Thread by @HicksCBER

The United States spends well over $150,000 in K-12 education. More than anything else, the American Century was caused by the broad education of our population, both in K-12, then in college.

Read this story, and I'll tell you what is wrong here.

indystar.com/story/news/edu…

To begin, I'm not a 'go-to-college' shill. I spent all my 20's as an infantry officer. I know the value of hands on training. Further, I was rightly raised to view all work as equally ennobling. God commanded us to work six days, not just rest one.

This article describes notching pig's ears as a classroom task. In a world where RFID marking of animals is already common, we are teaching yesterday's (or last century's) tasks.

There is an opportunity cost in teaching this in lieu of other skills.

So, who is going to take this class and bear the heavy cost of substituting this for different skills? Wanna bet it isn't going to be the kids whose mom and dad went to college? Wanna bet it isn't even going to be the kid whose family owns a farm, and is headed to Purdue?

If we are going to push primarily low income students into declining industries, we shouldn't bother teaching them about those industries.

Instead, we should spend time teaching them how to access social services.

So, instead of teaching about CDL licenses in 6th grade, or how to notch a pig's ears in high school, maybe we should teach them how to apply for Medicaid, TANF and SNAP. Maybe we should teach them how to access worker retraining programs in their 30's and 40's.

We'd be a lot more honest if we'd tell kids that we are simply prepping them for quick, low wage employment right after high school, because that's what the local Workforce Development Board members (local employers) want.

Then, when those jobs vanish, you'll need to be good at accessing the wide array of social services provided to unemployed workers. By then, DWD will have developed a new set of CTE programs to teach you other outdated skills.