quote:

ORIGINAL: Politesub53

quote:

ORIGINAL: freedomdwarf1
I think a direct comparison of education in my day and just 1 generation later, in the same area, is a perfectly valid comparison to make.
My school hours were longer, had fewer and shorter breaks, and didn't have a multitude of days off for 'teacher training'.
Every subject was covered over a hugely wider area and was much more in-depth.

Read the rest of my post regarding the exams and results.

It's not just my own experience - the numbers are fake because the exams and subject matter are shit-loads easier.
This has been acknowledged by the teachers and the exam boards - it's not a myth.
Easier lessons and easier exams make for more 'passes'.

That's why we are where we are in the global tables.
It's basically fudged results brought about by easier exams.

No, the results are fake because you wish them to be. You say you have been in the US since 2002, so anything you claim to have experienced yourself is outdated.

The main reason we are short of engineers and such is because firms have stopped training them. In the old days, you left school, took on an apprenticeship at a reduced rate of wages, and normally had to agree to stay with a firm twelve months on qualifying. That was in return for your training. Nowadays that doesnt happen on the numbers it used to.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Politesub53

"What Blair did was to weed out lazy kids so there were more facilities for the genuine ones "

FFS what planet are you on........ Education up to school leaving age is compulsory, Blair couldnt legally refuse anyone even if he wanted to.

Your suggestion is moronic.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Fightdirecto

Skills Don’t Pay the Bills by Adam Davidson, NPR's "Planet Money" in the New York Times, 11-25-12

quote:

Earlier this month, hoping to understand the future of the moribund manufacturing job market, I visited the engineering technology program at Queensborough Community College in New York City. I knew that advanced manufacturing had become reliant on computers, yet the classroom I visited had nothing but computers.

As the instructor Joseph Goldenberg explained, today’s skilled factory worker is really a hybrid of an old-school machinist and a computer programmer. Goldenberg’s intro class starts with the basics of how to use cutting tools to shape a raw piece of metal. Then the real work begins: students learn to write the computer code that tells a machine how to do it much faster.

Nearly six million factory jobs, almost a third of the entire manufacturing industry, have disappeared since 2000. And while many of these jobs were lost to competition with low-wage countries, even more vanished because of computer-driven machinery that can do the work of 10, or in some cases, 100 workers. Those jobs are not coming back, but many believe that the industry’s future (and, to some extent, the future of the American economy) lies in training a new generation for highly skilled manufacturing jobs — the ones that require people who know how to run the computer that runs the machine.

...even as classes like Goldenberg’s are filled to capacity all over America, hundreds of thousands of U.S. factories are starving for skilled workers.

Eric Isbister, the C.E.O. of GenMet, a metal-fabricating manufacturer outside Milwaukee, told me that he would hire as many skilled workers as show up at his door. Last year, he received 1,051 applications and found only 25 people who were qualified. He hired all of them, but soon had to fire 15. PART OF ISBISTER’S PICKINESS, he says, COMES FROM AN AVOIDANCE OF WORKERS WITH EXPERIENCE IN A “UNION-TYPE JOB.” ISBISTER, AFTER ALL, DOESN’T ABIDE BY STRICT WORK RULES AND $30-AN-HOUR SALARIES. AT GENMET, THE STARTING PAY IS $10 AN HOUR. THOSE WITH AN ASSOCIATE DEGREE CAN MAKE $15, WHICH CAN RISE TO $18 AN HOUR AFTER SEVERAL YEARS OF GOOD PERFORMANCE. FROM WHAT I UNDERSTAND, A NEW SHIFT MANAGER AT A NEARBY MCDONALD’S CAN EARN AROUND $14 AN HOUR. .

THE SECRET BEHIND THIS SKILLS GAP IS THAT IT’S NOT A SKILLS GAP AT ALL.

I SPOKE TO SEVERAL OTHER FACTORY MANAGERS WHO ALSO CONFESSED THAT THEY HAD A HARD TIME RECRUITING IN-DEMAND WORKERS FOR $10-AN-HOUR JOBS. “IT’S HARD NOT TO BREAK OUT LAUGHING,” says Mark Price, a labor economist at the Keystone Research Center, referring to manufacturers complaining about the shortage of skilled workers. “IF THERE’S A SKILL SHORTAGE, THERE HAS TO BE RISES IN WAGES,” he says. “IT’S BASIC ECONOMICS.” AFTER ALL, ACCORDING TO SUPPLY AND DEMAND, A SHORTAGE OF WORKERS WITH VALUABLE SKILLS SHOULD PUSH WAGES UP. YET ACCORDING TO THE BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS, THE NUMBER OF SKILLED JOBS HAS FALLEN AND SO HAVE THEIR WAGES.

