,some used used it as a motivation to a hobby and some learned that it wasn’t for them, all valuable outcomes.

In Canada, we also have a shortage of shop classes, and a shortage of trades people due to lack of training and apprenticeship availability, as well as the Boomer demographic retiring ( me 3 years ago).

It doesn’t seem to be something we’re doing a good job of solving.

Regards, Rod.

[Brian Elfert]

The high school I went to had a complete renovation along with an expansion 25 to 30 years ago. At some point along the way all of the industrial arts spaces were converted to other uses. No idea if this was done during the renovation. Woodworking, metal shop, and small engines are no longer taught. They have some sort of maker type class. Small engines, auto shop, and welding are offered at the other high school in the district for students at the high school with no industrial education classes, but I have no idea how students get to the other high school at attend class.

The crazy thing is now days the high school offers a bunch of business classes. When I was in high school in the late 80s there were no business classes. That is something you would be expected to learn in college. I took every industrial arts class that was offered in high school. We didn't have an auto shop so I never took any auto classes. I don't believe there was an option to take auto shop at the other high school.

[Brian Elfert]

I drive by a local high school periodically. They had a small house in a fenced area of the parking lot that presumably students were working on. I never saw any work actually going on, and all of the materials must have been stored in the shipping container sitting nearby. At some point recently the house disappeared and now it appears there is large shed being built. I don't know if the house got moved to a lot, or what. The area around the school is fully developed so no idea where there would be land to put the house. It would definitely be a starter home as it was probably under 1,000 square feet.

I assume it is high school students, but it could be continuing education. High school students most likely since it would be dark for continuing education at night.

[jack duren]

You guys seem to be talking about two different trades here..

[Jim Becker]

I drive by a local high school periodically. They had a small house in a fenced area of the parking lot that presumably students were working on. I never saw any work actually going on, and all of the materials must have been stored in the shipping container sitting nearby. At some point recently the house disappeared and now it appears there is large shed being built. I don't know if the house got moved to a lot, or what. The area around the school is fully developed so no idea where there would be land to put the house. It would definitely be a starter home as it was probably under 1,000 square feet.

I assume it is high school students, but it could be continuing education. High school students most likely since it would be dark for continuing education at night.

As mentioned earlier in this thread, the local Technical (trade) school near me has been doing a modular house every year going back a very long time. The structure is sold upon completion to a private party who presumably has a property to put it on. The students work on the structure throughout the year until it has "all the things" that are necessary as they learn to do their particular trade.

[Brian Elfert]

As mentioned earlier in this thread, the local Technical (trade) school near me has been doing a modular house every year going back a very long time. The structure is sold upon completion to a private party who presumably has a property to put it on. The students work on the structure throughout the year until it has "all the things" that are necessary as they learn to do their particular trade.

I'm just surprised they are doing this at a regular high school that is not a technical high school.

[Edward Weber]

I'm just surprised they are doing this at a regular high school that is not a technical high school.

Traditional schools send students to the tech/trade school for half a day. This counts as credits towards graduation.

[Ron Citerone]

I taught Middle School Industrial Arts from 1983 to 2018.

* My department once had 9 teachers.

* When I retired I was one of three and I was not replaced upon leaving.

My thoughts on why this is happening:

Educators making decisions at the State levels are college educated and see college as the main path to success.

Administration sees hands on learning as "Old School" and see computer technology as the be all and end all.

Parents of influence are often college educated and aren't willing to fight for technical education.

Industrial Arts programs cost more per student hour than classroom instruction.

New generation administrators have been trained to worship test scores above all else, and technical education doesn't impact test scores.

College students are not choosing Industrial Arts Education as a major and school districts can't find certified teachers even if they want them.

Technically trained teachers find more lucrative jobs for their skill set and leave the profession.


Industrial Arts/ Tech Ed is not exactly trade/vocational education but are intertwined and the challenges are similar IMO.

[Warren Lake]

Its too big for me to comment on as there are many dynamics right down to teachers. I had one school teacher tell me the guy teaching woodwork was teaching computers the week before. I lucked out got real europeans from the trade so they did their best to set up a program here dumbed down and in a smaller time frame. He taught me for 35 years after the school thing.

Years after I was out of the school the old guy was telling me hed have to have a degree to teach. Really? book knowledge over 50 years real experience. I would have lost out big time because he didn't just teach us the course he taught us real world experience from learning in munich to running huge companies here. No book worm can teach that.

I don't like the set up as it is, there isnt one, it should be a regulated trade same as plumbing and electrical. If not to protect the consumer then to protect the people in the trade. It was a more respected trade years ago. Now its becoming a content creator trade.

I lucked out so fine for me plus the 35 plus year friendship and being adopted. His wife just died on the weekend so a son 32 gone, then him, then another son 51 six months later and now the wife. Four people gone from one family and all had a big affect on my life. Drove home really wondering what this life thing is about, the why of it all.

Cabinetmaking and Carpentry are two different trades or they were. I know a stellar carpenter. 5 Mil home no problem. Put him in a cabinet shop and there is nothing he could make furniture wise id want.

