Americans not qualified for available manufacturing jobs

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Americans not qualified for available manufacturing jobs

I agree almost completely with your post.

What I would add is the following:

I think(not based on evidence, more an opinion) academic rigor has dropped like a stone outside of small numbers of elite institutions bucking the trend...all just anecdotal on my part...but I think for many there is some or a lot of truth to it.

And I think it's partially this lack of rigor......this sense of entitlement and sloth that has left the majority of the population in educational neutral for a couple decades.

Americans have been fat, dumb, and happy for a while now.....they have forgotten what real hunger & fear feels like.

I would use the example of Israel and India...different cultures and different attitudes....in Israel an overriding "back against the wall" fear has certainly helped generate considerable and profitable entrepreneurial activity on the back of Israel's desire to continue to exist...I've worked with a lot of Israelis over the years......that drive, while not in any way genetically programmed in, certainly must have been inculcated over a lifetime to where it almost appears to be in the DNA.....success in survival of the state turned into military and economic regional dominance.

In India gaining a precious slot in IIT could be the difference between pulling your entire family out of misery and into an affluent and very comfortable 3rd world life......eating regularly can be an outstanding motivator.

I don't foresee any mass concerted productive effort until the majority of folks are hungry and/or have their backs against the wall.

Spring Break became the modern equivalent of old world Roman debauchery.

Until the average American understands that the dirt poor Indian kid with the big brain who gains access to world class education in his own country and STAYS there may represent a far bigger threat to US workers quality of life and standard of living than if he is recruited to come here to study/produce and "take ther jobs!".

It's only been the last 5 years of so that I've personally seen a spike in young Americans doing what their Commonwealth peers have done for decades...which is travel and see the world.

I'm hoping this spike continues to the point that the average American 18 year old clearly sees that the time for complacency is over.......

The only answer I see is an oversimplistic and stolen one.......massive federal bailouts:

1.) A couple hundred targeted billion to higher education.....to keep it from collapsing, produce future workers with future skillsets, and for R&D to produce future product and business ideas.

2.) A couple hundred targeted billion to future infrastructure...what ever that means......that's Jetson's stuff, but probably really means futuristic light rail and bicycle lane type stuff to keep undereducated and underskilled working for a bit.

I'm sure it will be full of pork barrel earmarks that would make even a veteran special interest corrupted member of congress blush.

And I'm sure we'll have lots of poor quality science grads who add zero value as you suggest...but maybe if you put enough of them in a room long enough with some monkeys and typewriters something mediocre might come out.

[ASH]

Re: Americans not qualified for available manufacturing jobs

[ASH]

Re: Americans not qualified for available manufacturing jobs

It's only been the last 5 years of so that I've personally seen a spike in young Americans doing what their Commonwealth peers have done for decades...which is travel and see the world.

But... our 18-year-olds have been touring the world in great numbers since late 2001! True, they haven't made it quite everywhere yet, but certainly a lot of them have had an opportunity to visit abroad on the government's dime.

[Zen$]

Re: Americans not qualified for available manufacturing jobs

For a long time now we've had government pushing the fallacy that "Every child deserves a college education" and it just isn't true. In order to achieve this goal, public schools have eliminated vocational programs that taught automotive repair, plumbing, electrical repair, office work, etc., and used the funding for more academic college prep classes.

Nobody wants to admit that not every child is cut out for college. A lot of kids with learning and behavioral problems who do poorly in the classroom are kinesthetic learners. They would be very successful in vocational classes. Kids who are bored in math class eagerly learn math when they're taught to calculate how much lumber they will need to build a doghouse. My husband is a Special Ed teacher who has taught Vocational classes to Special Ed middle-schoolers. These kids are not dumb, they just have different learning styles.

We need mechanics, plumbers and the like, and should not stigmatize people who do those jobs. We should return to the "merit" education system espoused by Thomas Jefferson: All children get public education through middle school. The highest performers get to go to public High School. In High School, children with college aptitude get the College track. The top percentage would get their college paid for.

Children with vocational aptitude would get the Vocational track. Apprenticeship programs could be set up with local businesses to further their training. This might involve changing the child labor laws. There's nothing to stop vocationally educated students from going to college later if that's what they want to do.

If we did this, we would see young people graduating from High School with marketable skills ready to start work, or ready to excel in college.