In a recent study, the Boston Consulting Group noted that, outside a few small cities that rely on the oil industry, there weren’t many places where manufacturing wages were going up and employers still couldn’t find enough workers. “TRYING TO HIRE HIGH-SKILLED WORKERS AT ROCK-BOTTOM RATES,” the Boston Group study asserted, “IS NOT A SKILLS GAP.” The study’s conclusion, however, was scarier. MANY SKILLED WORKERS HAVE SIMPLY CHOSEN TO APPLY THEIR SKILLS ELSEWHERE RATHER THAN WORK FOR LESS, AND FEW YOUNG PEOPLE CHOOSE TO INVEST IN TRAINING FOR JOBS THAT PAY FAST-FOOD WAGES. AS A RESULT, THE UNITED STATES MAY SOON HAVE A HARD TIME COMPETING IN THE GLOBAL ECONOMY. The average age of a highly skilled factory worker in the U.S. is now 56. “That’s average,” says Hal Sirkin, the lead author of the study. “That means there’s a lot who are in their 60s. They’re going to retire soon.” And there are not enough trainees in the pipeline, he said, to replace them.

ONE RESULT, Sirkin suggests, IS THAT THE FAKE SKILLS GAP IS THREATENING TO CREATE A REAL SKILLS GAP. Goldenberg, who has taught for more than 20 years, is already seeing it up close. FEW OF HIS TOP STUDENTS WANT TO WORK IN FACTORIES FOR CURRENT WAGES.

Isbister is seeing the other side of this decision making. He was deeply frustrated when his company participated in a recent high-school career fair. ANY TIME A STUDENT EXPRESSED INTEREST IN MANUFACTURING, HE SAID, “THE PARENTS CAME OVER AND ASKED: ‘ARE YOU GOING TO OUTSOURCE? MOVE THE JOBS TO CHINA?’ ” WHILE ISBISTER SAYS HE THINKS THAT HIS INDUSTRY SUFFERS FROM A REPUTATION PROBLEM, HE ALSO ADMITTED THAT HIS ANSWER TO A NERVOUS PARENT’S QUESTION IS NOT REASSURING. THE INDUSTRY IS INEVITABLY GOING TO MOVE SOME OF THESE JOBS TO CHINA, OR IT’S GOING TO REPLACE THEM WITH MACHINES. If it doesn’t, it can’t compete on a global level.

It’s easy to understand every perspective in this drama. MANUFACTURERS, WHO FACE INCREASING COMPETITION FROM LOW-WAGE COUNTRIES, FEEL THEY CAN’T AFFORD TO PAY HIGHER WAGES. POTENTIAL WORKERS CHOOSE MORE PROMISING CAREER PATHS. “It’s individually rational,” says Howard Wial, an economist at the Brookings Institution who specializes in manufacturing employment. “But it’s not socially optimal.”

Would you (or, if you are a parent, would you advise your child to) spend the money and time for an Associates Degree to work at a job which will pay you approximately the same as a shift manager at McDonalds?

quote:

ORIGINAL: thompsonx

quote:

Believe me, colleges have absolutely dumbed down. Master and I constantly have this conversation. He asks me how my college classes are going and I complain about how boring they are because it feels like I'm back in middle school. The stuff I'm learning is not any different at all from what I learned then and going to college only to get a piece of paper that says "congratulations for learning how to make yourself look busy for a future boss".

If you are not being challenged in your classes in college whose fault is that? Perhaps if you were to apply yourself more you might actually be challenged.You only get out of college what you take , you are not there to be "spoon fed"

quote:

ORIGINAL: littlewonder

quote:

ORIGINAL: thompsonx

quote:

Believe me, colleges have absolutely dumbed down. Master and I constantly have this conversation. He asks me how my college classes are going and I complain about how boring they are because it feels like I'm back in middle school. The stuff I'm learning is not any different at all from what I learned then and going to college only to get a piece of paper that says "congratulations for learning how to make yourself look busy for a future boss".

If you are not being challenged in your classes in college whose fault is that? Perhaps if you were to apply yourself more you might actually be challenged.You only get out of college what you take , you are not there to be "spoon fed"

How can I challenge myself when the classes I am taking at college are the mandatory classes needed to get my degree? I don't need to apply myself more to my classes because it's stuff I learned in grade school.

