On 6/19/2010 10:32 AM, Ed Huntress wrote:

g This isn't a battle. It's an attempt to clarify the facts. In this case,
it's just a matter of reading the historical record. And the historical
record of how "industrial arts" and vocational education evolved in the US
is not at all ambiguous. However, it was, as I said, two-tracked.


This can be muddied further. The current trend, where you and I live, is
to have vocational schools that support a particular college major.
The regular high schools assume everyone will go to some college. A
college degree is considered the starting point for any career. For
example, we have a new admin assistant at work; pretty much a
receptionist. BA in English as the cost of entry. What she makes would
cover the rent on a nice apartment a round here. There are a lot of
English and communication grads to choose from. The schools keep pushing
them out.
If your high school age kid has a glimmer of what they would like to do
when they grow up, he or she will probably head for the magnet schools
that now make up the larger part of the vocational school system. My
kids went to (different) Vo-Tech schools- one for engineering and the
other for communications (the closest thing to Theater that was available).
No music. No art(per se). No sports.
The magnet schools have characteristics of the vocational schools of
old- hands on training with what the trade demands. The engineers design
and write technical papers; the Comm kids produce TV programs, the
biotech kids pull apart DNA and the marine biology kids cut up fish. The
kids then go on to college.
My observation is that the kids that go to the magnet schools are more
involved in the arts that the kids that attend the "liberal arts" high
schools. It's in the kid.

Kevin Gallimore