Sunday, March 21, 2010

Letter to Chuck Alvey EDAWN

Dear Mr Alvey...

Re: Marketing campaign, "We're Serious about manufacturing”
 
 http://www.rgj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=20103120370
EDAWN gets serious about attracting manufacturing to Nevada
rgj • March 12, 2010
 
and......
http://www.rgj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=20103210335
EDAWN very serious about manufacturing
rgj • March 21, 2010


Before you can get “serious” on manufacturing..  you’d better get serious on education!  When I came to Northern NV seventeen years ago, we did not have an educated workforce; and... we still do not have an educated workforce. I believe its worse now than ever (isn’t it strange, ignoring this problem doesn’t seem to fix it)?  The only decent “manufacturing” vocational/workforce education in Northern NV is in Elko (at GBC).  While these programs (here) have received hundreds of thousands of dollars, it seems that when it comes to actually funding these programs... the money has been “re-allocated” .  Clearly the Community Colleges here are not interested in manufacturing / vocational training (they see it as beneath them), and now that the money has slowed, there is no way they will fund any type of “dirty fingernail” programs (and, any money that industry donates will go to fund “soft skills”, which, while needed, do not provide a workforce that is ready for the plant floor).
I call on you to explore private, for profit, workforce training.  Currently it is next to impossible to use state money to fund these programs.  Industry that has the resources already use this type of training.  It is expensive, but the results, which are provable and repeatable, well justify the cost.  Without a trained workforce, and no means to raise the skill level of the workforce, your marketing plan is doomed to failure.  Industry knows what questions to ask, I suggest you have some solid answers.
 
Thank You
Charles L Dickinson
Dickinson & Associates Industrial Training
NTT project based Instructor

posted by cl @ 2:39 PM 0 comments

Monday, March 01, 2010

Obama Backs Rewarding Districts That Police Failing Schools

Obama Backs Rewarding Districts That Police Failing Schools

By JEFF ZELENY    http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/02/us/02obama.html
Published: March 1, 2010

WASHINGTON — President Obama said Monday that he favored federal rewards for local school districts that fire under performing teachers and close failing schools, saying educators needed to be held accountable when they failed to fix chronically troubled classrooms and curb the student dropout rate

*********************************************************************************
Well....... There's actually something I agree with Washington on

and... to continue:

In their efforts to overhaul failing public schools, Mr. Obama and his education secretary, Arne Duncan, have frequently drawn the ire of teachers’ unions

The president’s comments incensed the leadership of the American Federation of Teachers,

 ********************************************************************************
Gee isn't that a surprise...

 and...

To qualify for the federal money, known as School Turnaround Grants, he said, the school districts must agree to take at least one of the steps: firing the principal and at least half the staff of a troubled school; reopening it as a charter school; or closing the school altogether and transferring students to better schools in the district.

“If a school continues to fail its students year after year after year,” Mr. Obama said, “if it doesn’t show signs of improvement, then there’s got to be a sense of accountability.”

**********************************************************************************
I don't believe it....  A good idea  (who was it said that insanity is doing the same thing over &  expecting different results).  Lets see if he can do it

As long as the schools offer coursework that is so removed from the students reality that it just doesn't matter to them...  there is going to be a very high drop-out  rate.   How about some relevant classes?  How about trying to teach some tired old subjects in a new way?  (I remember fondly a "construction math" class...  it actually showed me there was a USE for some of their abstract concepts).  The little I know of Calculus I didn't learn in a math class (I learned it tuning industrial control loops)...

posted by cl @ 8:49 PM 0 comments