Subject: [Homestead] Need to throw more money at education
Date: Mon, 06 Sep 2004 15:49:23 -0700
Not bleed it away from Vocational Schools. I don't know what idiot ever
came up with the idea that vocational training and college prep are
incompatible, a really weird idea that translates into saying that
engineers shouldn't get their hands dirty, understand or have experience
in operating the equipment necessary to manufacturing a product.
An amplified voice was carried through the convention hall: "Ten, nine,
eight … "
Nick Young, stocky and soft-spoken, glanced through his protective
eyewear at Team Volkswagen to the right and Team Buick to the left.
"Seven, six, five …. "
Bill Paddock, with his greased-back hair, tattoos and bravado, took a
final inventory of the tools, manuals and computers they would use over
the next three hours to identify and fix dozens of "bugs" riddling the
lifeless car.
"Four, three, two, one."
Voices from 37 teams burst the tension. Paddock and Young huddled one
last time with their high school auto technology teacher, Robert McCarroll.
If there had been any doubt, qualifying for a spot at the National
Automotive Technology Competition in New York City confirmed for Paddock
and Young that their futures are in automobiles. More interested in
wheel alignment than SAT vocabulary, they are two of the more than 1
million American high school graduates who will not attend college this
fall.
Unlike many other teenagers who end their education in high school,
however, Paddock and Young will move on to advanced auto training at a
trade school.
That and the training they received at the Auto Technology Academy at
San Clemente High School put the two at the center of a debate in
California and nationwide over what role blue-collar trades should play
in the public schools.
For decades, vocational education has played second fiddle to classroom
academics. With the "Nation at Risk" school-improvement initiative in
1983, officials launched an effort to raise academic standards.
Concerned that American students were losing ground to their
counterparts in Japan, Germany and other countries, politicians and
classroom experts called for increased academic rigor, especially in
math and science.
The trend intensified with the current, federal No Child Left Behind
law, which holds schools accountable for student performance on
high-stakes, standardized tests.
Many education officials would like to go even further. California
Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell, for example, has
argued vigorously for requiring all high school students to pass courses
that would allow them to enroll at a state university.
"It's time to change high schools from the inside out, to focus … on
their primary mission of preparing students to higher standards,"
O'Connell said in a speech earlier this year.
The schools chief acknowledges that vocational education has been
neglected in California but insists his push for tougher academics does
not need to come at its expense. He envisions vocational classes with
enough academic rigor that they would satisfy university admission
standards while still preparing students for the workplace.
Supporters of vocational education aren't buying it. They decry what
they say is an obsession with college preparation that ignores the needs
of the roughly 38% of the country's high school seniors who do not
enroll in two-year or four-year colleges and who might benefit from
vocational training.
"Clearly, there are a set of academic skills everyone needs to be
successful in our society," said James Stone, director for the National
Research Center for Career and Technical Education. "But does every
child need to study trigonometry?"
"The problem is that many people look at college as the goal," said
McCarroll, the San Clemente teacher who runs one of the relatively few
programs in California that blends academics with traditional vocational
training. "College is not the goal. It is only one means to an end, and
the end is these kids' careers."
"We are trying to shove a lot of square pegs into round holes."
In high schools across the country and in California, comprehensive
trade programs have declined in number and in quality. At many school
districts, as the focus has turned increasingly toward core academics,
such programs have either become dumping grounds for poorly performing
students or have disappeared altogether.
In 1975, when McCarroll taught his first class, San Clemente's
vocational program cranked at full-tilt. Eight full-time teachers
offered beginner, intermediate and advanced classes in auto shop, wood
and metal working, drafting and electronics. "This whole darn area went
all day long," he said with a sweep of his hand. "It was so noisy you
could barely hear yourself think. Now I'm the only one left."
In 1987, the earliest year for which the state has data, nearly 27% of
California high school students were enrolled in at least one industrial
vocational education class. Today, only 15% of students are taking such
classes.
Over virtually the same span, membership in the California Industrial
Technology Education Assn., which includes trade instructors, has
plummeted from 5,000 to 350.
Several factors account for the declining numbers. Until the mid-1980s
in many school districts, minority students were often
disproportionately shunted toward vocational education classes. Although
recent research indicates that such race-based tracking has largely been
eliminated, Stone said, urban districts continue to encounter minority
parents reluctant to enroll their children in vocational classes.
A changing economy that includes growing healthcare and technology
sectors and declining manufacturing industries has also made some
vocational program obsolete.
More pressing, however, is money. Running equipment-dependent vocational
programs is expensive, and in the competition for classroom dollars,
those programs fade on priority lists.
