Hmmm. I agree that K-12 teachers should be held to very high standards, but I quibble with your assertion that it’s teachers themselves who are failing to appropriately prepare students for careers that meet their aptitudes and needs.

Teachers in a public system have woefully little control over how they are allowed to design and implement curriculum, and they don’t get to choose to guide some students toward technical training and others toward academia — the whole concept of which is still pretty much blasphemy in our public ed system, which is bent on prepping every student for four-year college. I feel teachers (and I am not currently a teacher, although I have been and I am employed in public education at the moment) get undeserved blame for the shortcomings of a complex system in which they don’t have as much autonomy or as much support as they should have.

I agree wholeheartedly that the college/university track is not appropriate for all students and can be destructive to many. Nor does it jive with real-world job opportunities in the near future: many of what are now white-color jobs will virtually disappear within ten years, while we will still need electricians and mechanics and plumbers, etc.

However. I object to the idea that education should only comprise what you need to know to do a job, and I also cringe at the idea that a person’s potential can be fully determined early in life. An auto mechanic or a drywall hanger may not need to know calculus, but they should have access to humanities and arts classes.

You’re giving me a lot to think about!