Website Article Laments “Death” Of High-School Technical Education

An August 2 article posted on dailykos.com entitled "The Death of Shop Class" by Mark E. Andersen juxtaposes the abundance of technical-education classes he enjoyed as a high-school student, and, while touring his alma mater, the lack of such options today. In his article, he notes how the No Child Left Behind Act provided incentives for schools to de-emphasize technical education. He said, "The very classes that allowed me to actually understand The Pythagorean Theorem and Newton’s Third Law are now on the chopping block."

Put in more tangible terms, he noted a study conducted by the Manufacturing Instittue and Deliotte, in which 450 manufacturing executives estimate that approximately 2 million of 3.4 million manufacturing jobs estimated to come online by 2025 will go unfilled in the U.S. because of the lack of skilled workers. If this comes to fruition, where will the next generation of manufacturing workers come from? More to the point, where will future sign fabricators receive their formative educations?

Efforts by the National Assn. of Manufacturers and the International Sign Assn. to promote sign-industry education are an invaluable resource to that end. Now in its third year, Sign Manufacturing Education Day will take place on October 2, and produce high-school, vocational-education and junior-college students the opportunity to learn about the signmaking business in the shop environment. Seventeen shops participated in the event last year. Let’s hope the event continues to grow, and more learn about the viability of manufacturing — and, in a measure of self-interest, the sign industry — as a career.