LePage sends cartoon to highly-trained educators too dumb to get the point

I didn't see anything especially inflammatory in the responses . . just a bunch of confusion. Confusion as in 'I have a lot of edu loans I can't pay, I guess I wasn't very smart, maybe I should have gone into the trades but I have this position of authority and, dammit, I'm gonna use it, even though I'm not very smart.'

Welders, electricians and pipefitters are starting, green, at $52,000 + (up to) $200 per diem + benefits, in the oil and gas fields. Sign today, work today, starting bonuses for experience and step raises, every step of the way.

The comments section is really a hoot these days at PPH.
It appears that all comments are highly monitered and handpicked in order to continue the biased slant of the article.

I suspect that BDN will be next.

The emphasis, for years now, both in Maine's public schools, and in Maine's education hierarchy, has been this:

"Every high school student MUST go to college" and "If you don't have a college education you aren't Jack"

It is kind of funny to watch what this smug group of "self proclaimed elites" do...........when their toilet doesn't flush or their car won't start.

It is even funnier to see them call some of those whom they think are "beneath them", and how much they end up paying for the vital services they need, and can't provide for themselves!

A college degree in "hot air" can't buy you much ability in the real world, where you actually have to do something rather than just talk about it!

WC

Gee we can talk about the real world ,but a response to something such as this (minus the PPH take on anything) , maybe it would be
appropriate to consider why some might question the intent ! I said maybe !

P.S. I understand the intent and think it was a good thing above comment is just related to why some might question it !

There are very good reasons why organizations are shown as a pyramid. It is because there is only a need for one at the top. A society needs only so many caprenters, plumbers, farmersor those who work with their hands and minds. For those who think they can earn a lving without physical labor they need to realize there are only so many of those jobs needed. We have too much of everything yet more and more people are without jobs because there are too many people for the jobs available.

If you want to see where this leads just look at Saudi Arabia. They have tremendous oil wealth which will one day run out. They continue to produce more children who are all bing trained at government expense to be managing directors and expect to be because the government tells them they can. Nearly every manual labor job is now being done by imported labor and no one is training to take their place. There are no government trade schools. When the oil runs out or before they will have to migrate to survive becasue nearly all the food they consume is imported.

While we weren't looking the same thing has been happening to us. Think about the fact that we import nearly half the food we consume becuase farms are getting maxed out and not many farmers can afford more than is necessary to maintain their productin.

I was actually referring to the comments from educators quoted in the article, but the comments section is also interesting.

Apropos of which, Drudge has a story this morning that's kind of interesting.

Average starting salary for a new Harvard grad - and boy, do those guys work the networks: $54,100.00

Average starting salary for a new grad from the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology: $56,700.00.

Harvard's tuition is almost four times that of SDSMT (boy, I'll bet their football fight song is a mouthful).

pmconusa recommends:
"Think about the fact that we import nearly half the food we consume becuase farms are getting maxed out and not many farmers can afford more than is necessary to maintain their productin."

Our farms are not maxed out. It's simply cheaper to fly grapes in from Chile than it is to pay Americans to pick grapes. I buy a pound of grapes at Hannaford for $1.99. They are $2.99 most days, but they drop to the lower price on Mondays and Tuesdays. Why? Because government checks arrive on Wednesdays and the store will be full. The best day to shop is Tuesday. The absolute worst day to shop is a Wednesday that happens to be the first day of the month when EBT cards get filled up. This won't happen again until May.

Next year there will be many more gardens and local vegetable farms. There will be more people raising chickens and hogs. Firewood demand will be up. THis is not hard to figure out.

Worst College Majors for Your Career

I don't know if I understand Lepage sending this out to Maine educators either.

There is certainly many messages that can be taken from this note. One is that college is not a key to success in America considering the job market and the change of America going to a service/welfare/warfare economy.

Two that you can make more money as a tradesman than as a college grad, but I wonder if that is just a supply and demand issue that will quickly be supplied once students switch to the trades. There is obviously an over supply of college grads, no doubt about that, and a lack of jobs.

This, we need tradesman idea, is similar to other needs of the past, Kinda like the nurses and teacher pushes in the past in education. I remember those, what they really need is more nurses and teachers.

Like we need more carpenters and plumbers now that the housing industry has busted. The world needs ditch diggers too, I thought that was what we had illegals for.

If the governor and POTUS want to make education more responsive to the needs of society, they should strive to get government out of education and the economy. Why not actually have local control and quit having teachers teach students to some Augusta/Beltway ideal.

