Essay - The Future of Vocational Education in America Four Years of...

The Future of Vocational Education in America

***** years of college is not the route for many students ***** many reasons.

Perhaps money is an **********, or grade po*****t, or simply the desire to continue in the academic w*****ld. Everyone cannot be teachers, lawyers, or doc*****rs. Moreover, it would be a sad world if they were. Vocational education gives the world plumbers, wood craftsmen, welders, hair stylists, electricians, and ***** list goes on. These are the people who make our lives more livable. After all, how many ***** us know how to wire a house, repl*****ce leaky plumbing, or build new cabinets for ***** kitchen. These people are craftsmen and are much needed in the world. One student may not be able to write a criticism on Shakespeare, but perhaps he is a whiz at woodwork*****g enabling him to build intricate pieces of furniture. Vocational ***** is very important to our *****.

Vocational schools in this country have long been written off as the ultimate oxymoron, emphasis on moron. "Remember Bill Cosby's old routine on shop? In it he recalls, "A guy says, 'If you put a bullet in ***** furnace, ***** will explode.' This was the brightest kid in our class" (Perry 1989). This is no long so, accord*****g to John Furman, a training coordinator for General Motors. Furman says "I recently spoke to some vocational ***** ***** ***** using com*****ers to simulate rocket launchings. *****t's ***** like in the F*****ties, when they'd just be given a piece of wood to saw" (Perry 1989). There are close to 30,000 public high *****, community colleges, ***** technical ********** that ********** vocational education. There is a myriad of private training centers, which range from fly-by-night operations to well-respected secretarial schools. Industry sees vocational ***** as a godsend. According to the Bureau of Labor Stat*****tic, jobs for technicians grew f*****ter than any other major occupational group. As au*****mation spreads, companies need smarter, ***** flexible employees who can perform a variety of tasks, from installing and monitoring welding robots to reprogramming them if production rates drops. " By working with local institutions on curriculum, by lobbying state education departments and ***** school boards for funding, by donating up-to-date equipment, by loaning employees to serve as teachers and men*****rs, companies can help guarantee themselves a *****tter- trained, more productive work force" (***** 1989).

Statistics are showing that vocational education keeps students from dropping out of school. "According to recent estimates, each drop***** represents an average loss of $58,930 in federal ***** ***** income taxes during the course of a lifetime. For ***** 3,881,000 dropouts between the ages of 16 and 24 years in 1991, ***** amounts to $228.7 billion over their lifetimes" (Imel 1993).

More ***** ***** students are choosing to attend vo- tech schools. Perhaps one re*****on for the increase is because many scholarship programs that pay only a portion ***** expenses at a traditional college or university, most often pay ***** entire expenses for a vo-tech school. And perhaps too, it *****