For example, in today's science lab I am being forced to take, we had to identify human bones and decipher if the skeleton was male or female. It took me all of about 15 minutes for me to write down each one on the papers given. I learned those when I was in about 7th or 8th grade. I'm 40 now. The others in my class are right out of high school for the most part. Not a single one could name a single bone or knew how to figure out if it was male or female. How exactly am I to challenge myself in there? If you have any ideas, be sure to let me know.

quote:

ORIGINAL: thompsonx
One would think that by age 40 and a college student you would know that you can challenge any course at the university...that is you take an exam which shows that you know the subject matter and you get a grade for the class and move on toe next higher level of that discipline.
I had a g/f who had spent several years working in the accounting dept. of boeing and when she started college at age 28 her ambition was to be a cpa. She challenged all of the lower division accounting classes and passed them with no problems. So as a freshman she was taking 300 and 400 level classes in accounting while still taking 100 and 200 level classes in her other required subjects that she was new to.
As my dad used to say..."it does no take any talent to whine"

quote:

ORIGINAL: freedomdwarf1
In most college and Uni courses, you can't challenge the coursework, take an exam, and move up to the next grade - at least not until it's exam time at the end of the course.

quote:

ORIGINAL: freedomdwarf1

quote:

ORIGINAL: thompsonx
One would think that by age 40 and a college student you would know that you can challenge any course at the university...that is you take an exam which shows that you know the subject matter and you get a grade for the class and move on toe next higher level of that discipline.
I had a g/f who had spent several years working in the accounting dept. of boeing and when she started college at age 28 her ambition was to be a cpa. She challenged all of the lower division accounting classes and passed them with no problems. So as a freshman she was taking 300 and 400 level classes in accounting while still taking 100 and 200 level classes in her other required subjects that she was new to.
As my dad used to say..."it does no take any talent to whine"

In most college and Uni courses, you can't challenge the coursework, take an exam, and move up to the next grade - at least not until it's exam time at the end of the course.

Certainly around here, if you need a level 1 pass in the course before you can take level 2, you need to do the level 1 course first and pass that exam. You can't just say the course is too dumb for you and take the exam early then jump into the level 2 class - the system doesn't allow you in most cases.
I don't know about the US, but a lot of the coursework here is marked in stages, all through the course, with a final exam at the end. Just doing the end exam wouldn't get you a pass mark for the whole course.

Maybe your g/f got lucky - she couldn't do that over here and I daresay in most colleges and Uni's in the US too.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Fightdirecto

Skills Don’t Pay the Bills by Adam Davidson, NPR's "Planet Money" in the New York Times, 11-25-12

quote:

Earlier this month, hoping to understand the future of the moribund manufacturing job market, I visited the engineering technology program at Queensborough Community College in New York City. I knew that advanced manufacturing had become reliant on computers, yet the classroom I visited had nothing but computers.

As the instructor Joseph Goldenberg explained, today’s skilled factory worker is really a hybrid of an old-school machinist and a computer programmer. Goldenberg’s intro class starts with the basics of how to use cutting tools to shape a raw piece of metal. Then the real work begins: students learn to write the computer code that tells a machine how to do it much faster.

Nearly six million factory jobs, almost a third of the entire manufacturing industry, have disappeared since 2000. And while many of these jobs were lost to competition with low-wage countries, even more vanished because of computer-driven machinery that can do the work of 10, or in some cases, 100 workers. Those jobs are not coming back, but many believe that the industry’s future (and, to some extent, the future of the American economy) lies in training a new generation for highly skilled manufacturing jobs — the ones that require people who know how to run the computer that runs the machine.

...even as classes like Goldenberg’s are filled to capacity all over America, hundreds of thousands of U.S. factories are starving for skilled workers.

Eric Isbister, the C.E.O. of GenMet, a metal-fabricating manufacturer outside Milwaukee, told me that he would hire as many skilled workers as show up at his door. Last year, he received 1,051 applications and found only 25 people who were qualified. He hired all of them, but soon had to fire 15. PART OF ISBISTER’S PICKINESS, he says, COMES FROM AN AVOIDANCE OF WORKERS WITH EXPERIENCE IN A “UNION-TYPE JOB.” ISBISTER, AFTER ALL, DOESN’T ABIDE BY STRICT WORK RULES AND $30-AN-HOUR SALARIES. AT GENMET, THE STARTING PAY IS $10 AN HOUR. THOSE WITH AN ASSOCIATE DEGREE CAN MAKE $15, WHICH CAN RISE TO $18 AN HOUR AFTER SEVERAL YEARS OF GOOD PERFORMANCE. FROM WHAT I UNDERSTAND, A NEW SHIFT MANAGER AT A NEARBY MCDONALD’S CAN EARN AROUND $14 AN HOUR. .

THE SECRET BEHIND THIS SKILLS GAP IS THAT IT’S NOT A SKILLS GAP AT ALL.

I SPOKE TO SEVERAL OTHER FACTORY MANAGERS WHO ALSO CONFESSED THAT THEY HAD A HARD TIME RECRUITING IN-DEMAND WORKERS FOR $10-AN-HOUR JOBS. “IT’S HARD NOT TO BREAK OUT LAUGHING,” says Mark Price, a labor economist at the Keystone Research Center, referring to manufacturers complaining about the shortage of skilled workers. “IF THERE’S A SKILL SHORTAGE, THERE HAS TO BE RISES IN WAGES,” he says. “IT’S BASIC ECONOMICS.” AFTER ALL, ACCORDING TO SUPPLY AND DEMAND, A SHORTAGE OF WORKERS WITH VALUABLE SKILLS SHOULD PUSH WAGES UP. YET ACCORDING TO THE BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS, THE NUMBER OF SKILLED JOBS HAS FALLEN AND SO HAVE THEIR WAGES.