And if you want to get realistic enrollment for college bound students, quit giving out government secured loans to students that can never pay them back. Quit being Uncle Sammy, the benevolent one who becomes a slave master after the college days are over.

Lepage should have copied this note to Obama, FAME and the US education department.

........"Lepage should have copied this note to Obama, FAME and the US education department".......

They wouldn't get it either!

WC

Roger Ek: You make my point. It is the same logic that lost all of our manufacturing jobs.Our society can only sustain itself if it is self sufficient first in food and then in water and air. Why do you think people move from state to state, to earn a living. If the government steps in and provides you a living you no loner have to work. When the jobs and the farms go across our border you cannot go with them because the other society doesn't want you.

Our entitlement attitude has created this idea that you should not be a tradesman. The problem is that government entitlement pay is so good that most will not put the physical effort into doing a manual job anymore.

I know many welders, plumbers and such that are doing very well even in this recession.

I also know that the high school here is very happy to push that all should go to college. That is like sending your kid to the den of iniquity. Why spend all that money to make your kid a liberal lush?

. . .you can make more money as a tradesman than as a college grad, but I wonder if that is just a supply and demand issue that will quickly be supplied once students switch to the trades. There is obviously an over supply of college grads, no doubt about that, and a lack of jobs.

The shuck is that the education establishment has, for its own benefit, sold the idea that a college degree is the key to success in life. And the universities work in collusion with the government, via the college loan programs (pay no attention to the fact that college costs have risen at many times the rate of inflation, thanks to ballooning non-academic administrative positions, union demands and other factors), to saddle kids with mountains of debt. These kids are too indoctrinated to understand that an art history or sociology degree condemns them to a life as a barrista.

Meantime, those kids opting for a pragmatic, practical education involving real physical skills and services can do very well.

I just about gagged at one comment on the article - "Welding is a good trade, but once a welder, always a welder." How condescending and snooty. The presumption is that a welder will always be working for someone else - no possibility of ever working for themselves or (gasp) starting and growing a company that does welding. It also overlooks how technical welding can be.

These people are too dumb to get the point. Which would Maine rather have - a population of indebted latte-slingers, or successful, independent and productive tradespeople who own their own homes and contribute to their communities? I'll take the latter, thank you very much.

The problem is that government entitlement pay is so good that most will not put the physical effort into doing a manual job anymore.

There is a lot of truth to that Gaffer. If there wasn't the handouts there would be less illegals here, saving taxpayers twice

There is also the situation of H-1 workers taking jobs at lower pay from high tech American workers.

Mike G #9 above was one of your best posts ever.
You highlighted the problem very well.
It is interesting to me that I believe most posting in this thread at some time commented about our kids having to leave Maine etc. etc..
Well if the jobs aren't here it is moot as to what credentials one has.
Beyond that this has gone astray .
Once again great post Mike G.

eagleisland: How condescending and snooty.

This is nothing new. In 1975, I think, my boss was late to work one day because he had to take his car in for work at his dealership. He was moaning about how complex cars were then compared to in the good old days, and came out with this: If you're smart enough to fix cars really well, you're too smart to fix cars for the rest of your life.

At the time, being out of school for only a couple years and working in my chosen non-trades profession, I accepted the pronouncement without thinking about it. After all, with that pretty diploma in hand, suddenly my excrement had become sweet smelling.

It took a few more years, a wife and a couple of kids, to teach me that I still had a few things to learn.

Bruce

Why thank you, if memory serves we have always been on the same page when it came to education issues.

What I find wrong with the cartoon is it is unrealistic.
$50,000 a year for welding?
Unless they are union and out of most of the time.
Or go on the road out of state and always away from their families.
Even then, if they work the usual 40 hour week, they make under $50,000 a year.
Most welders I know make $16 to $18 an hour locally.
That's if their any good, straight out of school try $14 maybe.
Since don't I know any employed liberal arts majors, other than the baggers at the supermarket, I couldn't speak to the other.
So I agree to the premise of the cartoon.
However, I do and would encourage younger people to raise the bar a little higher if they are capable.

As to the condescending and snooty comment.
I started a welder and now I'm a little higher up the ladder.
I do find that it is very true for most people that once they have gained a trade they stick to it.
Most find it difficult to go back to school to change trades, especially after building a family.
My wife was very supportive of this and I wish I could report it was worth it.
I am still in the under $50,000 category.
If loving what you do was to be put in the formula, than I'm a rich man.

