Can some one answer me this..

[samrock]

Where are the plumbers, electricians, mechanics of tomorrow coming from?? Seems none of the high schools offer shop classes any more.. Are there still such a thing as apprenticeships any more?? .. I believe these jobs pay well.. based on fees charged.. and lord knows this country needs good plumbers, electricians, mechanics.. Just if a friend of mine asked me.. Ya know my son is interested in becoming a plumber how would he get started.. I have no clue...

[GreenPartyVoter]

1. Apprenticeships & tech colleges?? The people I know in those businesses inherited them

from the family, so I am not sure how someone new breaks into it.

[Sebastian Doyle]

2. Maybe Samuel J. Weaselfucker can open up a plumber school?

Though I have yet to read any evidence that he ever was, in fact, actually a plumber.

[cleveramerican]

3. carpenters plumbers and electrians make good$$

and are always in high demand.

[HopeHoops]

4. We still have a vo-tech.

Trade schools are everywhere, mostly private. I've done all of that work as a handyman (knowing my limitations) and a lot of it is book learning. The unions still have a system for apprenticeships. I wouldn't worry about this.

[Greyhound]

5. The same place we're going ot get the next generation of programmers

and engineers and mathematicians and so on, we will import them from countries that value education and make it available to their citizens.

Americans will have to become fast-food workers and cannon fodder.

[quiller4]

6. All the high schools in my area have agreements with local

technical colleges that allow high school students to begin trades training while still in high school. Yes. There are still apprenticeships and there are still plenty of young people beginning apprenticeships each year. My godson is a journeyman electrician who began his apprentice classes while still in high school.

Check on your state labor council web page for information about how to begin an apprenticeship in your area.

[katanalori]

7. Have your friend search........

Our local two year college has an occupational center on campus. I went there 30 years and it still exists.
The offer many courses to prepare (in a short period of time) for auto mechanics, electician, real estate, and many more. This is in southern CA. I have also seen vocational schools in my home State (WI).
I think there are still a lot of these schools - simple google search should uncover them. If you are looking for one in your area, try searching "occupational college plumbing (insert city).

[Blue Diadem]

8. Vocational schools and

Apprenticeships still exist.

Here is one for plumbers and pipefitters:

http://www.ua.org/join.asp

Here's some info from the bureau of labor statistics, including various training programs.

A plumber/pipefitter can make very good money. I have two brothers-i-l who worked in that field for years, mostly in refineries and at the nuclear power plant located not far from here.

[sam sarrha]

11. i know NO ONE who can afford to go to a tech school. if we had a .002% Tariff on imports we could

restructure the work force and the economy and produce real jobs at liveable wages that paid taxes to make the country work and fay off the F'n chinese debt

CA had a program like that for free collage for everyone, and tech retraining. but Raygun put an end to it, moving its standing from 7th in the world to 47th,

[Blue Diadem]

16. Vocational schools are at HS level.

Apprenticeships, at least Union apprenticeships pay for your education. My son is an operating engineer. His education and training was covered. He only had to pay for his certifications/tests.

Vocational schools are at HS level. Our vocational school covers several school districts, 16 to be exact.

http://www.pentacareercenter.org/HS/CareerChoices.html

My brother graduated from that school way back in 1968.

[sam sarrha]

17. in 1968, collage was free different world.. penta is a PAY SCHOOL

dead link..We did not find results for: http://www.pentacareercenter.org/HS/CareerChoices.html. Try the suggestions below or type a new query above... in

[Blue Diadem]

23. Pay schools is a program they can use to pay for their lunches, yearbook fee, adult education

and preschool tuition. HS kids do not pay tuition to go to that school if they live in the district area or neighboring districts. The school does offer adult education and provides preschool as well, those two are not free. There is a community college about a mile away.


http://www.payschools.com/categories.asp?id=A2744E77725C4DCF8D4303EDD24B440E

The pay schools program makes it easy for the kids to pay for their lunch by simply presenting their ID card.

I have no idea what you're talking about with saying it is a dead link. It works fine for me.

Penta is not a college. It's a vocational high school.

My husband's brother went to a vocational HS and graduated in 1959. They've been around a very long time.

I sure don't remember college ever being free.

