Son is losing his job, along with 320 others.

Interesting stuff in the news from the GOP. One of the things recently added to the tax cut plan is education for none college degree jobs training. It is said that there are currently 6 MILLION unfilled jobs requiring technical skills that ARE NOT taught to our youth in school, or even available as Technical Trades training with ANY Govt. funding. That is going to change promises the Administration, and it's about damn time. This type of training was available in our high schools that had a focus on trades, but they were left in the dust in the early 80's when mills were closing, etc. The small shops could not afford to carry the whole cost of apprentices, so those programs died as well. I'm very optimistic for our future when I at least see that the Govt. realizes this shortcoming.
I pray for our youth every day folks!

 

I agree Dan we need to realize that not every kid is college material or office material. We still have a county wide vocational training center here but of coarse funding an transportation are always in question. A couple of the big natural gas companies worked with a local college to set up an build a training center and programs for gas workers but now the drillers have moved west to the Dakotas an where ever the Hot new gas play is, so we have the training but no local jobs.
The next hot ticket here is the new generation of air cooled natural gas power plants, clean & quite. They take a couple yrs to build and a lot of specialized jobs.

 

As a retired teacher, I can only echo your thoughts, and say how frustrating it was to see kids as early as 7th grade know they weren't going to college, and more/less check out from learning stuff they didn't see as having any importance to them. Very hard to give them anything that would help them, but I tried with projects and such. So much of what is taught is teaching to standardized tests, which are geared to college prep. Of course, when budget cuts came, the first things they cut were Tech Ed. and Family/Consumer Science (the old Home Economics), two things that EVERYONE needs to know, and will be used in everyone's life. The Germans seem to have a much better idea of how to do education.

 

More than one teacher told me my son just stares out the window thru class , so I fought that battle but didn't get the T shirt. My daughter thrived an loved school an wishes she could go back to college for more education but she & her partner both have student loans holding them back from advancing or owning a home.

 

That what holds most of them back Bruce. Just a shame when you see all these foreigners that are doctors & such.

 

Her other half doesn't want to leave the area around Ithaca but real estate is always high dollars around there. The last time I chatted with him he was telling me he has a big interest in metal working but no tools or any room to do it. Hmmmm, I like playing with fire and hammers.

 

Metal working with an artistic touch makes for a nice living. This is something that a lazy man will never make any real money doing. Sort of like a good car mechanic, if you are not working on cars, you ain't making any money. I owned a small construction business as a partnership with a good friend. I worked a full time job at the time, and all my evenings & weekends were spent on the jobs we won bids on. The issue was that these jobs seemed as though no progression took place during the week while I worked. My partner liked to party every night, and sleep in. 18 months of this & the threat of my wife leaving me prompted me to sell my stake. I did, to another friend of his, the two like minded guys lasted about 4 months without me. I'm so happy that I did my selling off through a legal consultant, they got sued for the jobs that were unfinished. I did one house flip with these guys when things were going good, and made $7,000 in a month. I was shaking in my boots until the sale though. I wish every entrepreneur good luck, but I caution them to not think it will be easy, or little work, it's a earn what you put in deal, sort of reap what you sow.