A new Harvard study (PDF) says American students need to begin to decide in middle school whether they want to prepare for four-year college and then a career. The alternative approach, the study says, is to begin vocational training for a job earlier.
The study is inspired by European systems of education, and its authors say too many students are graduating high school without middle-level skills that could help them land well-paying jobs as electricians, for example. About a third of jobs in the next decade won't require a four-year college education, the study says, and this program would help American kids prepare for them.
This is not surprising to anyone on the front lines of education - yet it is completely lost on all the reformers who get the press. The Obama Administration and their narrow-minded - altogether clueless - minions continue to push college for all to the exclusion of real discussion of practical education.
3 comments:
Bring back apprenticeships.
Agreed that not all should go to college. However, middle school is much, much too early to have to decide. I had no idea what I wanted to do when I was in middle school.
They shouldn't decide - but they should certainly be thinking about whether they are academic or not by middle school.
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