HIGHER EDUCATION, REALLY?
This brilliant cartoonist nailed it!
Shop Talk - six 'developments' have led to a dearth of skilled trades workers:
Dumbing down education
Federal regulations interfering with education
Teachers unions dominating school decisions Unintended consequences-federal subsidies increasing college costs
Failing to graduate
Schools becoming politically correct indoctrination centers
A Mind is a Terrible Thing To Waste https://www.adcouncil.org/Our-Campaigns/The-Classics/United-Negro-College-Fund
Dumbing down education
The insightful political cartoonist Fitzsimmons illustrated it perfectly"
Consider these courses: Lady Gaga and the Sociology of the Fame at the University of South Carolina. Cornell University's physical education department offers a class titled Recreational Tree Climbing. At Georgia State University, the English department offers a course called Kayne [Kanye?] vs. Everybody.At Tufts University's Experimental College, one can take a class called Demystifying the Hipster. Skidmore College's sociology department offers The Sociology of Miley Cyrus: Race, Class, Gender and Media. Frostburg State University's physics department offers The Science of Harry Potter, where it examines some of the tale's magic. Georgetown University offers Philosophy and Star Trek, http://townhall.com/columnists/walterewilliams/2016/08/24/college-campus-lunacy
Dumbing down? According to a Philadelphia magazine article, the percentage of college grads who can read and interpret a food label has fallen from 40 to 30. ...NBC News reported that Fortune 500 companies spend about $3 billion annually to train employees in 'basic English.' http://townhall.com/columnists/walterewilliams/2016/10/26/dumb-american-youth-
Viewing any of the many you-tube campus interviews with college students distressingly proves that minds are being wasted. Students do not know what the Civil War was or think the 'confederates' won, do not know how our nation started or when the Revolution was, have no idea who the vice president is but can identify 'Snookie' [I do not know who that is] and tell the interviewer who were Brad Pitt's first and second wives! E.g. https://biggeekdad.com/2014/12/texas-tech-students/
Federal regulations interfering with education
Jerry Gorrell summed this up superbly in one cartoon:
The Department of Education [DOE] has provided hundreds of millions of dollars to support the increasingly unpopular Common Core State Standards, which data show students are not being prepared for college or for a career. Children are not leaving public schools prepared to compete against other countries either. In a 2013 piece analyzing American Schools vs. the World, The Atlantic labeled U.S. schools as expensive, unequal, and bad at math. http://www.nationsreportcard.gov
Star Parker is the founder and president of the Center for Urban Renewal and Education. She points out:
It would be good news if the Department of Education just wasted the money it gets from our hard-earned taxes. But it uses the money to do real damage. Nothing could provide a better example than the newly issued guidance letter that the Department of Education, jointly with the Justice Department, just sent to public school districts across the country, threatening to cut off federal funds if public schools do not comply with guidelines for treatment of so-called transgender students .... despite the prodigious federal spending, test scores in reading and math have hardly changed. ...[spending] amounts to $1,600 for every child enrolled in public schools... forcing its own left-wing views on the nation's families. [Emphasis added.] http://townhall.com/columnists/starparker/2016/05/18/time-to-shut-down-the-department-of-education
Teachers unions dominating school decisions
Lisa Benson is a rare talent who can illustrate a major news story in a single drawing https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/2017/04/10/republican-cartoonist-lisa-benson-thrives-in-left-leaning-california/ Here she illustrates teacher unions' influence.
In 1965, when Education was still part of HEW, the office had 2,113 employees and a budget of $1.5 billion. Carter's decision to create a separate department won him the support of National Education Association[NEA] and the American Federation of Teachers, which support continues for the Democrats to this day. In its first year,1980, the Department of Education had 6,400 employees and a budget of $14 billion.
https://www.downsizinggovernment.org/education/timeline-growth
https://www2.ed.gov/about/overview/budget/history/edhistory.pdf
It's not as if the teachers were doing a superior job. Quite the contrary is true!
http://www.freedomworks.org/content/abolishing-department-education-right-thing-do http://www.nationsreportcard.gov
But here's a kicker. Guess what?
The teachers unions are blaming President Trump! Of course.
https://www.cnsnews.com/blog/craig-bannister/badass-teachers-study-blames-trump-increasing-educators-stress?
Unintended consequences-federal subsidies increasing college cost
Another brilliant Lisa Benson drawing:
Student loan debt is currently $1.3 trillion, with no end in sight.
The Government program has caused increased debt because the colleges and universities have used the availability of student loans to raise tuition.
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/02/09/study-increased-student-aid-not-faculty-salaries-drives-tuition
The increased tuition has gone to adding administrators. Between 1987 and 2012, universities hired 517,636 new administrators or professional employees. That's not a good finding, not what we want at all. We increase the subsidy to the students and the colleges raise tuition by 65% of the amount that we've increased the subsidy. Given that there are no more teachers and or professors per head count of students than there ever used to be, the assumption has to be that that rise in tuition simply gets spent on more bureaucrats in the colleges. Which isn't a notably efficient way of doing anything, let alone educating the next generation.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/426976/conservatives-have-ability-fight-university-left-so-lets-do-it-david-french
https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2015/08/03/increased-tuition-subsidies-increase-the-price-of-college-tuition
Failing to graduate
Again LisaBenson nails it.
