The high-tech return of high school shop class
The high-tech return of high school shop class
by Jamie Gumbrecht
In his State of the Union speech, President Barack Obama talked about redesigning schools for a high-tech future. He gave a shout-out to a technical high school in Brooklyn, and to 3-D printing. In a moment of seeming agreement, Republican Sen. Marco Rubio mentioned incentives for schools to add vocational and career training.
But long gone are the days of shop class, or even “vocational training,” said Stephen DeWitt, the senior director of public policy for the Association for Career and Technical Education. For many years, he saw career and technical education cut by shrunken budgets or “literally and figuratively left in the back of the school, separate from academics.”
What’s emerging in schools now is something tougher to pin down. In one district, it might