Read Online Blue Collar Conservatives: Recommitting to an America That Works by Rick Santorum - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Rick Santorum
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so important for our children that we searched for tools to help us impart those virtues to them. She ended up writing a book, Everyday Graces: A Child’s Book of Good Manners , which, along with Bill Bennett’s The Book of Virtues , became our homeschool curriculum on character formation.
Every child who goes through twelve years of public schooling should have what he needs to be a good citizen and to take part in the working life of this country. Not everyone has the aptitude or can afford to go to a four-year college. For many kids, a job or vocational training is the better option. All kids are different, and if one of mine decided to become the best auto mechanic in the country, that would be fine by me. I’m not requiring my kids to go to Penn State (though they do have to be Nittany Lions fans). And I’d much rather my children know how to fix an eighteen-wheeler or enlist in the navy than spend $150,000 to marinate for four years in the toxic ideology of academia while never missing a weekend party.
When politicians talk about the need for a better-educated workforce, they generally follow that up with talks aboutincreasing Stafford Loans and Pell Grants for kids going to college. 6 But what about the 70 percent I have been talking about who won’t graduate from college? What about the unglamorous task of making sure that the next generation of American workers have the education and training they need to succeed by using their minds and their hands?
I think the answer is found in institutions and programs such as the Latin Builders Association Academy, a charter high school for construction and business management in Miami, Florida. We need more places like LBA Academy, which is the first charter school in the country started by a business association. The goal for the students at the LBA Academy upon graduation is to continue to college, then work for a member company in a well-paying job or start their own business. And the association members mentor and guide the students. It’s a ground-up, community-based approach to providing real skills and experience to students who need these kinds of options.
Career and technical education (CTE) like this equips secondary, postsecondary, and adult students with the skills for high-paying jobs. With roots going back to the Civil War, CTE is the tried and true way to help young people be competitive in the workforce. It’s the best way to train students for good blue collar jobs, and industries such as health science and manufacturing desperately need skilled laborers. In fact, when unemployment was at its worst in the Great Recession,there were half a million open jobs in transportation and utilities, and a quarter million in manufacturing, to name just a couple of sectors. 7
Right now, approximately twelve million students are in secondary and postsecondary CTE programs across the nation. Both federal and state policies should support access to robust CTE programs as we look for creative ways to encourage workforce readiness. For instance, how about encouraging or even creating incentives for business associations to sponsor charter schools like LBA Academy? And as a way to help finance charter schools, how about expanding tax-free education savings accounts that could be started at birth and funded by friends, families, or businesses to help pay the tuition for charter or private schools?
As I traveled across the country in 2011 and 2012, I visited countless communities and schools to develop a plan to revitalize our economy. I did not visit the Harvards and Yales of America—their voices are heard in Washington every day. Instead, I visited institutions like Kirkwood Community College outside Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where they are actually training students for real jobs. I talked to the administrators at Kirkwood about my plan for increasing manufacturing jobs by having businesses and schools like Kirkwood work together on job training. Unbeknownst to me, the
Every child who goes through twelve years of public schooling should have what he needs to be a good citizen and to take part in the working life of this country. Not everyone has the aptitude or can afford to go to a four-year college. For many kids, a job or vocational training is the better option. All kids are different, and if one of mine decided to become the best auto mechanic in the country, that would be fine by me. I’m not requiring my kids to go to Penn State (though they do have to be Nittany Lions fans). And I’d much rather my children know how to fix an eighteen-wheeler or enlist in the navy than spend $150,000 to marinate for four years in the toxic ideology of academia while never missing a weekend party.
When politicians talk about the need for a better-educated workforce, they generally follow that up with talks aboutincreasing Stafford Loans and Pell Grants for kids going to college. 6 But what about the 70 percent I have been talking about who won’t graduate from college? What about the unglamorous task of making sure that the next generation of American workers have the education and training they need to succeed by using their minds and their hands?
I think the answer is found in institutions and programs such as the Latin Builders Association Academy, a charter high school for construction and business management in Miami, Florida. We need more places like LBA Academy, which is the first charter school in the country started by a business association. The goal for the students at the LBA Academy upon graduation is to continue to college, then work for a member company in a well-paying job or start their own business. And the association members mentor and guide the students. It’s a ground-up, community-based approach to providing real skills and experience to students who need these kinds of options.
Career and technical education (CTE) like this equips secondary, postsecondary, and adult students with the skills for high-paying jobs. With roots going back to the Civil War, CTE is the tried and true way to help young people be competitive in the workforce. It’s the best way to train students for good blue collar jobs, and industries such as health science and manufacturing desperately need skilled laborers. In fact, when unemployment was at its worst in the Great Recession,there were half a million open jobs in transportation and utilities, and a quarter million in manufacturing, to name just a couple of sectors. 7
Right now, approximately twelve million students are in secondary and postsecondary CTE programs across the nation. Both federal and state policies should support access to robust CTE programs as we look for creative ways to encourage workforce readiness. For instance, how about encouraging or even creating incentives for business associations to sponsor charter schools like LBA Academy? And as a way to help finance charter schools, how about expanding tax-free education savings accounts that could be started at birth and funded by friends, families, or businesses to help pay the tuition for charter or private schools?
As I traveled across the country in 2011 and 2012, I visited countless communities and schools to develop a plan to revitalize our economy. I did not visit the Harvards and Yales of America—their voices are heard in Washington every day. Instead, I visited institutions like Kirkwood Community College outside Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where they are actually training students for real jobs. I talked to the administrators at Kirkwood about my plan for increasing manufacturing jobs by having businesses and schools like Kirkwood work together on job training. Unbeknownst to me, the
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