The National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education reports: Every year in the United States, nearly 60 percent of first-year college students discover that, despite being fully eligible to attend college, they are not ready for postsecondary studies. This is even more troubling given that many college courses have been dumbed down. http://townhall.com/columnists/walterewilliams/2015/11/18/education-disaster-n2081477/page/full
http://www.realclearpolicy.com/blog/2016/02/04/colleges_fail_two-thirds_of_students_1542.html
Schools becoming politically correct indoctrination centers
Courtesy of A.F.Branco at Legal Insurrection
Schools have become breeding grounds for indoctrination in “liberal” politics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Education#Budget
Georgetown law professor Nicholas Quinn Rosenkranz noted: It is a shame that our greatest universities have become ideologically monolithic,...At many of these schools, including Georgetown Law School, most students will graduate without ever laying eyes on a single Republican professor.Ideally these universities would expose students to the most powerful arguments on both sides of the great issues, rather than indoctrinating them with the ideology of the far left. http://www.nationalreview.com/article/426976/higher-education-reform-universities-left?
Schools allow students to shout down conservative speakers or bar such speakers.
Jason Riley, a Wall Street Journal columnist and and author of Please Stop Helping Us: How Liberals Make It Harder for Blacks to Succeed did get to speak at Wellesley but was surprised that conservative students were silent in the question and answer session. A student told him You get to leave when you're done. We have to live with these people until we graduate. http://townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/2016/05/10/dry-rot-in-academia
At Dartmouth, students chanting Black Lives Matter... harassed other students studying in the library. One girl was assaulted and called a 'filthy white b?-?-?-?h.' Chants included 'F?-?-?k you, you filthy white f?-?-?ks!'
How did Dartmouth respond? The Vice Provost apologized, not to the studying students but to the attackers! I'm very, very sorry that you feel this way. We don't want you to have this experience here. ... the protest was a wonderful, beautiful thing. [Emphasis added.] http://townhall.com/columnists/dennisprager/2015/11/24/american-universities-begin-to-implode-n2084706/page/full
Can it get more absurd? YES!
Students and faculty are told they must avoid racist and bigoted "microaggressions." Among these are There is only one race, the human race....America is a melting pot.....America is the land of opportunity." [Prager article cited above]
The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee includes politically correct and 'PC' as microaggressions and the University of New Hampshire includes American, illegal alien, foreigners, mothering, fathering.
[Emphasis added] http://townhall.com/columnists/johnhawkins/2015/11/28/15-excerpts-that-show-how-radical-weird-and-out-of-touch-college-campuses-have-become
Tragic is the disparagement of the influence of 'old white men', dismissing Shakespeare and Beethoven...: ...the left has succeeded in teaching that no art is better than any other. It has done so by substituting race, gender and class for wisdom, beauty and profundity, and through its doctrine of multiculturalism, which asserts that all cultures are equal....[Emphasis added] http://townhall.com/columnists/dennisprager/2015/12/01/a-response-to-a-black-student-at-columbia-n2087119/page/full
Crucial dearth of skilled trades workers.
NEED
Mike Rowe, television host and narrator for Discovery Channel series Dirty Jobs and the CNN series Somebody's Gotta Do It, makes the case:
I was invited by Denis Prager to give the commencement speech at his virtual university. I accepted. The speech exists today in the form of a 5-minute video that’s been viewed nearly 6 million times on YouTube. ... YouTube has determined the content of that video to be 'inappropriate.' The basic message of my speech ... millions of good jobs currently exist that do not require a four-year degree. ... these jobs are routinely ignored...society doesn’t encourage people to pursue vocations that don’t require a diploma... most people are affirmatively discouraged from learning a trade. Thus, our ever-widening skills gap.
According to YouTube, “restricted videos” are videos that contain any of the following: • Vulgar language • Violence and disturbing imagery • Nudity and sexually suggestive content • Portrayal of harmful or dangerous activities
Obviously, I was surprised to learn that my video could be interpreted as anything but the G-rated message I believe it to be. So I watched it again – this time with an open mind and a more discriminating eye. I saw nothing violent, harmful, or dangerous. Nothing vulgar, disturbing, or objectionable. True, the animated figures are unclothed, but clearly androgynous, as well as faceless. I was honestly at a loss. But then I saw this, buried in the fine print. 'Some videos don’t violate our policies, but may not be appropriate for all audiences. In these cases, our review team may place an age restriction when we’re notified of the content.' Is it possible that YouTube has determined that the IDEAS expressed in my speech are inappropriate for people under 18 – The precise audience that most needs to hear this message? The answer appears to be yes.