Now maybe in Europe and im not up on it they meld the two more bringing carpenters into a shop with machines as part of their teaching.

[Mike Soaper]

"It takes years to become a competent woodworker, not just some knob who makes things from pallets for clicks. No one wants to commit to learning anything in a long term situation anymore in our short attention span society."

A woodworker\housewright once told me that back in the day when they were young those starting out in their shop spent the first year learning how to sharpen before they could even cut a piece of wood edit: for a project.

[Pat Germain]

While I certainly agree that America needs trade schools and education in the trades, this is a very complicated issue. Here are some points often missed in these discussions.

- Many young people heard a lot of negatives from parents who worked in the trades as it became more and more difficult to earn a good living. For example:

* "My boss is some twenty-something clown with a business degree. He doesn't know a condensor from an evaporator, but he overrules everything I say on every HVAC install I do. He has also frozen all wages and keeps cutting our hours. Go to college, Junior. That's where the money is."

* "Every year we get more and more immigrants on the job site. They live in old, run down houses and apartments with 20 other people. They work for peanuts. So why should they pay me more? Go to college. There's no way to make a good living in framing/roofing/concrete/landscaping anymore."

* "Ever since NAFTA, I can't compete with foreign truck drivers. They come over the border in dilapidated trucks with bald tires. I can't get away with that on my rig. Go to college, Lester. There's no money in truck driving anymore."

And so all those young people avoided blue collar, trades jobs and went to college. They were saddled with a lot of debt and now they are finding all their peers did the same thing. So, now there's a shortage of blue collar, trades workers and all the kids with degrees don't know how to use a clutch and can't tell which end of screwdriver does what.

- We have been cutting taxes in the US since the early 1980s. All that missing revenue had to result in cuts somewhere. Public education took a major hit from primary schools to public universities. Trades education costs money for work spaces and machines. Those workspaces must be heated and cooled. Those machines must be updated, maintained and, eventually, replaced with more modern examples to stay relevant. Not enough funding? "No more shop classes, people. We can't afford it." Public universities kept losing more and more public funding. So they kept raising tuition and fees more and more. And the government kept increasing the amount of money students could borrow more and more. And now, here we are with so many young people saddled with oppressive school debt.

- Unfortunately, primary schools didn't make a whole lot of effort to help kids who didn't do well in school on their own. Instead of testing them for ADHD or other learning disabilities, it was easier to just stick them in shop class. It was the same for kids with behavior issues. Thus, shop classes tended to have a lot of poor academic performers with learning disabilities and trouble makers. I never took wood shop in high school, but my brother did. He told me many stories about all the delinquents and bullies in the class who never accomplished anything. They would simply walk around terrorizing other students, breaking the machines and vandalizing the projects other kids made. The teacher had no time or desire to do anything about it. Since shop classes became synonymous with "dumb kids" and delinquents, who would want their kids to take shop?

- Through the 1980s, manufacturing took a GIGANTIC hit in North America. The vast majority of the places where high school graduates could get good jobs that paid a living wage simply went away. When I graduated high school near Stillwater Oklahoma, I could have applied at the Swan hose factory, National Standard wire machining, Overland Color Press printing, Mercury Marine boat motor factory, a vinyl flooring factory or multiple machine shops. Stillwater is a pretty small town, but all those places offered good pay and benefits for almost any high school graduate. I chose to enlist in the Navy and it's a good thing I did. One by one, all those places closed. Literally every one of those employers are now gone and nothing replaced them. Many of the people who got laid off went to school at Oklahoma State University, also in Stillwater, and got a degree. They had learned there were no opportunities without a degree. Their children learned the same lesson and also went to college.

And now we have a lot of openings for trades positions. It's interesting how I often see memes and hear talk show commentators talk about all the high paying jobs available in the trades. But when I talk to people who actually work in those trades, they tell me almost nobody actually makes that much money. Corporations and business owners do everything possible to keep wages low and benefits minimal. And no matter how many openings they have, they close their wallets with a torque wrench. My brother still lives in Stillwater. Many times he has told me about a new company coming to town and everybody being all excited about all the high paying jobs coming with it. My brother is always skeptical and he's always right. The only reason companies come to Stillwater is because they're looking for low-cost labor so they pay extremely low wages. The most absurd was all the hype about a Google data center. Wow, lots of tech jobs, right? Think again. Google built the data center and a wind farm to power it. They brought in a manager from out of state and hired a guy to mop the floors. That was it. Everything else is automated or done remotely over the network. Maybe there are a few jobs for people who work on wind turbines?

Months ago Dave Ramsey was going on and on about all the good job openings going unfilled because, "Nobody wants to work anymore!". On YouTube, his videos had many comments arguing why Ramsey was full of it. People pointed out they had applied for those jobs at Target, for example, and found out they were all part time for minimum wage or slightly above, nights, weekends, holidays and unpredictable schedules. Many people wrote, "I already have a job like that and it sucks. Why would I want another job that sucks at a different company?".