Comments from Facebook:
TOUGH JOB PROSPECTS
"49% of employers are having difficulty hiring — particularly in math and science, high-tech jobs, manufacturing and mechanics," former Education secretary Margaret Spellings wrote in the Forum piece "The jobs are there, the education is not."
Note to college students: Think carefully about the major you will choose. It's not enough just to go to college anymore. You need to be strategic regarding the long-term prospects your major will offer.
No matter who wins this fall, jobs won't fall into anyone's lap. People with education, specifically in hot fields such as medicine, pharmacology, engineering, and math and science, will usually land a job. No matter which subject one wants to study, check to find out the job market available following graduation.
Perhaps it is also time for universities and colleges to rethink how they educate. Instead of the present system, the schools should be looking at ways to educate people without forcing them to go into such massive debt. Stop forcing students to take courses that are fairly useless in the market. Certainly it makes for a more well-rounded student, but in today's economy, maybe students are more interested in their future than in being well-rounded.
Teachers in urban areas are well-paid but put out consistently low graduation numbers. These facts are known, yet unions protect bad teachers and the poverty cycles continue. Let's try something new. Give vouchers to poor kids and let them go to higher quality schools. Let their parents decide what is best and not teachers' unions.
BUSINESSES AT FAULT
This is the propaganda these days: "The jobs are there, the education is not." This argument is old, especially in information technology where many older workers have skills, knowledge and experience. The problem lies with CEOs of companies wanting to improve the bottom line. Many cut payroll costs by exporting jobs overseas.
Many employers expect very specific skills that cannot be learned in school. The companies use very specialized equipment, which few other companies use, or customized software. Then they complain because the few people who know these machines did not apply for their jobs. Why waste my time learning a certain machine when no other company uses it?