Stop the nonsense. Mr. Orlasky is paralleling the liberals. His solution is his own individual social engineering. He says,
“To survive in the new economy you need education beyond high school, so we should keep up with the Europeans: They’re offering in their high schools career and technical training.”
Orlasky’s solution is to mandate or push boys into technical training. Follow the European model.
When we deviate from the basic model of “learning, reading, writing, and arithmetic,” we dilute the potential end product.
In Orlasky’s world the government would be teaching aviation technical training, but the curriculum would be fixing bi-planes.
We’ve had technical schools for longer than Orlasky’s been writing. Like our other schools, they do an average job. Too often they train kids in dead end jobs. By the time they buy any new technology and have teachers able to teach it, that technology has been superceded.
There are old standbys that strike me as good for quite a while. Mechanical, plumbing, heat/cooling, construction, hair, auto/truck, and the like will be significant for some time.
Better to be teaching each of those new job aspirants that they real money will always be in owning and succeeding at their own business in their field.
When I was in HS the boys were required to take wood or metal shop, and the girls home economics. There were some who took both, but then that was elective only, and not counted toward the graduation requirement. I always thought HomeEc would have been valuable. But at least my wife taught me how to cook.
Where are my recipes? “Yum, yum. Eat um up!”