RE: Adult Education - Part of a continuum of Industrial and Technology Education

Adult Ed is a key and essential part of the continued educational needs of a workforce in transition, within a society in technological and social transition.  

The Adult Ed programs in our state often reside within the walls of the comprehensive high school, providing better use of existing ITE resources, and making it easier to justify the cost of the specialized facilities and trained teachers that are required to expose high school students to good Technology Education.

Not only have these partnerships not been enough to halt the deterioration of our ITE system (75% decline since 1978), but now there are moves afoot to move the entire Adult Education system out of the high schools and onto the Community College system campuses.

If enacted, this would seriously erode the remaining base of ITE and speed up the complete abandonment of the states continuum of Industrial and Technology Education, which now begins in the elementary grades, becomes more prominent in the middle schools, then continues in the high schools.  

Students who are not exposed to tools and materials in high school never acquire the intuition that is required to be effective in the trades and skilled occupations, and college-bound engineering and technology students badly need exposure to subjects like CAD, electronics, and manufacturing so that they will understand the relevance of their academics and better understand their chosen fields.

Adult Education programs in the high schools are a vital part of this picture, but Mr. Bernstein paints a misleading picture when he says "they needn't look far" for students to meet their needs.  While he is right that the Adult Education system can prepare students for the real world, the fact is that increasingly few of our students know about the real world, are aware of career opportunities, or can take ITE courses or Career Tech courses.  Industry tells us that there is no shortage of job applicants, indeed, there are often hundreds of applicants for interesting jobs.  The problem is that almost none of these applicants has any background, knowledge, or training that is required for the jobs that go unfilled...