Stoked this is coming to my city.....

All public schools should have trades classes Our workforce would be stronger because of it. Whether it be auto shop, wood shop, or learning plumbing it would give lower income kids options coming out of high schools who otherwise can't afford college. Instead kids are learning useless knowledge like General Custers last stand with Sitting Bull. In other words public education needs to implement and mandate more practical hands on education. It would undoubtedly help soften and impede the rolling tides of poverty.

History and the arts are critical to a well-rounded education as well. I wouldn't ditch history in favor of wood shop, for example. There's a budget-conscious way to do both. For one I'd actually stop overfunding public school sports teams. I'd mandate phys-ed a minimum of three times a week, for 90 minutes per session, and I'd only have "low-cost" sports like soccer, baseball, and so on. Both of which are physical enough to keep the jock contingent happy.

However, oddly enough, with the way vehicles are now, an education in coding would be beneficial. Auto shop would only be a little different than computer programming class.

Oh, and when I was in public school, there were "tracks" you could be on. Honors, standard, and I forget what the lowest level was. But in the lowest level, you were shunted into the vocational education system. I'd modify it a little and let the kids choose which track they wanted to be on, since I'm sure there's very intelligent kids who would rather build working machines than sit at a desk all day crunching numbers. The world will still need mechanical engineers for at least a few more centuries.

I am not saying that public schools should abdicate all History and liberal arts classes but the facts remain most kids coming out of school have very few critical life skills. Schools should be incorporating classes on nutrition/diet, personal finances, how to be successful( self improvement), and critical thinking courses. The benefits of this would probably be profound but I digress.

All public schools should have trades classes Our workforce would be stronger because of it. Whether it be auto shop, wood shop, or learning plumbing it would give lower income kids options coming out of high schools who otherwise can't afford college. Instead kids are learning useless knowledge like General Custers last stand with Sitting Bull. In other words public education needs to implement and mandate more practical hands on education. It would undoubtedly help soften and impede the rolling tides of poverty.

agreed.

Hey TechJunkie I am dabbling in Ruby for Rails after PHP just looks so FREAKING ugly....

Can you repost the test you did for the Occupier and see if i can get some action on it???

Well, I don't have any apprentice openings at the moment. I have an opening for an experienced Rails developer. Full-time, telecommuting okay, full benefits. But one-on-one training is very time consuming and I'm way beyond maxed out at the moment. I do have at least one shovel-ready contract job though.

This is the test that I posted on occupywallst.org that led to a kid applying, then learning, and now he's moving from Connecticut to California to attend the University of California in the fall for a computer science major.

I would immediately hire anybody who can demonstrate that they can create a simple Rails app, put it online at Heroku, with a Cucumber spec that says "When I go to the home page; Then I should see 'click me'.; And when I click 'click me'; Then I should see 'you are hired'."

Free training:
http://tryruby.org
http://railsforzombies.org/
http://cukes.info/

That job isn't available at the moment, but if you can do that then you could definitely take a stab at a paying contract. I just had this conversation today: 'If you're too busy then can we hire somebody to make these changes to this app?' 'No, sorry, I don't know anybody available.' That conversation happens to me almost every week, like clockwork.

All public schools should have trades classes Our workforce would be stronger because of it. Whether it be auto shop, wood shop, or learning plumbing it would give lower income kids options coming out of high schools who otherwise can't afford college. Instead kids are learning useless knowledge like General Custers last stand with Sitting Bull. In other words public education needs to implement and mandate more practical hands on education. It would undoubtedly help soften and impede the rolling tides of poverty.

agreed.

i talked to a policy analyst with the dept of ed, his take on it was that it would make them second class citizens and not allow the to develop critical thinking skills that would one day serve them as voters, etc.
i disagreed as our current system devalues hardwork and skilled labor and pointed out that systems (jeffersonian) that do teach skills rather than concepts lead to more successful societies and what have you.
there is no reason a gal that is gonna end up a hairstylist ought not to be learning her trade asap, same for a mechanic or any other skilled laborer. not everyone is deserving of or needing uni, but we all are in need of skills training if for no other purpose than to allow more self sufficiency