This post should not be construed as saying that people who are kinesthetic learners, or people who do vocational trades for a living are not smart enough for college. I'm just saying different strokes for different folks, and the education system should encourage Vocational as well as College prep.

This would be continental Europe in the late 20th century--it seemed to work well for them. They are starting to drift away from it in the 21st century. In America we have to have the pretence that we are all equal so Billy and Suze must be as good as the neighbors kids (with an IQ of 130) or should be made so. The crazy outcome of this thinking is the multimillion dollar special ed children. Spending huge sums to try to make them something they are not should not be confused with having compassion for them. You just said the same thing for the "kinesthetic learners." My town of less than one thousand has at least one of those multimillion dollar children and it has diverted funds from other very worthy things and crippled the "regular ed" budget.

[Starving Steve]

Re: Americans not qualified for available manufacturing jobs

When I suggest American schools insist upon in fluency in at least two languages, one English and one other language such as Spanish, for high school graduation, and when I talk about American schools teaching far more science and math and to STOP preaching white history, to stop preaching U.S. nationalism and flag worship, to stop the Constitution worship services, to stop the teaching of test-taking skills, to stop the penmanship lessons, and to stop wasting time with endless long- division and cyphering of numbers, I am viewed as some sort of nut. But the fact of the matter is that the U.S. can barely compete with other nations in manufacturing, and the U.S. workers have been given a public education which is 150 years or more out-of-date.

[Starving Steve]

Re: Americans not qualified for available manufacturing jobs

Why aren't U.S. public schools teaching basic electrical-wiring and electrical-engineering to EVERYONE, regardless of their IQ? Why aren't U.S. public schools teaching basic construction skills to everyone? Why isn't truck-driving taught? Why isn't more time devoted in the high school curriculum to driver's education and driving law? Why isn't more first-aid being taught?

Why do I even have to ask these questions? I know that I am missing something again, but what is it that I am missing?

[reggie]

Re: Americans not qualified for available manufacturing jobs

I guess we're to blame, again.

As we've already seen posted on this forum, they're will be plenty of narratives going around trying to convince us that we're the problem and the reason for our own downfall. I recall in our recent history hearing US politicians blaming Iraqi's for the continuance of the war, too.

[shiny!]

Re: Americans not qualified for available manufacturing jobs

This would be continental Europe in the late 20th century--it seemed to work well for them. They are starting to drift away from it in the 21st century. In America we have to have the pretence that we are all equal so Billy and Suze must be as good as the neighbors kids (with an IQ of 130) or should be made so. The crazy outcome of this thinking is the multimillion dollar special ed children. Spending huge sums to try to make them something they are not should not be confused with having compassion for them. You just said the same thing for the "kinesthetic learners." My town of less than one thousand has at least one of those multimillion dollar children and it has diverted funds from other very worthy things and crippled the "regular ed" budget.

We need to abolish the Dept of Education. It is failing to serve children on every level. It provides schools with about 5% of their funding and 80% of their paperwork. By refusing Dept of Ed funds, schools could eliminate so much paperwork they would actually have more money for additional teachers and resources instead of administrative paper pushers.

There's a Federal law on the books that says "Every child has a right to an education." The unintended consequence of this law are the "multimillion dollar special needs children". I had a friend, a teacher's assistant, who injured her back when trying to change the diaper of a very large, heavy child in a persistent vegetative state . This child was in a special ed program at a public school because her parents insisted she had a "right" to be in school.

You also have the children who are violent, dangerous and flat-out refuse to learn, to the point where they have to be in self-contained classrooms or home schooled at the district's expense. You can't expel them because being "Emotionally Disturbed" is a handicap, and therefore to kick them out would be to discriminate against a Special Needs child.

No Child Left Behind and the push for "Teacher Accountability" has led to a slew of laws and regulations on Federal and State levels requiring that ALL children must be given umpteen standardized tests every year at their grade level. A child with mental retardation or a severe learning disorder must take the same tests as every other child their age. Their poor test results are factored in with all the other test results, bringing down the schools' performance grade. In other countries these children are not educated in the public schools, and this is one of the biggest reasons why other countries have higher test scores than the USA.

My husband and every other good Special Ed teacher wants to work with each child to bring out their own personal best- but instead they have to "teach to the tests" at their grade level, rather than at their achievement level. On test days these kids are traumatized and filled with shame.

