Ditching Shop Class: Eliminating Vocational Education in America's Public Schools

Common Core. NCLB. Differentiation. A through G. Race To The Top. Vast budgets. Despite all this, we continue to push kids through school and out the other end with little to show for the time invested, our efforts, and the public's money. Meanwhile, the Achievement gap, the Poverty Gap widen, and skills decline as jobs go wanting. Kids arrive at the high school commencement stage without basic skills to obtain and hold employment.

Ditching Shop Class: Eliminating Vocational Education in America's Public Schools is a complex story of how and why we've eliminated vocational and technical education, and what this has done to skew education into a single Track where every kid is made to prepare themselves for obtaining a university degree, no matter their interest or capability. And take on immense debt while pursuing something having less value as time progresses.

The skewed disposition on the part of educators, a bias toward one style of education, has in turn created a form of hubris where we (educators) dictate what is to be learned, when and how, without an understanding of the types of skills needed to promote continuity in a technically diverse job world supporting the technological infrastructure of the nation. This is one aspect behind the reorientation of public education, dictating our move toward getting every kid marching in step with one style of education. The result: an increase in the Achievement Gap, and by extension, the Poverty Gap, as well as gaping holes in the necessary skills available to keep our society operational.