...There are currently 6.2 million available jobs in this country, the majority of which do NOT require a four-year degree. Student debt is now approaching $1.3 trillion, and millions of college graduates have failed to find work in their chosen fields. [Emphasis added]
http://mikerowe.com/2017/10/holy-bleep-ive-been-restricted/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVEuPmVAb8o
Financially Rewarding jobs are available
Below is salary data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Employment, based on May 2016 estimates. Figures may vary depending on individuals' experience and location of the work.
Below are listed the top salaries for 27 skilled trades including Dental Hygienist, Diagnostic Medical Sonographer, Registered Nurse, Web Developer, Respiratory Therapist, Cardiovascular Technologist, Electrician, Plumber, Commercial Diver, Paralegal or Legal Assistant, HVAC Technician, Surgical Technologist, Heavy Equipment Operator, Licensed Practical or Vocational Nurse, Medical Laboratory Technician, Computer Programmer, Commercial Pilot (Non-Airline), Network Systems Administrator, Multimedia Artist or Animator, Electrical or Electronics Engineering Technician, Police Officer, Aircraft Mechanic, Mechanical Engineering Technician, Architectural Drafter, Civil Engineering Technician, and Graphic Designer,
The link below explains what is involved in each job title.
Top pay for these 27 careers range from $60,420 to $147, 240 with 4 figures in the 60K range, 3 in the 70s, 8 in the 80s, 5 in the 90s, and 7 more than 100K.
https://www.trade-schools.net/articles/highest-paying-jobs-without-degree.asp
Emotionally Satisfying jobs are available
Quoting Victor Davis Hanson
There seems a human instinct to want to do physical work. We moderns want to be able to say that we have some residual firsthand familiarity with drudgery—or at least share our admiration for muscular labor when one sees the positive results of physical craftsmanship, or even the smallest physical alteration of the natural environment...It is astonishing, the degree to which a high-tech, postmodern society still depends on low-tech, premodern labor, whether that is a teen in constant motion for eight hours as a barista at Starbucks or a mechanic on his back underneath a Lexus, searching to find a short that popped up in a computerized code on his tablet. In some sense, the end of hard physical work is a delusion. ...Physical work has an intrinsic satisfaction in that it is real, in the primordial sense that nonphysical work is not. The head of the Federal Reserve Board may be more important to our general welfare than the city road crew patching asphalt roads, but there remains something wondrous in transforming material conditions through the hands, an act that can be seen and felt rather than just spoken or written about. [Emphasis added.]
http://blog.acton.org/archives/97348-brains-and-brawn-does-manual-labor-belong-in-the-modern-economy.html
Reference is made to Matthew Crawford's book, The Case For Working With Your Hands: Or Why Office Work Is Bad For Us And Fixing Things Feels Good. Crawford, who had worked for a thinktank, runs a motorbike repair shop... his firm conviction is that the skilled trades – car repair, plumbing, carpentry, electrical work, stonemasonry – offer a way of thinking about life we should adopt.
As for his prior job:
[Previously].. what goods or useful services was I providing to anyone... a motorcycle about to leave my shop under its own power, several days after arriving in the back of a pickup truck, I suddenly don't feel tired, even though I've been standing on a concrete floor all day, As the owner drives the bike away, I can hear his salute in the exuberant 'bwaaAAAAP! blum-blum' of a crisp throttle, gratuitously revved. That sound pleases me, as I know it does him....
[Emphasis added.]
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2010/may/08/working-hands-happiness-burkeman
CONCLUSION
The Left have ruined educational values and must cease the propaganda that college is a necessity.
There are financially rewarding and emotionally satisfying jobs for skilled trades workers which need to be filled.
If you serve a child a rotten hamburger in America, federal, state, and local agencies will investigate you, summon you, close you down, whatever. But if you provide a child with a rotten education, nothing happens, except that you're liable to be given more money to do it with. Well, we've discovered that money alone isn't the answer...
Education is not the means of showing people how to get what they want. Education is an exercise by means of which enough men, it is hoped, will learn to want what is worth having...
An overwhelming majority of Americans want their schools to do two things above all else: to teach students how to speak and write correctly and, just as important, to teach them a standard of right and wrong. They want their schools to help their children develop, as Thomas Jefferson said, 'both an honest heart and a knowing head.' Unfortunately, parents today all too often find themselves confronted [with 'experts' who say] their children's education should be what they call value-neutral. Well, to me, and I bet most Americans, a value-neutral education is a contradiction in terms. The American people have always known in their bones how intimately knowledge and values are intertwined. We don't expect our children to rediscover calculus on their own, but some would give them no guidance when it comes to the even more fundamental discoveries of civilization: our ethics, morality, and values. If we give our children no guidance here, if we give them only a value-neutral education, we're robbing them of their most precious inheritance - the wisdom of generations that is contained in our moral heritage. Ronald Reagan