Robert Reich is writing as if nobody in the US actually gets a vocational-technical education. Is he that wonky? What about all the young people who, um, get vocational training?
What about JobCorps?
Job Corps is a no-cost … vocational training program … that helps … people ages 16 through 24 improve the quality of their lives through vocational … training.
Funded by Congress, Job Corps has been training young adults for meaningful careers since 1964.
Here are JobCorps’ performance measures (.xls
files).
2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 Entered Emp/Educ 73% 66% 66% 73% 73% 75% HSD/GED or Career Tech. Training Cert. 53% 55% 61% 64% 65% 71% Literacy or Numeracy Gains 53% 58% 64% 65% 65% 69%
Vo-tech training is not a novel idea. It is not exotic. If vo-tech and community college will solve the United States’ labour-force problems, why aren’t they already solved?
Imagine some young person acts on his blogpost: takes a nursing or HVAC diploma instead of a university degree. Finishes the course and can’t find a job, or can’t find enough work, or can’t find well-paid work. What’s Reich going to say?
- “Not my fault”?
- “Should have done more research”?
- “I can’t be held responsible”?
- “Shouldn’t have relied upon what I wrote”?
Exactly.
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