DECONSTRUCTING THE RENAISSANCE
(Mensaje se repite en Español)
In looking at the long term failure to achieve a viable public education system in the United States by those charged with its efficient implementation, it seems clear that this lack of success has a great deal to do with leadership at all levels of public education that is more concerned with politically correct slogans than a pragmatically driven system of public education that sets its priorities based on the objective needs of our society. To illustrate this point, one need only take note of recent unemployment figures here in California that point out a rather disturbing piece of information: While there is a significant increase in the number of jobs being offered, there remains a dearth of well-trained and qualified applicants for these positions.
While the aggregate cost of public education has reached an annualized figure of close to $1.2 trillion a year and student debt has also reached the trillion dollar level, the actual level of employable skills achieved at both the K-12 and college levels remains abysmal. More than half of college graduate, who now graduate with a mortgage-sized student debt- but without the house to go with it- are working at relatively low-paying jobs that do not require a college degree.
It is also worth pointing out that while our national rhetoric exclusively continues to unquestioningly define educational success as going to college, the total capacity of all colleges and universities in the United States is somewhere between 30-40% of high school graduates. So what is everybody else supposed to do to be gainfully employed as productive members of society, so they can stay out of expensive privatized jails that now warehouse 2.4 million of our population incarcerated at an annual average cost of $50,000 per person?
When I went to the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) in the 1950s and 60s, in addition to a college track for students, all students were required to take a shop class or home economics classes that gave them skills in wood, metal, electrical, automotive, and other practical and employable skills like drafting. Education was not seen as an either/or election, but rather as giving students more education options, so that ultimate professional choices could be made from a position with many acquired areas of skill and DECONSTRUCTING THE RENAISSANCE - Perdaily.com: