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A new course for education

You don’t have to be a detective to figure out where the vocational classes went in U.S. school districts. They slowly disappeared with parents’ desires to see their children go to college, even if the experience did little to prepare them for a career.

As more students were put on the college track, fewer enrolled in vocational classes. After all, what four-year university requires class credits in woodworking or welding? With the number of enrollees in these vocational classes dwindling, many school districts shut down the programs to save money.

A 2014 Deloitte report on manufacturing’s perception problem sums up the predicament in which the manufacturing industry finds itself. The survey revealed that the majority of Americans believe that manufacturing is key for a strong national economy, yet they rank manufacturing fifth out of seven career choices as being suitable for them. Generation Y, who can be defined as those born in the early 1980s to the early 2000s, actually ranked it last. On top of that, only 37 percent of the parents of respondents said they would recommend manufacturing as a career path for their own children.

Meanwhile, manufacturers proclaim they need a new generation of skilled workers to replace the baby boomers who are heading for retirement, if they haven’t done it already. The Manufacturing Institute suggests that 3.5 million manufacturing jobs will become available over the next decade, with 2 million of those likely going unfilled because the right candidates can’t be found.

Whether or not you believe those numbers, many in education have been heeding the calls for change. Rob Daugherty is one of them.

Daugherty is the principal of a new charter school in Colorado Springs, Colo. Part of Falcon School District 49, Power Technical Early College, which will open in August, is not only going to focus on reading, writing, and arithmetic, but also on tying those lessons to real-world activities, such as computer-aided design, machining, and welding. All students will be required to be enrolled in this curriculum, not just ones that don’t fit the mold of the college-bound honors student.

Daugherty, who studied electrical engineering at Colorado State (leaving just shy of getting his degree) and spent his early work career designing and fabricating heat exchangers and later building powder coating systems, said that schools are “underserving” those students who don’t want to go to college. They are getting a full-course college prep meal that isn’t much good if the students don’t matriculate at a four-year university.

He and others heard the calls from local businesses that need young people and are respectful of the manufacturing process.

“One thing that we can do is get kids back in the workforce,” Daugherty said. “That’s what we can do now.”

The key to achieving that is exposing students to more than they are being exposed to now, Daugherty said. It’s just a matter of adjusting the teacher’s typical lesson plan to accommodate a new way of teaching the subject matter. For instance, if a math teacher is covering trigonometry, he or she can tie it to truss manufacturing. From there a science teacher might get involved and discuss alternative materials that can be used to lighten the load of the truss and still provide the strength needed to support a roof.

The students, 240 of which are expected to be enroll in the school for the 2016-17 school year, attend classes from 7:30 a.m. to 3:45 p.m. They will have at least 90 minutes to three hours of hands-on learning in lab classes each day. The school will be designed to accommodate up to 525 students.

Probably the most revolutionary aspect of this school is the opportunity for students to stay with the PTEC program beyond graduation and attend Pikes Peak Community College for free. They can work on an associate’s degree in machining technology, construction management, HVAC/R technology, CAD, electronics technology, or welding.

Daugherty hopes that this scholastic setup can be exported to other schools that want to take a different approach to education. The goal is to produce well-rounded graduates, not unlike students from previous generations who had to take vocational classes to earn their diplomas.

“This is what made America great in the first place,” he said. “People had these skills, and they had an entrepreneurial mindset.”

Right now, Daugherty is overseeing the renovation of a 46,000-square-foot building that was once a church. The building’s previous owner only finished 10,000 sq. ft., leaving the rest of the square footage to be tailored to fit the school’s needs.

Aug. 20 is the start of school. Hopefully, it’s the start of something great.

About the Author
The Fabricator

Dan Davis

Editor-in-Chief

2135 Point Blvd.

Elgin, IL 60123

815-227-8281

Dan Davis is editor-in-chief of The Fabricator, the industry's most widely circulated metal fabricating magazine, and its sister publications, The Tube & Pipe Journal and The Welder. He has been with the publications since April 2002.