Needed now and next decade: Electricians, roofers, plumbers

[Igel]

33. Community colleges have been repurposed over the years.

And you see the problem in what Obama's said.

It's been suggested we have free CC for two years so kids can transfer to a 4-year school and get their bachelor's. For that, the 2-year college teaches the basic courses, not the specialized courses. Chemistry I but not quantum approaches to ligand bonding. Physics I but not a separate course on particle physics or solid state physics.

Such courses are cheap to mount, for the most part and attract a lot of students. Vocational courses are expensive and attract few. It's hard for a school to do both.

But Obama's also suggested that community colleges go vocational. Depends on the audience. But even then, he's partly wrong because he only sees how big government and big business go together. Schools should partner with a local corporation to figure out how to offer trades training for what that corporation needs. Working with robots, high-tech welding, clean-room technologists, etc.

What corporation is going to set up a good program for plumbers? Small engine repair? Most of the politicking has been opportunistic, to be honest.

The schools that do provide such training are the private, for-profit ones like Michael Brown was going to attend. Some are shady. They offer many or only crap classes where a lot of students take classes and learn nothing--a lot of this kind of thing requires self-motivation and self-monitoring and it's easy to hand out good grades for crap work (esp. when students assume that the teacher did a good job if they got an A or students demand good grades for doing little). But some of them require students to be in-residence, provide hands-on, useful training. They're like public schools in that sense--some are failing and some excellent.