President Trump’s recent advocacy for more vocational schools hasn't garnered much support from many leading figures in the educational sector, he was resoundingly criticized from several leading educational leaders, including some in the vocational and community college arena who thought he was lacking some of the nuance and understanding of their role and mission.
During his State of the Union speech, the President discussed his policy goals for the coming year which included an increase in vocational programs. "We can lift our citizens from welfare to work, from dependence to independence, and from poverty to prosperity," Trump said. "Let us invest in workforce development and job training. Let us open great vocational schools so our future workers can learn a craft and realize their full potential." He expanded his vision with a speech later that week in West Virginia, where he noted the reduction in young adults obtaining practical technical training for specific skills and drew an analogy with the military boarding school he himself attended where he had a friend who “wasn't the best student” but “could fix a car engine blindfolded”.
Mr. Trump’s West Virginia speech also stated,” You learn mechanical, you learn bricklaying and carpentry and all of these things. We don’t have that very much anymore. And I think the word ‘vocational’ is a much better word than in many cases, a community college. A lot of people don’t know what a community college means or represents.”
Organizations and advocates for career and technical education were quick to criticize the President’s perceived antiquated approach to this area of higher education. They believe that community colleges have a distinctly different mission and serve a different constituency than trade-based vocational programs and noted the scope and breadth of technical education have evolved from their earlier incarnations.
In a blistering critique, The Association for Career and Technical Education (ACTE) pointed out that students pursuing technical education achieve lower dropout and higher on-time graduation rates and students often follow their technical education by going to college or university.
Representatives from ACTE also noted their diverse programs cover a wide variety of subject areas, including non-technical subjects like business management and health sciences, while adding, “[t]he biggest barrier to their continued success and the opportunity for more students to access their programs are funding cuts, including a proposed 15 percent cut in the president’s own fiscal year 2018 budget to C.T.E. programs.”
Some regard the President’s comment as being oblivious of the context in which they are made. Mike Rose a research professor at U.C.L.A also said,” The danger is we tend to view these young people who are drawn to these programs in very deficient ways. They value intellectual pursuits. They've watched industries die in their communities and know the danger of not being able to adapt to other kinds of work.”
Not all the responses to Trump’s proposal have been negative, The Career Education Colleges and Universities praised his statement, as did Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, saying, “America must do better to prepare our students for success in the 21st-century economy,”
Some argue that the attempt to solve the workforce problem through vocational training is at best misdirected. “While bricklayers are an important part of our labor market, I think we have to recognize that vocational schools are not going to solve our work force needs alone,” said Michelle Asha Cooper, the president of the Institute for Higher Education Policy.
Another seismic shift observed in the current educational landscape is that education and vocational training is moving from the classroom to the cloud. Khan Academy is a non-profit created in 2006 by educator Salman Khan that has created a set of online tools that help educate students with YouTube video lectures and supplementary practice exercises and materials for educators. Helper is a new app enabling individuals to privately access educators and experts in topics ranging from basic home improvement, electrical and wiring, plumbing, carpentry, gardening and landscaping and more using augmented reality and blockchain technology. The technology implemented in the Helper app works to create an anonymous virtual community, where the user can educate him or herself and communicate with teachers and recognized experts with complete privacy.
The practical skills and knowledge developed through the Khan Academy curricula and new mobile applications like Helper are revolutionizing how people are taught, where people are taught and what role classroom education may have in the future.
While it remains to be seen whether expanding vocational training or retrofitting community colleges to be more technical and trade-skill focused will garner public support and limited resources, it is a bipartisan issue of which there should be some opening for leaders on both sides of the aisle to work together for improving educational opportunities for individuals for whom four-year college is either cost prohibitive or not suited to their unique educational skills and talents.