Where are the "Trade Schools" now that we need them?

[313WX]

I think you could say the same thing about the education we are providing right now...

I agree with you actually.

But as things stand right now on a strictly apples vs. apples comparison, attending a university/college to receive a degree is a better investment towards landing a job that provides decent upward mobility than attending a trade school.

[dguy4evr]

My point is that it is true, I learned auto mechanics on engines and drivetrains that were current for my time. [[Late 1960's). However, as I continued to work in this field I was able to update my training as the new technology appeared. This cost was usually paid for by my employers as it benefited them also. The thing is I couldn't have gotten in on the ground floor without the initial training.
I realize that there are going to be your fly-by-night schools out there taking kids [[and our) money. But Wilbur Wright had a reputation as a truly great trade school. Anyone who graduated from there had the skills to go anywhere. A lot of the equipment was donated by the big 3 auto companies.
Although I am no longer a mechanic, my experience as a heavy truck mechanic enabled me to go into the testing field. I am now making a very decent salary. Something a lot of young people with a ton of student loan debt and no available job can't say.
Don't get me wrong, I envy the kids that have the degrees and have the jobs they trained for, but there is a big need for us grunts too.

[greatlaker]

Back in the mid 70's I took a [[mandatory) year of shop in 8th grade. You could then pursue a career track through high school in the trades if you wanted to. I think a lot of that type of educational opportunity has been discontinued due to the budget cutbacks and the skyrocketing liability insurance the school has to carry. I think if you wait until a student graduates from high school to begin that sort of vocational training it's too late.

[ddaydetroit]

Detroit needs trade school A.S.A.P I own a shop that services mostly CNC shops I have a 160 shops I do work for in Macomb and Oakland county and not one in Detroit most of the shops we do work for go from 32 and Vandyke down to 9 mile with most being in the 23 and Hayes area. As you go closer to Detroit the shops go from high paying skilled labor to more low paying production shops and old school stamping plants.


Hamtragedy



but not to Detroit or Ferndale or Warren, but to 23 Mile and Hayes, so the job that used to pay 25/hr is now paying 13/hr and where the hell is 23 and Hayes.


23 between Hayes and Schoenherr is an area with a lot of CNC machining jobs many working on plastic injection molds and these jobs are now back up to 25 an hour


313WX



As another poster said, the reason there aren't many trade schools around any more these days is because the demand for them has changed. The days of graduating trade school and then walking straight into a job that pays a living wage are long gone.

People aren't going to pay good money out of their pockets, nor will the government spend the taxpayer's money, to pay for an education for jobs that either no longer exist or are in limited supply and pay poorly.


But as things stand right now on a strictly apples vs. apples comparison, attending a university/college to receive a degree is a better investment towards landing a job that provides decent upward mobility than attending a trade school.


313wx you obviously do not work in a shop where skilled labor is needed it took my shop 6 months to find one skilled worker and I need 2 more workers and every shop I deal with is in the same boat. We had 5 years of people retiring and no one getting trained and no its a huge problem.

douglasm



When I graduated high school [[1966, GO EAGLES!) the guys in auto shop were working with a 1953 Plymouth. That would be fine for the time, but try to use that skill to fix my current car, with it's computers and whatnot. Most things are much more complex than they were "back in the day", and there isn't enough time in a school day to give adequate voc/ed training


The cars today are sometimes are easier to fix with the right equipment you hook a computer up to it and the sensors will tell you whats wrong with it and its really not hard to learn. That software costs thousands per computer once you learn it its actually easy to use but you need the training to use it before you can get hired


This link with Mike Rowe hits the nail right on the head and I'm not a fan of Glenn Beck but this is video dead on


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_BDOIps9MM

[Don K]

When I went to Andrew Jackson Intermediate back in 1951-1953, you had to take a year of General Shop in the 7th grade and a semester of Machine Shop and a semester of Wood Shop in the 8th grade. You also took a year of Drafting in the 8th grade. All high schools had complete machine shops, wood shops, and print shops as well as large mechanical drawing class rooms for the non-college prep students. The most dedicated of the vocational students would go to Cass Tech where a diploma was an automatic ticket into the world of work.

In a fairly upscale district [[more like Plymouth than GP or BH) in NJ in 66-68 we took a semester of wood shop and a semester of mechanical drawing in 7th grade, followed by a semester of metal shop and another semester of drawing in 8th grade. I think my mom had the cutting board I made in wood shop til the day she died

It proved to me that I had no aptitude whatsoever for working with my hands.

