Bad Decisions-Worse Results
The road to hell is paved with good intentions and
we are on the way. K-12 teachers, products of liberal arts college educations,
naturally think that’s the way to go, so promote college. An attempt to raise
K-12 results forces teachers to teach students to pass the tests. Consequently,
schools across the country have dropped shop courses like machine shop,
electricians, welding, and other trades. Typically, a graduate with a liberal
arts education earns $30,000 a year, yet a welder can make $100,000. If you
hired a plumber, you paid $60 an hour. There’s a shortage of skills tradesmen.
Lured by the prospect of private companies running
prisons, states hand over felons to
private enterprise. Then the prison corporations lobby for stiffer
sentencing to keep their “customers.” Mandatory sentencing provides the
privately owned prisons with steady income. In Michigan
To pay for the prison system, states reduced
financing for colleges, thereby dumping the costs on the students in the form
of higher tuition. The universities, to save money, shifted more and more
course work to part time adjunct professors without tenure or benefits,
destroying professorships as a profession. The students were encouraged to take
out crippling student loans.
The consequence? Shortages of skilled labor.
Colleges staffed by itinerant adjuncts and debt-ridden graduates who will never
afford to buy a house or a car. Who wins?
