A sad commentary

[TommyDodge]

My dad used to refer to the administrators as educated idiots. I used to be somewhat embarrased by my dad, now at age 58, I am almost exactly like him and getting more so every day. I work in a warehouse and there are people employed there that can't figure out that 12 x 50 = 600, but are making more than I am because I haven't had a raise in almost 3 years and these idiots are new hires. Morale of long time employees is in the toilet and management can't figure out why

[Gordon Maney]

The decline in practical programs began in earnest in the early 1980's, prompted by a 1983 government report entitled A Nation at Risk. It led to an increase in academic graduation requirements. Increased academic requirements left less time for kids to take electives, the category into which practical programs were to be found. Practical programs including industrial arts and home economics.

This led to an increase in dropout rates, which then gave rise to alternative high schools, an attempt to retain students by giving them a give-away option. Attendance not required being a big one. Districts all across the land leaped on the alternative school bandwagon because if you could show you had a student enrolled [never mind if they attend], you got the money for that kid from the state. It was a budget and public relations initiative. It was also pathetic and disgusting, a not surprising product of school administrators trying to make themselves look good.

Another dynamic in this sordid equation.... school administrators have done nothing their whole lives but go to school, they are products of the post-secondary education mill which wants the public to believe everyone has to have a college degree. Public school administrators, in-bred products of the post-secondary system, serve as mindless puppets of higher ed..... the hand that feeds them, or breeds them, perhaps.

At one time instructors in college level courses intended to prepare industrial arts teachers were skilled, competent practitioners. Former machinists, welders, auto mechanics were the best sort of people to have teaching the teachers. The universities couldn't stand that so they required professorial types to have Phd degrees. That led to the elimination of skilled people who actually knew how to do anything from the ranks of those preparing industrial arts teachers.

People who don't know how beget people who don't know how. Programs declined for that reason as well.

Guidance counselors, at the behest of school administration, did little or nothing to promote skilled trades, instead hanging posters on cork boards telling the kiddies they needed white collar jobs only available to those with college degrees.

I blame it on career-driven administrators caring most for their career medium, universities working to expand their empire and grow their businesses, and the manic rush to make sure academic skills rose by cramming more academic classes down the student's throats. All these factors worked in concert to kill practical programs and cause a big jump in the dropout rate, leading to the laughable result called the alternative school.

Add to that the many parents who lacked the skill and confidence to effectively represent their kids in need of practical programs, which is not a criticism of the parents, it is an indictment of the disgusting pukes in the administrative ranks who exploited that important aspect of this situation.

Education has a way of achieving its own self-serving agenda by making the commoner feel to stupid to participate in the debate.

I wrote a number of op-ed pieces for the Cedar Rapids paper and one for the Des Moines paper. I wrote the one for the Des Moines paper after testifying in a Iowa senate public hearing on vocational education. During that testimony I was pointedly critical of school administrators in both public schools and post-secondary education, and was also critical of the universities obsession with the Phd.

During that article I wrote something to this effect [I can't find the article just now, so I can't know I am quoting it exactly right]:

H. L. Mencken said the best way to improve the schools was to burn the buildings and hang the administrators. I disagree. Some of the buildings are worth saving.

I actually received letters in the US mail from school administrators who seemed upset about that.


Don't get me started....

[Bob2]

Amen Gordon Amen, I couldn't have said it better.

[Bruce in BC]

Burn the school boards and hang the administrators

Gordon you have made one assumption that is far from accurate .
"At one time instructors in college level courses intended to prepare industrial arts teachers were skilled, competent practitioners. Former machinists, welders, auto mechanics were the best sort of people to have teaching the teachers. The universities couldn't stand that so they required professorial types to have Phd degrees. That led to the elimination of skilled people who actually knew how to do anything from the ranks of those preparing industrial arts teachers. "

For every competent machinist , mechanic , plumber or trades person you have one if not two incompetent trades persons . Just because a person is competent in one field does not mean he will be competent in a variety of fields . Just because a person is competent in a field does not mean he will be competent to teach .

Teachers pay is a deterrent to attracting competent trades workers . What is attractive about getting paid half of your normal days wage to teach ? As a result the effect of low pay attracts trades people who are having difficulty making a living wage in the chosen field and become instructors not because of their skills but because of their lack of skills .

I have been a shop teacher for 33 years , I am on sick leave . I can no longer work in my chosen field . I was poisoned by a night school trades person putting a large source of zinc in the forge . Negligent , stupid , arrogant , incompetent and morally corrupt would be mild when it comes to describing this trades persons actions . Inept would be the most accurate description of his ability to teach .

I have no trades ticket . Despite that I have been employed as a welder during the summer . Trades people with tickets were fired while I remained employed . My welds were certified . I have worked in construction and the same thing happened over the summer . Out of a team of five two were fired but I was kept on , again no ticket . Mechanics ? Although I have no ticket I have been used as a witness in several court cases , all against businesses that employ certified mechanics , in every case the court found the mechanic negligent . $900 dollars to change the oil in a rear end ? Not hard to find a flat rate book to show what a job like that should cost .

Do I think or am I implying that I am better , smarter and have superior skills than a trades person ? No , but having a ticket in no way indicates a persons ability , just as the lack of a ticket does not indicate that an individual lacks the skills to do a job .

From my experience some of the poorest shop teachers had their trade tickets . They sucked at their trade and used a teaching position as an alternative means to make a living .

That aside , if you want to improve education , burn down the school boards , hang the administrators and eliminate the ministry of education .

[Gordon Maney]

The ones I experienced were first rate. What happened next was an influx of Phd bearing professors who had no technical competence, instead having research skills and the ability to do statistical analysis on their research results.

I, too, taught industrial arts [for 16 years] as an automotive instructor, and also had secondary and post-secondary vocational certification. Yes, there are good teachers and bad teachers, from any origin.

Generally, technical competence was squeezed from the teacher preparation programs. No one present had any technical competence, so.... guess what they produced. It is how industrial arts evolved into industrial technology with the table-top simulation approach to real things.