Welcome to the future. I work for the New York City Department of Education. When I was going to High School our school was full of Milling Machines, Lathes, grinders and drill presses, we had patternmaking, a foundry aeronautics labs with a cessna in it, anything an aspiring Machinist, carpenter, metalurgist or aircraft mechanic could ever want. That was 27 years ago. About 10 years ago I visited the o'l alma matter and it was like visiting an old western ghost town. The closest thing to a piece of machinery near the school was the Ford I drove up in. As the supervisor of the Machine Shop, it's getting extremly difficult to find Machinists.............any trades for that matter. More and more Machinists are coming out of Ghana. There they train them right out of high school in sugar cane factories and a boxite mine. Some of the best Machinist I've seen in a while. Here at the Department of Ed.......we teach technology. Technology I tell ya. Are you listening. My son was starting intermediate school about 6 years ago. He was assigned the technology curriculum. So he comes home from school and tells me that he needs knitting needles and a ball of yarn! YES YOU GUESSED IT! For technology class! Well I almost passed out! So you want to know where the trained supervisors are? GONE! Retired, took that "buy out". God bless them. Why there are only bean counters running the show? Thats because that is what they were trained to do in college.
Bring back trade schools.............................and Thanks for listening.