So the schools should push kids that have the capacity to go on to higher education.
The whole liberal arts thing, maybe not.
Those who aren't cut out for college, send to trades school.
As far as drop outs, I wish them well.
Unfortunately these days, their joining the ranks of welfare or SSI.

Interesting cartoon... I think it paints both sides with much too broad of a brush...... Are all trades people a success? And are all liberal arts grads failures.... ? Is everyone one stuck in the same place for ever? I'll bet that any one of the posters on this blog can think of individuals who have made the transition either way . What about Lepage himself ? One of his accomplishments was moving up from the street and through the ranks and attaining an MBA..... I get the point that there are a bunch of people coming out of college with degrees in things that really don't lend themselves to getting a great paying job.... but who says that some of these people won't become movers and shakers? I know a lot of people with no education and they certainly don't have a chance at anything that resembles a good paying job.....maybe a little education evena "liberal arts" one would have got them a little farther down the road....
I have to admit as much as I like the loggers and farmers and trades men I grew up with and know some of the more educated people sprinkled so liberally in our society do bring something to the table............ whoops I better get rid of these rose colored glasses and get back to good old black and white right and wrong ...left and right......... walk like I walk talk like I talk

Johnw

Even a PHD will take an idiot only so far.

Interesting cartoon... I think it paints both sides with much too broad of a brush......

As editorial cartoons are wont to do.

Look, I've been blessed with a pretty good education - both academic and real world. The point of that cartoon is well taken, at least in this household.

Burdock....

Let's say you are right about the wages...(you miss a big point) let's take a novice starting at $14 an hour. With a dollar raise every two years

$14 x 40 = $560/wk = $29,120
$15 x 40 = $600/wk = $31,200
$16 x 40 = $640/week=$33,280
$17 x 40 = $680/Week=$35,360
$18 x 40 = $720/Week=$37,440

1. If any company came to town advertising jobs at 29k a year, we'd all scream hallelujah!
2. These existing companies in Maine, hiring welders at $14/hr to start also offer benefits, which need to be factored in.
3. Those entry level jobs have 1 or 2 weeks paid vacation and holidays to start....by the time they get to $18 by your standard they probably have 3 or more
4. There will be (there always is in the trades, an opportunity for OT which you fail to factor.
5. They've started their careers with a lot less school debt so will quicker qualify for a mortgage....

And yes, sadly, you cannot limit the experience to Maine. That is a whole different problem. But cross the border and opportunities abound in the trades for those willing to go to the work. (Just like the college grads who take positions out of state)

Lepage's point hammers home that a vocational profession is not bad...not just for kids who struggle....and should be given the same status as a 4 year degree by our high school educators.

jcmcards
If your last sentence is the point you have maybe successfully returned this thread the point the gov. was making, the specifics do not matter.
There are too many variables.
Example: How many trades people worked for BIW at one time (great jobs) and got laid off and never returned to BIW?

I only said maybe because no one wants to even acknowledge that given the history between groups ,the reaction by administrators ,if accurately portrayed
might be worthy of consideration.

The thread is about alledged "dumb" administrators.

I know PhD's who have no practical knowledge or intuition whatsoever. One told me he never knew if he would be able to pass the car ahead safely. Another time in Alaska when on a subsistance fishig day they brought so many fish into the boat it began to sink and he did not know what to do as Alaska law says once in the boat they cannot be thrown back. He darned near drowned. Great common sense outshines any college degree, but if combined one can do extremely well. I know several millionaires who never had a college degree, yet many college grads who are living week to week. Yes, there are exceptions in all cases but practical common sense, if applied, will always win out by allowing the person to survive and be happy with what they have.

Many kids today have been so ingrained that they must attend college, that they will never be happy unless they do. That degree becomes a heavy weight worn poorly as college loans eat away the chance to become financially independent for many many years.

For far too long, Maine - and America in general - have featured a "College or Bust" overall concentration in public education. Trades have been downgraded, or altogether eliminated from high school curricula in favor of liberal arts and college-prep courses.

Not all successful people want, or need to attend college. Kids who aren't thrilled with the higher-degree prospect, or suited to it, shouldn't be made to feel "less worthy" in high school.

