Schools that offer technical tracks for students have a higher percentage of graduating students than those who do not. Forcing students to take college prep classes rather than applicable classes such as technical including; automotive technology, health professional, home education, business and marketing classes. Students deserve the fair advantage to choose between entering the job force, or going to college. As important that jobs are, and education is, it is important for students and government officials to work together and address this issue and improve the educational system.
Recent academic success in high schools have been based upon GPA and scores on standardized tests, but students are not given enough opportunities to learn the technical skills needed for a job. In the January KQED Learning article Wunderlich states, “Academic preparation alone is not enough to ensure postsecondary readiness but it is clear that it is an essential part of college and career--readiness, meaning that a high school graduate has the knowledge and
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Young students entering today’s society and workforce feel that if they do not have to show up for a class maybe they do not have to show up to work. Although vocational schools have been looked down upon in the past, today’s society is becoming more accepting of CTE opportunities. The U.S News and World Report newscast states, “More than a million students in the U.S. will graduate from high school this year and go on to college, but a large percentage of them will never earn a degree” (Bidwell). The article focuses on the obstacles young adolescents face when deciding on whether to get a secondary education by going to college, or to go straight into the job force. Thus focusing on the struggles young adults face, emotionally, physically, and
High school graduation marks the start of young adults’ lives, a time where they are expected to decide what they want to do for the rest of their lives. Many young adults are pressured into attending college, whether they have determined their goal or not, but is it necessary? “The Case Against College,” an article written by Linda Lee, a mother who has questioned the former belief that college equals success, claims that “not everyone needs a higher education.” College, though beneficial to many, is not for everyone and should not determine an individual’s life.
“Universities teach students how to think, but they do not provide real world experience, so people leave school unprepared for the workplace” (Smith). “More than half of all companies (60%) said new graduates lacked critical thinking skills and attention to detail (56%), while 44% found fault with their writing proficiency, and 39% were critical of their public speaking ability” (Berr). Students find it very difficult to understand what they need to do to prepare for the workforce. Instead, students could have been doing other things that could increase their techniques to help them make money in different
As the writing advances, the argument shifts to people capable of hands on jobs out of high school considering whether going to college should really be advocated as much as it is today. Along with this, he says that eventually attending vocational schools will become scarce due technology and the fact that many things accomplished at these schools can be done online. He also claims that income statistics of high end jobs today are skewed considering the fact that when you look at average incomes of a profession, many of us will end up in the lower percentiles. For many people, he says, the best option is to pursue a service or hands on job that doesn’t require a four year education. He ends the essay by claiming that “College isn’t all it’s cracked up to be” as well as depreciating the value of the normal B.A. that little college pursuers end up achieving. Murray writes: “the misalignment is in the optimistic direction, as adolescents aspire to be attorneys or physicians without understanding the educational hurdles they must surmount to achieve their goals”.
Graduating from high school is a milestone that forces one to make major life decisions. Whether you are ready or not to make those decisions is irrelevant; choices must be made and and steps must be taken in a new direction. In his article, “Not Going to College is a Viable Option,” former Superintendent Lawrence Schlack states, “high school doesn’t always prepare students to answer these important questions” (13). Schlack argues that too many students are told that college is their only option and they are made to feel failures if they don’t want to attend college. I am thankful for Schlack’s article because it validated my choice not to attend college right after high school. I plan to pursue a career as a diesel mechanic. My goal is to
All careers from construction workers, to teachers, to attorneys are all important in today’s society, and it is important to let the adolescence to choose the path they take in their life. Sending fewer young people to college will not solve the country’s national debt problem. Companies will still send their work across seas in order for them to pay less and make more, even if the United States has enough labor workers in the country. Sending young people to college, or even a trade school, is better because they are gaining knowledge that they would have never had without attending a higher institution of learning.
Today's American workforce is made up of a clear cut thirty six-percent of people with a Bachelor's Degree, thirty-four percent of people with a High School Diploma and thirty percent of people with at least some exposure to college courses (Douglas-Gabriel 1). The desire for qualified job applicants goes unnoticed these days. Today's workforce lacks driven applicants with a college education. As students and families struggle to make ends meet in the midst of the transition from high school to college, one might question, is college worth it? A wide variety of statistics about where students most commonly succeed shows both positives and negatives about attending college.
