There’s been much talk so far during this year’s long session of the General Assembly about increasing vocational-educational opportunities for high school students.
The argument is that such classes are needed in order for the state to have the kind of trained workforce manufacturers say they must have to compete in the global economy.
We don’t doubt that there’s a need for such workers — some reports claim there were 7,000 manufacturing jobs that didn’t get filled last month due to the lack of skills of the applicants — we just aren’t convinced such training should be done on the high school level.
From the gist of the discussions going on in Indianapolis, it looks to us like lawmakers want high schools to essentially duplicate the type of vocational learning facilities that Vincennes University now provides its advanced manufacturing technology students — labs with robots and the latest in hi-tech, highly-expensive machinery prepping them for quick entrance into the state’s workforce.
That doesn’t seem to us feasible, at least not without a massive infusion of new money into the public-education budget.
We’re not saying that the state doesn’t need a well-trained workforce; obviously it does, for Indiana’s economic strength — the country’s economic vitality — depends on manufacturing, on making things, to be purchased domestically as well as exported.
We think state Rep. Kreg Battles, D-Vincennes, has the better idea in giving the employer a tax credit for sending employees to VU or another publicly-funded college or university to get the necessary training specific to the job at hand.
And, too, we think it should be easier, i.e., affordable, for someone wanting such training to go on to school to get it.
This is not to say that high schools shouldn’t be offering students curriculum choices that suit their future career interests; such diversity in classes would be quite helpful.
Yes, some English students will be well served by taking on “Beowulf,” but not all; others will be better served by reading about the Bessemer process — all students, however, should come away from their reading with an understanding of their respective subject matter and the ability to explain, verbally and in writing, what they’ve read.
The goal should be that all students, those who dream of one day becoming a physician as well as those hoping to run a physical plant, be challenged in their studies and, once they’ve graduated, are ready to move on to the next level to get the specialized training they’ll need to pursue their chosen careers.
We’re all in favor of strengthening our state’s economy by investing in education, but our public schools shouldn’t become merely job-training centers.
They ought to be our great unifying institutions through which students of diverse backgrounds come away with a shared understanding of the great tapestry that is America’s story, its highlights and its shortcomings, its majesty and its mistakes, its glory and its times of gosh-dang foolishness.
We need not so much “common core standards” but a common core of understanding shared by all students, no matter whether their interests are the language arts, linear equations or aligning a car’s front end.
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