I get the Governor's point with the cartoon. As usual, his way of expressing himself isn't to everyone's taste. For instance, I'm sure the Brunswick superintendent was apoplectic upon receiving it. He's probably already mentally composed at least six (hopefully unsent) emails castigating the Governor's cartoon mailing.
:)

As to the liberal educators questioning the state's expense for sending the cartoon, the Governor's office has an annually appropriated budget for such uses. The state spent nothing extra. The Governor is within his discretionary rights to send such pieces. Every legislator has a similar, state-paid privilege, too.

Wish we could say the same for the Maine teachers, administrators, state employees and union officials - the ones consistently guilty of using school/state resources, computers, and email lists to do their own, improper campaigning.

You know who you are.

Naran the Brunswick school budget allocates funds for the sup. letters to his staff,he spent nothing extra!
I doubt he felt as so because he has a very good voc. ed. program in his district!
But the point still is unwillingness to recognize given response as I said, if accurately portrayed in paper,is somewhat understandable.
The rest of the issue has taken this thread of base from original post.
I think it was a good thing gov. did that.

jcmcards,
Not sure how I missed the big point.
It is true that opportunities for OT and benefits add to the overall worth of the job.
But, they're still not starting off at $50,000 a year.

What do you mean by- Lepage's point hammers home that a vocational profession is not bad...not just for kids who struggle....and should be given the same status as a 4 year degree by our high school educator

Obviously, all kids should be treated the same, given the same opportunities.
Some kids take harder courses in school to go on to college.
Some take the easy route and got to trades schools.
If you, as a teacher, saw a kid wanting to go to welding school and you knew he was capable of more.
Would you not encourage him to raise the bar a little?
Likewise, if you saw the school "pot head" sitting in the back row ready to drop out.
Would you not suggest welding school?
The premise of encouraging kids to go to college for the sake of going and having no real purpose is the problem.
Hence the cartoon about liberal arts, LaPage sent
But, to say "the same status" between vocational and college.
I disagree completely.
If the kid is capable of getting a four year degree, he's certainly smart enough to figure out how to weld if he needs to.
He just can't think of himself above it.
It is certainly easier to get a job (that pays enough to survive) and go on to owning a business if you have a degree.
I personally know this to be true.

Hopefully, LaPage is smart enough to understand this, as I was smart enough to vote for him.
Don't push kids down to get more workers making low wage.

Whether one agrees or not but the real problem is kids are expected to know what they want to be or do usually before they hit high school.
That like all things can be blamed on all parties on each side !!

Umm, Bruce
They make decisions before High School?
I would blame the parents.

Back to the cartoon.
It shows that the college grad makes half of the vocational grad.
Should we encourage to go to voc.?

I think the obvious is that going to college for nothing shouldn't be encouraged.
We need to encourage that "pot head" or anyone else to raise the bar.

My problem is my last kid wants to cut hair for a living and live in a trailer in Texas.
Not sure where she got that from, but still "the plan" for her.
I'm thinking the schools should be pushing for something better than that.
I think the school failed me, in my push to get this girl to raise the bar.
She is a candidate for vocational school, where the other two went beyond.

I've seen both sides, the bar is set too low.
Maybe I'm reading to far in, but seems to me LaPage wants a work force that wants our kids to shoot low on their lives.
Or maybe, It's as I originally took it as a slam on going to school to for no "trade".
Like Liberal arts.

I've seen both sides, the bar is set too low.

No. I'd say the bar was set at either an obtuse or acute angle, but that metaphor would presume the bar was straight. It is not.

Maybe I'm reading to far in, but seems to me LaPage wants a work force that wants our kids to shoot low on their lives.

You ARE reading too far in. Gov. LePage wants a workforce that is productive and happy with their lives. Some of those will achieve that with a 4-year (or graduate) degree; some will achieve it with a technical education.

Some of the smartest, wisest and best people I ever worked for didn't go to college. One of them went to college for a few weeks, decided it was ridiculous, went home and took a job changing tires until he found his calling. One of the best bosses I ever had. Learned tons from him.

Meantime, there are scads of kids today who are subject to an educational establishment that actively promotes the idea of a 4-year degree as the ticket to a good life. They're selling nirvana to customers who lack the desire, wisdom and judgment to seek that degree in a field that actually provides the potential for a reasonable living. Instead, too many major in transgender interracial basket community basket organizing, rather than advising them to study I.T. or accounting and making a good-enough living to organize the transgender interracial basket community in their spare time.

And as a charitable donation, instead of demanding that the government does it.

Is it any wonder so many of Maine's high school kids say "screw this" and drop out?