[sam sarrha]

27. until Ronald Reagun a minuscule tariff on imports provided free collage, you paid was registration

and books, the standard of living was very high then CA was like 7th in the world in education, 47th by the time Raygun left office. the damage he did lasted until 1998, when a state wide test showed that 4 of 7 people couldn't read/write well enough to fill out a job application. the testing was initiated by lawsuits by angry parents. i took the test under nefarious circumstances, the test was very clandestine. at the time i was i was 48. i dropped out of collage in my 3rd year of collage, when Raygun ended the system and forced tuition in his war on students because of the anti war demonstrations. i have dissabilities and was never able to return to collage, i have taken a few classes off and on till my transcripts weren't accepted anymore. i have lived a life in poverty or near the edge ever since. i have Aspbergers Syndrome, i have an IQ of 164 but am only functionally literate, 5th grade. i'm lucky to have good verbal skills, but i perceive in visual images and have to translate

i was told it was a job interview test for a job hiring 18 people. i went to the state fair grounds, it was in 3 of the huge buildings for show stuff, nearly big as a football field, 3-4 tests a day in each. it was a high school proficiency test, there were hundreds of people there, the place was full.. i finished in about 10 minutes... everybody was still struggling. i closed my book and was looking at what others were stuck at.. it was really pathetic.

i got home and told my mother there was going to be a really big scandal about the schools soon.. took about a year, but was played down.

[Blue Diadem]

15. I just realized I left out the bureau of labor link:

http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos211.htm

[Trajan]

9. Well ... many here answered you 'that' ....

It is apparent they knew how to find that information before ranting in a public forum about a subject of which they were ignorant ...

[izquierdista]

14. I still haven't seen the answer

I believe the OP asked why high schools no longer provide this in the way of "shop" classes. While some have pointed out that some high schools in some places have arrangements with the local community college, if still begs the question -- why isn't it offered in high school?

Could the answer be that public K-12 education has continued to worsen, and a high school diploma no longer guarantees literacy, let alone competence in any trade?

[sam sarrha]

10. they are coming from Mexico, India, China... wait a minute while i get my Atlas..........

[rwenos]

12. Community Colleges

A system near and dear to my heart, having taught in one a long time ago. We have a huge problem in the US with any kind of hi-tech blue collar work. A friend of mine worked an entire career at a big aerospace company. He was never laid off, because he could (are you ready?) weld aluminum. Nobody knows how to weld aluminum, which has a low melting temp. Very tricky.

I've also heard yelps from both academic labs and aerospace companies about the lack of trained bench machinists, journeyman carpenters, certified welders, and aerospace mechanics.

And consider the number of hi-tech maintenance workers needed for solar energy, wind turbines and related green tech?

Try a community college. If they don't have a course, make an appointment with the dean, draw up a course, find a local welder, carpenter, diesel mechanic or machinist to teach it and start one. You might be surprised at the response you get. REALLY knock the dean's eyes out and tell him/her you have a commitment from a local manufacturing company to provide an instructor, materials and $50,000 in grant money.

I love those community colleges, guys.

[sam sarrha]

19. they are very expensive now.. no jobs

[SmileyRose]

13. My school district still has vocational school.

Senior year kids accepted into the vocational school go to school half a day for academics and go the rest of the day to work in the trade with someone who has volunteered to take them on as an apprentice (or intern)

[sam sarrha]

20. where is that... not here in nc

[SmileyRose]

21. I am in metro Atlanta

not all the school districts here have vocational school - my school district is having some trouble but so far they have managed to hang onto it. I think a lot of that is because too many of the kids in this district are more liable to quit school if they have to be in the classroom all day.

[sam sarrha]

24. my wife is going to a tech school free because they sent all the textile factories to Pakistan to

buy their friendship after 911.. she is taking 4 classes, 2 are Online, 1 all the tests and homework are online.. and it would cost her $1200 a Quarter to get a medical office cert. in 2 F'n years. books were $500.

[butterfly77]

18. This is something I always talk about to the schools..

and they always say they don't have enough funds.

[bosozoku]

22. My old high school had apprenticeships a few years ago

Don't know about now though.

[yost69]

25. Vocational School

[noamnety]

26. Interesting timing

I just spent the day pouring cement and mucking with electrical wires, fine tuning a project for an upcoming high school class. We don't have shop classes, I'm newly taking over a sculpture class since that teacher was laid off this summer. She had been doing a lot of ceramics work, but I'm making a point to do sculpture that (conveniently) incorporates the use of power tools, cement work, simple electrical concepts, and some textile/sewing machine projects. All of it is valid art forms ... but I definitely have the ulterior motive of teaching other skills that they aren't getting in our school or often from their families.

Yesterday, I delivered the files for a local tech school's website. Because the individual schools in our county don't have resources to buy all the equipment and run those classes for each school, a number of them have pooled their resources. High school students from 4 area schools can enroll in the vocational programs at the other schools. Those include construction trades, business classes, medical, culinary arts, etc. It's free, many of the programs culminate in a senior year internship.