"We have had to make hard decisions," said James A. Fleming,
superintendent of the Capistrano Unified School District, where Young
and Paddock attend. "Do we put a wood shop and machine shop in a new
high school, or more academic classrooms? We have backed off from those
trade programs."
California has developed regional training programs that offer day and
evening classes for high school students and adults at area campuses.
Vocational education experts praise the programs but agree that because
of age restrictions and limited access, they are no substitute for a
high school trade-skills curriculum.
The state does have some high school programs designed to upgrade
vocational education. McCarroll's is one. Opened in 1998, the auto tech
academy operates as a self-contained school within San Clemente High.
Students satisfy basic graduation requirements and receive three years
of increasingly complex auto classes and on-the-job training.
The auto program is one of 290 state-supported "partnership academies"
in which school districts and businesses — in this case auto dealers and
mechanics — team up to offer programs that train students.
"It is such a mammoth mission to put quality men and women in this
industry," said Larry Cummings, president of Automotive Youth Education
Systems, the group formed by auto makers to work with school districts
on vocational programs. "We've got to have a school system that can
deliver this type of curriculum to the students."
But while California's academies are one of the country's more ambitious
vocational education initiatives, there are still too few to meet
student needs. Each year, McCarroll turns students away — often as many
as he accepts. Moreover, relatively few of the academy programs teach
conventional trade skills such as agriculture, carpentry and auto
mechanics, focusing instead on white-collar skills such as business,
computer technology and health science.
Paddock and Young "are the exception, rather than the rule," in
receiving state-of-the-art training for blue-collar work, said Stone.
"We are becoming a nation of test-takers," he said. "But we won't have
kids that understand the world around them or know the skills that the
labor market is saying are needed."
Paddock and Young say they feel fortunate to have found the auto
academy. Early on, the two students — and their parents — recognized
that they were not meant for college. Barely getting by on poor grades
and minimal motivation, both said they probably would have dropped out
of school were it not for McCarroll and the sense of purpose they
discovered at the academy.
"I'm just not the college kind of person," said Paddock, who struggles
with dyslexia. "I'm not going to go to English class and history class.
It's not appealing to me.
"I think with these," he said, holding up his hands. "If there is
something broken, I can figure out how to fix it."
An hour into the competition, Paddock and Young had made some small
finds — a blown fuse in the air-conditioner, a faulty headlight — but
large problems remained.
The team's "engine guy," Paddock was elbow deep in the Volvo's high-tech
power plant, perplexed that he still couldn't start it.
He emerged and hooked a laptop computer to the car's ignition system to
run diagnostic tests. Paddock reached for a digital meter on a hunch
that electrical power was not getting through to the ignition sensor.
Meanwhile, Young, "the body guy," had nearly crawled into the trunk in
an attempt to get the rear defogger working.
Somewhere in the room, a competing team's automobile roared to life.
The future of vocational education remains uncertain.
A state panel is working on standards and curriculum for vocational
education programs, but O'Connell concedes that school districts will
not be obligated to follow its recommendations.
He offers few details on how school districts will be able to fit both
tougher academics and strong vocational programs into an already-packed
school year.
Bernie Norton, who heads the state's high school initiatives office and
is overseeing the panel, said it would be difficult to build enough
flexibility into school schedules and find the money to fund extensive
projects.
The issue confounds educators nationwide.
Although successful vocation programs dot each state, no state is doing
an adequate job overall of preparing vocational students, said Assistant
Secretary of Education Susan Sclafani, who oversees the federal
government's vocational training programs.
Without more trade programs like McCarroll's academy, disaffected
students will continue to drop out or head toward college life for which
they are ill-suited, she said.
Congress, meanwhile, is debating the re-authorization of a federal
vocational education funding bill.
Sclafani said she wants to hold states more accountable for the success
of career programs and has proposed withholding some funds from states
until they improve.
The final half-hour slipped away. Paddock gave up trying to get the car
started without dismantling it. To test the Volvo's spark plugs, the
cumbersome turbo tube had to come off.
Young returned to the still-broken defogger, and Paddock set to work
uncovering the plugs. Working in silence, they kept their poise,
resigned that they probably would not start the car — the ultimate goal
of the competition.
The final minute ticked off, and the two stepped back. For a moment,
they were disappointed that they wouldn't win a new car, expensive tools
or tuition to training programs that were among the prizes. But the
sting passed quickly.
"It's been good for us," Young said. "We are going to run into these
types of problems as mechanics. It gives us a taste of what we'll be
doing."
"A lot of people underestimated me," Young said. "It feels good to have
accomplished something in school. And now I know what I want to do with
my life. I'm lucky enough to have found auto, liked it and been decent
at it. My talents came through."