I’m starting to think that the only reason why it seems like there is some massive problem in the US secondary education system is that a high school diploma no longer gets one a job. So people conclude that something is wrong with the schools and flog them to death. But it’s not the schools, it’s changing reality.
The students who come to college unprepared and barely literate wouldn’t have been more prepared in the past. They would have been exactly the same but we wouldn’t see them because they’d be hidden from view in their manufacturing jobs. Now that there are no more manufacturing jobs, these young people want to join the world of more comfortable, less mechanistic work. And as a result, the educated classes can no longer pretend that these young people don’t exist.
None of this is a problem of the school system per se, though.
Clarissa's Blog 
Yep. blue collar work is greatly reduced. Sure, still examples of some skilled trades doing well (some plumbers, welders etc.) but en masse you can’t get paid well just for being physically there.
This is also another reason our immigration policy is so important on the lower skillled/ low education side. We have been a nation of immigrants, but for the first 200 years you couldget ahead with hard work. Typical immigrant story (exceptions obviously)was first generation works very hard in manual labor , service etc, and rarely as small business owners, then their off-spring get highly educated and move way up in the job hierarchy.
This story is rare today and MUCH harder. One reason immigration is such a big issue for low – mid income families particullarly in white america. It has little to do with inherent racism and primarily to deal with income. Then some lash out in racist ways, but yeah, totally spot on that colllege didn’t cause this problem. However, a re-tooling of k-12 and college IS NEEDED to deal with the new reality (as are new economic / business structures to deal with the income side)
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Yes, absolutely, this particular narrative of immigration success is no longer possible, at least not in great numbers. Today, it’s more of “first generation works as a programmer / professor / doctor, etc.”
And I agree completely that it’s easy to dismiss the people who are worried over immigration as stupid bigots. But there is a reality behind their anger and we ignore this reality at our own peril.
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The students who come to college unprepared and barely literate wouldn’t have been more prepared in the past. They would have been exactly the same but we wouldn’t see them because they’d be hidden from view in their manufacturing jobs. Now that there are no more manufacturing jobs, these young people want to join the world of more comfortable, less mechanistic work. And as a result, the educated classes can no longer pretend that these young people don’t exist.
Possibly. In addition, I think widespread de jure and de facto discrimination also hid the number of semi-literate white people. Buttressed by this and by labor unions, these people had less competition for any number of jobs at any level. Now in the past if you were not a white guy, merely possessing a high school degree would not get you in the door. Indeed, even a college degree wasn’t enough to overcome institutional discrimination, many times. We also see this in the legions of college graduates from older generations who would not be able to get into their alma maters if they applied today.
Educational requirements for jobs at all levels have simply increased, independent of credentialism. You simply have to know more, so the gap between the literate and illiterate becomes more stark as time goes on. Manufacturing jobs often use CAD; which requires at least geometry and trigonometry. Good luck understanding and navigating a computer application system if you are barely literate.
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Yes, these are crucial points. And all this has to be addressed instead of just flogging the schools.
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This reminds me of the concept of the failure quota. There was a professor at my first uni who would lecture his TA’s on the need to fail x number of students. The problem was that the students were doing much better than that.
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http://the-toast.net/2015/12/21/history-teaching-womens-work/On the History of Teaching and “Women’s “Work
So many problems within the modern school system are actually older problems — inherited problems dating back to our profession’s roots and outdated, sexist views of women. The corporatization of schools — which is touted and bemoaned in the media — was how we got our modern system in the first place, with children as products and taxpayers as shareholders in a sort of educational factory set-up. Women have been speaking out about this injustice (one created in part to keep cheap, female workers under male supervision) since the early 1900s. The lack of trust many have for teachers is also a product of the school system’s roots; while teachers around the turn of the century were highly educated compared to other workers, having usually completed high school — and often post-secondary training — at a time when most jobs didn’t require more than cursory schooling, they were not allowed to dictate curriculum or methods. Today’s teachers, who hold Master’s degrees and regularly complete required professional development, have many mandates and little input when it comes to what and how they teach. Lack of compensation has always been an issue in teaching and continues to this day.
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