In a recent study, the Boston Consulting Group noted that, outside a few small cities that rely on the oil industry, there weren’t many places where manufacturing wages were going up and employers still couldn’t find enough workers. “TRYING TO HIRE HIGH-SKILLED WORKERS AT ROCK-BOTTOM RATES,” the Boston Group study asserted, “IS NOT A SKILLS GAP.” The study’s conclusion, however, was scarier. MANY SKILLED WORKERS HAVE SIMPLY CHOSEN TO APPLY THEIR SKILLS ELSEWHERE RATHER THAN WORK FOR LESS, AND FEW YOUNG PEOPLE CHOOSE TO INVEST IN TRAINING FOR JOBS THAT PAY FAST-FOOD WAGES. AS A RESULT, THE UNITED STATES MAY SOON HAVE A HARD TIME COMPETING IN THE GLOBAL ECONOMY. The average age of a highly skilled factory worker in the U.S. is now 56. “That’s average,” says Hal Sirkin, the lead author of the study. “That means there’s a lot who are in their 60s. They’re going to retire soon.” And there are not enough trainees in the pipeline, he said, to replace them.

ONE RESULT, Sirkin suggests, IS THAT THE FAKE SKILLS GAP IS THREATENING TO CREATE A REAL SKILLS GAP. Goldenberg, who has taught for more than 20 years, is already seeing it up close. FEW OF HIS TOP STUDENTS WANT TO WORK IN FACTORIES FOR CURRENT WAGES.

Isbister is seeing the other side of this decision making. He was deeply frustrated when his company participated in a recent high-school career fair. ANY TIME A STUDENT EXPRESSED INTEREST IN MANUFACTURING, HE SAID, “THE PARENTS CAME OVER AND ASKED: ‘ARE YOU GOING TO OUTSOURCE? MOVE THE JOBS TO CHINA?’ ” WHILE ISBISTER SAYS HE THINKS THAT HIS INDUSTRY SUFFERS FROM A REPUTATION PROBLEM, HE ALSO ADMITTED THAT HIS ANSWER TO A NERVOUS PARENT’S QUESTION IS NOT REASSURING. THE INDUSTRY IS INEVITABLY GOING TO MOVE SOME OF THESE JOBS TO CHINA, OR IT’S GOING TO REPLACE THEM WITH MACHINES. If it doesn’t, it can’t compete on a global level.

It’s easy to understand every perspective in this drama. MANUFACTURERS, WHO FACE INCREASING COMPETITION FROM LOW-WAGE COUNTRIES, FEEL THEY CAN’T AFFORD TO PAY HIGHER WAGES. POTENTIAL WORKERS CHOOSE MORE PROMISING CAREER PATHS. “It’s individually rational,” says Howard Wial, an economist at the Brookings Institution who specializes in manufacturing employment. “But it’s not socially optimal.”

Would you (or, if you are a parent, would you advise your child to) spend the money and time for an Associates Degree to work at a job which will pay you approximately the same as a shift manager at McDonalds?

quote:

ORIGINAL: littlewonder

As others said, where I go to school you cannot just jump to the next level and there are classes that are mandatory to absolutely every single student in the school such as the one I felt was a waste of time that I just finished....you must volunteer somewhere, anywhere, for 25 total hours and every week write a hundred word essay on what you did and then have a form signed by the place you volunteered saying you completed 25 hours.

Now, I'm 40 years old. I've done years and years of volunteer work. I felt it was stupid for me to have to do this. I asked both the professor and the school dean. Both said it was mandatory. No way around it. The same went for my science lab...mandatory for everyone in the school. Thousands of dollars wasted on stupid shit just for the school to make money. Unfortunately though if I want my degree, this is what I must do.

quote:

ORIGINAL: cordeliasub

As someone who works in higher education I can say with certainty that there are a very limited number of lower level core classes that can be CLEPed......other than that, yes, one is required to actually take the classes. That is how accredited universities work. One can attend a private non-accredited university, of course.....but that might affect one's certification or ability to practice in their chosen field.

quote:

ORIGINAL: cordeliasub

As someone who works in higher education I can say with certainty that there are a very limited number of lower level core classes that can be CLEPed......other than that, yes, one is required to actually take the classes. That is how accredited universities work. One can attend a private non-accredited university, of course.....but that might affect one's certification or ability to practice in their chosen field.