Boosting Blue-Collar Skills

This week state legislators began considering a mostly sensible package of bills aimed at reversing a 75% plunge over the last two decades in the number of vocational educational courses offered in high schools and community colleges. This decline has left auto mechanic shops, construction companies, computer makers, hospitals and other technical trades scrambling to find adequately trained new workers.

Last year, for example, the lack of skilled technicians in the United States forced Silicon Valley-based Cisco Systems to hire 5,600 out of 7,000 workers from abroad. And while 26% of California’s automotive mechanics will retire in the next four years, half of the state’s high school auto shop programs have closed in the last decade.

As legislators consider the package of 10 bills, they should focus on the most cost-neutral reforms, recognizing that replacing all the programs that were discontinued in the last two decades is impossible given the state’s rapidly dwindling budget surplus. That may mean postponing action on bills like AB 348, by Assemblyman Roderick Wright (D-Los Angeles), which calls for state-of-the-art equipment in technical classrooms.

Legislators should also look critically at AB 462, by Assemblyman Mark Wyland (R-Escondido), which would create new tax credits for employers who lend employees to teach math and science courses. While mentoring should be encouraged, legislators ought to be careful not to give businesses fat tax breaks for worker training programs they would run even without government incentives. American business now spends about $30 billion a year training and retraining workers through programs like Automotive YES, in which General Motors, DaimlerChrysler and Toyota have partnered to offer high school juniors and seniors mechanic internships during summers.

Most of the other bills advocate viable, cost-effective reforms that the Legislature should promptly implement. The best bills include SB 1051, by Sen. Bruce McPherson (R-Santa Cruz), which requires the state superintendent of public instruction to develop academic standards for technical education courses, integrating concepts like algebra into courses like carpentry so vocational-ed students can handle the state’s new exit exams; AB 717, by Assemblywoman Patricia Wiggins (D-Santa Rosa), which establishes a partnership between the state and the National Academy Foundation, whose five-figure grants help school districts start programs to prepare kids for high-tech jobs, and AB 769, by Assemblywoman Jackie Goldberg (D-Los Angeles), which requires the state Education Department to meet with companies and trade associations to develop a comprehensive description of the skills that applicants must possess to hold down the hard-to-fill jobs.

Most legislators believe the state can best serve students by focusing resources on boosting test scores and expanding college preparatory courses. But legislators should not give short shrift to technical education. With only 20% of jobs requiring four years of college and extensive research showing that hands-on training in vibrant trades helps lower high school dropout rates, restoring some of the state’s cuts in technical education is clearly a wise investment.