California - Tech vs Fine Arts

Broke in a broken system.

Joanne shares about California's new law.

"Music and art teachers are complaining about a new California law that expands graduation requirements: Students can take one career or technical education course in place of art, music or a foreign language, reports the San Jose Mercury News. Arts and foreign-language courses are twice as likely as vocational classes to be certified as college-prep courses, so students who choose career tech could be ineligible to go from high school directly to the University of California and California State University systems."

So here's my question ... if VoTech is what the kid wants to study, why are we so hell-bent on getting him into a college degree he'll waste his time on?

Take that woman in the picture.  She went $100,000 in debt to finance a women's studies and religious studies major at NYU and now is working as a photographer's assistant for $20 per hour. (It's obviously CitiBank's fault for giving her the loan. That's why they posed her there.)

Why?  Why should she incur that debt for such a meaningless degree?  Because she's stupid, self-centered and gullible -- she willingly took out loans without considering how she'd pay them back.

California provides a free college education to its residents (well, except for fees, but I digress.)  Why should California provide a free college education for someone like her who serves no practical benefit to the society which pays that bill?

There is nothing wrong with a life and a career without a degree. Millions of people accomplish it all the time.  They become fine upstanding members of the community and college grads look down their noses at them at their peril.

We must stop this "college for all" one-track mindset.

Some urban districts, such as Oakland Unified, San Jose Unified and East Side Union in San Jose, use UC’s college-prep curriculum as their graduation requirement.

Which is ridiculous.

Public schools should not be pretending that all kids belong in college nor should it require that all kids be ready to make that step before we're willing to let them go out and be successful.