Blue Collar Brilliance, an article by UCLA professor Mike Rose, implies that some vocational paths don’t require a post-secondary education. He shares the story of his mother, a waitress who dropped out of school in the seventh grade. “There isn’t a day that goes by in the restaurant that you don’t learn something.” Rose explains. He shows us that even though she didn’t even acquire a high school education, she wasn’t unintelligent or incapable of working. She didn’t require a post-secondary education to work at the restaurant or to support her family’s lifestyle. “…my mother learned to work smart.” Rose offers. It was essential for
Today, many computer programmers without college degrees get jobs by presenting examples of their work. With a little imagination, almost any corporation can come up with analogous work samples”(Murray 2). Although not everyone has the intellectual ability to do college work but that doesn’t make them not have the skills for a job. Twisting percentages in education would be a good idea for students who are not up to college level. In generally, many of college students drop out and clearly many of them get on campus without gaining the skills and knowledge in their freshman and sophomore years to succeed. Jobs and education aren’t always related. Education shouldn’t always be the reason for getting a well payed job but rather your skills, not everything you study in college is remembered and a research by Murray supports his point which states that, “About 10 percent to 20 percent of all 18-year-olds can absorb the material in your old liberal arts textbooks. For engineering and the hard sciences, the percentage is probably not as high as 10.” (Murray 1). In my community, most of the Americans say that the higher education system in the United States fell and didn’t provide students with good value for the money. In addition, even at times college presidents not only rated the quality of higher education lower than before, but also rated students lower as well. According to Adam, “About 60 percent said high schools
The news is not all negative though. High school students are reported to show impressive performances under information technology application, diversity, and teamwork/collaboration. These attributes will be extremely helpful in the technology driven workforce. High school graduates still need to make many improvements though. This sparked others to spring into action to help the U.S. stay competitive in the workplace. Nearly sixty percent of U.S. CEOs claim that it is most important to have graduates workforce prepared
If anyone desire to be a successful employee, he/she should be competent in that particular position. Competency is mainly acquired by being involved in an academic learning environment that builds the corner stone of essential knowledge required in the workplace. Moreover, School-to-Work (STW) programs enable candidates to smoothly progress in terms of job settlement by performing some work and school based activates (Alfeld C, Charner I, Johnson L, Watts E, 2013) . In this research, I am going to explain why US undergraduate and graduate schools are perfectly develop students in a way that prepares them for a professional career. In contrast, I will be discussing the concept of School-to-Work (STW) programs to assess their efficiency to fill any gap that may exist between college/university and work due poor education quality. As a consequence, some graduated students may not find a job that suits their academic background and this lead to increase the underemployment rate within the community (Jessie, K, Ute-Christine, K Addelies, V, 2012) . By the end of this research, some possible solutions will be suggested to overcome job-related challenges.
Now a days there’s a lot of pressure for high school graduates to further their education by attending college. Hard evidence states that more high school graduates attend college immediately after graduation compared to any other generation. However, college may seem more of a challenge to some rather than others whom may “need” vocational school. Getting an education is important but some say college isn’t for everyone. In the article “What’s Wrong with Vocational School?” Charles Murray says that not every student is mentally suitable for college and vocational school would prepare them for the vigorous academic demands that come along with college. To critically analyze if this argument is effective
The importance of learning academic and vocational skills throughout high school is that it creates a basis for every major or job they could want to do, and see non-academic subjects in an intellectual light. A student spends roughly four thousand hours in high school. Very little of this time is spent learning vocational skills if any. This is because in our society, there is a bias that more academic based jobs are of higher status than vocational jobs.
Offering students multiple pathways in high school that are equally acceptable will allow students to make the right choice in the their own preparation for transitioning into a career. More than ever before, today’s students need to be engaged and challenged. It is time for the academic high school model to share the stage with the long established vocational education model, now called career and technical education (CTE). Learning can be worthwhile and enjoyable for all high school students and prepare them for their future whether it be a vocational school, college, community college, or a job.
Once considered a dumping ground for students who could not handle a typical high school curriculum, career and technical education has progressed over the last 30 years. Now, students from a variety of academic levels enroll in CTE programs (Hoachlander, 2008, p. 25). Additionally, pathways once considered specific to a certain gender are being
Many young people are leaving high school unprepared for the transition to career (The Forum for Youth Investment, 2006; W. Gates, 2005; Holland,