[hortonz]

I went to W.D Lowe high school in Windsor. It was one of the best trade schools in Ontario and most of its' graduates ended up working in the local tool and die industry. Many former graduates now own and operate their own tool and mold shops. Unfortunately, governments convinced themselves that manufacturing jobs had no place in the modern "information economy" and students were brain-washed into thinking their only options were high-paying jobs in the information economy or low-paying job in the service industry. With no interest in trade jobs from high school kids, and with government eager to outsource factory work to low-wage, third-world countries, funding for skilled trades training dried up and the government created a self-fulfilling prophecy.

[EastsideAl]

There are, in fact, 5 operating DPS vocational and technical education centers that were founded and built as part of the same court-order as the desegregation of Detroit schools beginning in 1979. These schools were extremely oversubscribed in their early years, and many students were educated and gained employment through these schools.

However, a number of things happened to make these schools less popular. The main one was that from the 1980s through the 90s the number of jobs in these manufacturing trades precipitously declined in the Detroit area [[and pretty much everywhere else in the U.S.), eventually leaving most of the graduates of these programs unemployed upon graduation. Compounding this was a feeling that many local employers and unions were not welcoming to young black employees, and held fast to 'last hired, first fired' seniority systems that generally left older white workers protected and younger black workers jobless. And what newer jobs there were usually paid far less than they had previously, and not enough to actually support someone. So these schools, like vocational schools around the country, gained a reputation as a dead end.

The DPS voc-tech schools did survive. But throughout the 2000s they have experienced the same large declines in funding and enrollment that have plagued the rest of DPS. Thus they have been unable to replace or modernize much of their equipment. And due to a lack of funding all of the vocational schools have been reduced to part-time programs, mostly teaching employment-related and technical skills to 10th and 11th grade students, in cooperation with other DPS high schools. So there are, in fact, vocational schools in Detroit, but they are starved of resources and students, like everything else here in the city.

An additional factor has been the growth of a body of evidence in the 2000s that people with post-secondary education on average earn significantly more in their lifetimes than those without [[and that this disparity has been increasing). From that, a supposition has grown that much of the racial disparities in income in the U.S. are traceable to much lower rates of college education among African-Americans. So, the focus has been moving away from old-style vocational education in urban school districts and towards some form of college prep.

In fact, as part of the emergency management of DPS by the state a decision was made to open an entirely new set of high schools designed to train students in professional skills, high technology, entrepreneurship, and other skills as preparation for higher education. And they have moved towards a partnership with WCCD. Indeed, those DPS schools that operate under the state-approved managers will no longer send students to the older vocational-focused programs, further damaging the future of those schools.

[Richard]

I own a shop and finding skilled labor is almost impossible it took us 6 months to find 1 top notch welder that we could trust working on the high dollar equipment we repair.
When we put ads online we are lucky to even get one or two resumes worth looking at I also deal with many shops and shop owners and they are having the same problem finding non production CNC machine operators I see the help wanted signs all over. Wednesday March 12 I was in Oklahoma on business I drove pass a billboard sign that a local business had turned into a huge welders wanted sign it's that bad.
Yes there are many welders out there but the ones with good welding skills and work ethics have jobs and many out of work skilled welders that send me resumes we find out there is usually a good reason they are not working.
Where I went to high school we had a great weld and machine shop and some idiot years ago decided Utica high needed to get rid of the shop classes and put in computer labs everyone I know who took and did well in vocational welding and machine shop is in high demand making a decent living and did it without running up a high college tuition. I actually posted something about this about a month ago in the non-Detroit section

I read a piece a few weeks back about the auto builders in the south were trying to get the Detroit based support shops to set up closer to them,the reply from Detroit was that the monies were not worth the relocation.

Because of the currant skilled labor shortage it would seem at this time Detroit has the upper hand,but as the training kicks in it may be left in the dust in the future unless one can be sure 100% that the big three will stay committed no matter what the cost.

I have run the numbers and they are out there showing that because of taxes,cost of living etc. the lower perceived wage of the south is in line with the north.

Would it not be considered an investment for the local Detroit established machine and trade shops to establish a neutral training center and in essence provide the labor to both north and south as additional locations? Neutral meaning it is up to the individual to decide union or not.

It would in essence control the labor market with supply and demand determining the average wage.

