Blue collar jobs gain respect - Editorial, San Jose Mercury News
For two decades, as shop classes disappeared from middle schools and vocational education withered in high schools, Neil Struthers watched and worried. He was a lone voice warning about the growing disconnect between students without job skills and skilled construction jobs going without workers.
Now his evangelizing is paying off. Struthers, the CEO of the Building and Construction Trades Council of Santa Clara and San Benito Counties, is riding the wave of interest in partnerships between schools and industry. He's got public and private money flowing and high schools and community colleges talking to contractors and building trades groups. And career technical education, which is not simply a new name for vocational education, has made it to the top of Gov. Schwarzenegger's and state Superintendent Jack O'Connell's agendas.