My husband, given the time, can raise a dyslexic child's reading level up to 3-5 grade levels in a year. But he isn't given the time. He has to spend most of his hours doing mandatory paperwork and teaching to the damned tests. He's been teaching over 20 years, and every year seems to get worse and worse.

Morale among teachers is terrible because they are no longer allowed to have any say over how and what they can teach. They are regulated by petty bureaucrats who have never taught school for even five minutes.

Our education system is totally broken. I wonder if this is on purpose, because if it turned out children who could actually think, they might start questioning authority.

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: Americans not qualified for available manufacturing jobs

We need to abolish the Dept of Education.

+1 .

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: Americans not qualified for available manufacturing jobs

Our education system is totally broken.

There may be hope for reform because of the poor economy. Suburbanites (I am one) viewed home values and school systems as closely linked. It was fundamental core belief.

In the past we gladly paid extra for a house and much extra in school taxes to live in a premium school district and so protect our "single largest investment" and get better returns on it. Now that home prices are drifting ever downward that fundamental dynamic has been broken. Why pay extra school taxes now?

Freezing or reducing school taxes/budgets has some hope to eliminate the type of shameful waste you point out and trigger a focus on effective teaching.

[DSpencer]

Re: Americans not qualified for available manufacturing jobs

My 2 cents:

1. Having the government involved in education through student loans and all the legislative control (no child left behind etc) has given us ineffective elementary and high schools and ridiculously priced (yet still ineffective) colleges.

How people on here can seriously throw out ideas like "we" (I assume the government, using taxpayer/printed money/debt, is implied in this) need to to "bail out" higher education or provide more funding is totally beyond my comprehension.

2. I agree with the posts that the push for everyone to go to college combined with cheap loans, grants etc has given us tons of worthless grads with worthless degrees.

3. I also agree that you can't just force masses of people into math/science degrees and expect that to solve everything.

4. Idiocracy is a great movie and its central premise is terrifyingly accurate. When no job/money + popping out more kids = bigger government check...how can we not expect a cultural situation where responsible people have fewer children? No education system imaginable can fix a problem that is the result of a population with too many people that are just plain old fashioned dumb.

I do think there's some reason to be optimistic that the current and future economic situation will have some positive effects on our culture.

[reggie]

Re: Americans not qualified for available manufacturing jobs

Our education system is totally broken.

It depends what ones frame of reference is.

The following quotes are from the following 1934 report:

Conclusions and Recommendations for the Social Studies
Carnegie Corporation
Harold Laski, American Historical Association
CHAS. SCRIBNER’S SONS, New York, 1934

"9. Cumulative evidence supports the conclusion that, in the United
States as in other countries, the age of individualism and laissez
faire in economy and government is closing and that a new age of
collectivism is emerging."

"ii . The emerging age is particularly an age of transition. It is
marked by numerous and severe tensions arising out of the conflict
between the actual trend toward integrated economy and society, on the
one side, and the traditional practices, dispositions, ideas, and
institutional arrangements inherited from the passing age of
individualism, on the other."

"In two respects education will be challenged:

(a) the emerging economy will involve the placing of restraints on
individual enterprise, propensities, and acquisitive egoism in
agriculture, industry, and labor and generally on the conception,
ownership, management, and use of property, as the changing policies
of government already indicate ; and

(b) the emerging economy, by the reduction of hours of labor and other
measures, promises to free the ordinary individual from the long
working day, exhausting labor and economic insecurity, thus providing
him with opportunities for personal development far greater and richer
than those enjoyed under the individualistic economy of the eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries."

[Chris Coles]

Re: Americans not qualified for available manufacturing jobs

Although I have some sympathy for the maths issue [has high school education really deteriorated that much?], I have no sympathy for employers who won't make the investment necessary to train their people to operate
"sophisticated computerized machinery, follow complex blueprints". They should not be expecting the public school systems or some goverment subsidized training program to magically create people that can walk onto their factory floor and immediately start operating their specialized equipment.

I have gone back to this from GRG55 because it is my long held opinion that the problem is not one of education; but one of lack of investment. Or, to be even more accurate, it is caused by indifference to what one might describe as the long term needs of a stable society.

Although I have worked with, (and still do), and have many friends in academia; I never went to university, I started out as an engineering apprentice, then went on into Forester training in the UK Forestry Commission and back again into what I believe is the most challenging job in mass production, setting multi-spindle lathes, which in turn took another five years on the job training to get to grips with. Only then did I start a move towards employing others and on again into inventing and writing, etc.

