Answer:
A survey conducted by the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AACU) found that only 55 percent of students attending high school feel prepared to enter the real world. ... So, again, this is how high-school prepares students to enter adulthood.
Explanation:
How well does your school do at teaching you practical skills you’ll need in a future job or career? What have you learned that fits this description that you especially value? In the Op-Ed essay “Straight From High School to a Career,” Katherine S. Newman and Hella Winston write: Candidates from both parties have been talking a lot about the loss of American jobs, declining wages and the skyrocketing cost of college.
But missing from the debate is the fact that there are hundreds of thousands of “middle skill” jobs in the United States that are — or soon will be — going unfilled because of a dearth of qualified workers. Employers complain that electricians, pipe fitters, advanced manufacturing machinists, brick masons and radiology technicians are scarce. More than 600,000 jobs remain open in the manufacturing sector alone. These are jobs that provide a middle-class wage without a traditional four-year college degree.
American high schools once offered top-notch vocational and apprenticeship training, preparing young people for jobs like these. But over the last 70 years, our commitment to such education has waxed and waned, reflecting the country’s ambivalence about the role of school in preparing young people for employment and the value of blue-collar work itself. Progressives have argued that technical education tracks low-income and minority youths toward second-class citizenship; hence they often advocate “college for all…”