You can really take the dumbest kid on the block but works well with their hands and make a good CNC operator out of them,we seem to judge to much on book smarts then actual ability.


My shop classes in school in the early 70s were,electrician,plumbing,machine shop including metal casting,automotive,carpentry.That was in Mlps though.

[Hermod]

You can really take the dumbest kid on the block but works well with their hands and make a good CNC operator out of them,we seem to judge to much on book smarts then actual ability.

I have a nephew that was the proverbial "box of rocks" growing up, but the kid was a good worker, responsible, trainable, and motivated. Today he is 50 and has a really good job as a tool and die maker. His "smarter" younger brothers were no where near as successful.

[nain rouge]

One thing people that don't work on the floor forget is how much it sucks. I've worked industrial jobs and it's hell. You make good money, but you pretty much have to become an alcoholic or be as "dumb as a box of rocks" to deal with it. You spend 10 or more hours a day in noisy, windowless caverns, doing repetitive tasks for bosses that seem to think they have to break your spirit military-style to turn you into a good worker. What's money good for if that's your life?

The days of dreamers like Henry Ford building well-ventilated "crystal palaces" for workers are long gone. Sure, he was all about efficiency, too, but at least he seemed to have a heart. There aren't many like that these days.

[Wesley Mouch]

...

A lot of great points, Al. Our educational system seems to be focusing on yesterday's needs. We don't need our educators to 'focus' on any one area more than another. We need them to provide good basic training. In high schools, college prep is good for some -- vocational training for others.

As a society, we think everyone should follow the pack. And we don't like 'categorizing' people. People should follow their passion -- be it shop, art, college, finance, administration, number crunching..... and our schools should avoid thinking they know what the future employers and entrepreneur need. They'll be wrong. And I'm right! So don't trust me either.

[Cliffy]

Oakland County schools have http://www.ostconline.com/HOME/tabid/2787/Default.aspx Where they offer kids a chance to get bussed there for a few hours a day to get training in trade school stuff.

[stasu1213]

The vocational schools had opened in Detroit in the early 80s taking the vocational classes out of the highschools in Detroit. That was the beginning of the end of DPS who's main focus was academics. The highschool drop out rate was much lower at that time than it is noe.

[maverick1]

Let me add my 2 cents to this.

I am an engineer with a background in skilled trades. I've been a machinist [[manual and CNC) and repaired CNC machines. The lack of skilled labor is a huge issue. I've worked in manufacturing and R&D and both fields are lacking in skilled labor. For those of us that went to high school or middle school in the 80s and 90s skilled trades were almost non-existent in our schools. We were told it was useless, dead-end, only stupid people get dirty or work with their hands, etc. The problem I see is that people think skill = 4 year degree. It doesn't. An engineer by default does not have the skills a millwright, electrician, etc. has. For example a Welding Engineer may not know how to weld or an Electrical Engineer may not know how to actually wire and troubleshoot. Those of us in the industry appreciate and understand the roles of skilled trades and engineering but academia and finance or business people don't. There's always talk about getting more kids into STEM but what people don't understand is that skilled trades are the vestibule of STEM. You can't separate STEM, manufacturing, and skilled labor. They're all tied together.

[maverick1]

I agree with you actually.

But as things stand right now on a strictly apples vs. apples comparison, attending a university/college to receive a degree is a better investment towards landing a job that provides decent upward mobility than attending a trade school.

This is only true on a field by field basis. A bachelor's in English will not have the same opportunities as a Master Electrician or Mechanic.

[Sheena1]

My dad also went to Wilbur Wright, graduated in 1944. The education he had there kept him employed with various tool & shops his entire life. He even had his own shop for awhile. From what he told me, the newbies in the shops didn't know how to use the basic instruments, like the micrometer that was required for their skill level positions.

[canuck]

This is only true on a field by field basis. A bachelor's in English will not have the same opportunities as a Master Electrician or Mechanic.

As it stands now, in Canada, you can pretty much argue the same about opportunities in trades vs professions in liberal arts. On top of the fact that Higher Ed costs a lot less here than in the States, a young person is better off zooming in on learning a trade in auto repair, electrical or plumbing as opposed to teaching or accountancy.

[Hypestyles]

True, but the trades that you and I might have learned in high school are not really relevant to current work needs.

So with this notion in mind, I wonder if there shouldn’t already be some computer science/IT-based middle/high schools around? I wonder where the investors are?