Education pre se is nothing more than a first step on the road to becoming a fully functioning individual member of society. By far the greatest part of ones education comes as a package with whomever employs you. Ash relates to teaching a young woman with existing skills. That is by far the very best route to success on both sides. When we set up a freight container repair facility in 1970, we were starting out in an industry that had not existed in our port for more than the previous couple of years. But, by taking on people with previous experience of other trades and training them to very high standards and motivating them with good wages, we very quickly became the largest repairer of aluminium freight containers in the UK.

The problem we face today is directly caused by a lack of suitable investment. It takes time to create and fully establish a new company to employ people in steady productive employment. That time costs money, equity capital investment. What has happened is that over the last several decades, that investment has not been made available in anything like sufficient volume to ensure a steady supply of employment for the many vocational employees you must have to suite the needs of a wide social group that will always exist in any nation.

To cover up that lack of investment, educators tried to increase the numbers admitted to university education; which in turn brings us to where we are today.

The only solution is to dramatically increase the volume of investment available to anyone prepared to set about re-introducing vocational skills back into every level of society. The only people involved being the individuals who set out to create the new jobs. Training people in some college for a mythical job that MIGHT appear some time in the future is entirely the wrong way to go about this. The only way forward is as Ash has done, take people and let them find their natural skill in a real working environment where what they achieve is immediately visible to them. They can thus see where they fit in and can see their contribution to the success of the whole.

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: Americans not qualified for available manufacturing jobs

Education pre se is nothing more than a first step on the road to becoming a fully functioning individual member of society. By far the greatest part of ones education comes as a package with whomever employs you.

Bingo. Modern business has become lazy and/or foolish, trying to hire people with an exact experience match to highly specialized job descriptions. Too rapid churning of staff aggravates the problem, it is rare someone is allotted the 20 years required for mastery of a trade, and they are never paid master's wages if they stay in a job 20 years.

Training people in some college for a mythical job that MIGHT appear some time in the future is entirely the wrong way to go about this.

Another good point. Students enroll to get the best jobs known today which vanish before graduation or get flooded with graduates. Today retraining adults and younger students all seem to want to be nurses. Wife took a degree in geology to work in oil exploration and graduated just in time for the collapse in petroleum jobs in 1985.

[ASH]

Re: Americans not qualified for available manufacturing jobs

Students enroll to get the best jobs known today which vanish before graduation or get flooded with graduates. Today retraining adults and younger students all seem to want to be nurses. Wife took a degree in geology to work in oil exploration and graduated just in time for the collapse in petroleum jobs in 1985.

That's an argument for "teaching the fundamentals" in undergrad. The problem is that many of the better-paying job are too complex and require too much specific knowledge (and/or certification) to learn on the job. To borrow your example, no one really wants their nurse or pharmacist to be "learning on the job" -- at least not without direct supervision (I guess residency for doctors is a type of OTJ training). And the barrier to entry is probably the main reason why such jobs are better remunerated. Kind of a catch-22? If you don't need special training and/or certification to get your foot in the door, then more people can do the job, and therefore the value of labor in that job is lower due to market competition.

That said, on-the-job specialization built on fundamentals works pretty well in engineering disciplines. I got my Ph.D. in 1997-2003, during the rise and fall of the 'dot-com' bubble (which seemed like a 'telecom bubble' to me, given emphasis on infrastructure for the internet). Talk about the jobs going away before you graduate! Most of my graduate work was funded by government and corporate money pushing development of better semiconductor lasers for fiber optic communication, optical data storage, and also optical computing. Of course, by the time I left, we were well into the dot-com/telecom bust. The students who graduated a few years ahead of me all went to work at telecom companies; that well was dry by the time I graduated, and it seems most everyone ended up working in defense. Personally, coming out of graduate school, I knew a lot about laser design, and squat about detector design (I grew some semiconductor crystals for detectors in grad school, but wasn't involved in the actual design). Nonetheless, I ended up with a job designing and managing the manufacture of detectors for defense. I learned essentially everything specific to my detector-related job on the job. But I suspect the opportunity to train into my position (self-taught) was a function of the very small supply of workers with any knowledge or experience of the job. Otherwise, I presume my employer would have just hired somebody who already knew how to design detectors.