In election season, politicians love to attribute unfortunate quotes to opposing politicians, either out of context or just plain contrary to fact. The following comes from an article in Tampa Bay Times Politifact *, a column syndicated in the Cleveland Plain Dealer and a number of other papers, quoting from a speech by candidate Rick Santorum:
“President Obama once said he wants everybody in America to go to college,” Santorum said. “What a snob. There are good, decent men and women who go out and work hard every day and put their skills to test [sic]that aren’t taught by some liberal college professor that (tries) to indoctrinate them.”
Politifact then quotes Obama’s response in a speech delivered to the National Governors Association:
“… The jobs of the future are increasingly going to those with more than a high school degree. And I have to make a point here. When I speak about higher education, we’re not just talking about a four-year degree. We’re talking about somebody going to a community college and getting trained for that manufacturing job that now is requiring somebody walking through the door, handling a million-dollar piece of equipment. And they can’t go in there unless they’ve got some basic training beyond what they received in high school. We all want Americans getting those jobs of the future. So we’re going to have to make sure that they’re getting the education that they need.”
I bring this up not to involve myself in the ‘tis-‘tain’t of who said what and what they meant by it, but because it made me think of an article I recently read in the January-February Atlantic, Adam Davidson’s “Making It in America.” * * The article is about the state of manufacturing in America, much of which is beside my point. Davidson focuses on one factory, Standard Motor Products’ fuel injector line in Greenville, South Carolina, which is representative of the kind of manufacturing that has a future in America. For those of you who are still stuck in the age of carburetors, automotive fuel delivery systems today are very sophisticated, very high-tech, and the injectors themselves are made to extremely close tolerances that would probably make the mechanism of your watch seem primitive by comparison.
This has profound implications not just for the companies, but for those who will be the workers of tomorrow. Davidson narrows his focus to two workers in that factory, Maddie and Luke. Maddie is an assembler in the clean room. Luke runs a half-million dollar Gildemeister 7-axis turning machine, not just a lathe, but a complete and complex computerized system that performs a number of operations and must be constantly watched, tested, and ministered to if it is to remain within specifications. In other words, Maddie is a machine operator, a semi-skilled line worker, and Luke is a machinist, a skilled tradesman, and the two have completely different futures.
Maddie is smart and hard working and was an honor student in high school. Unfortunately, she was pregnant by the time she graduated. The complexities of being a single parent, the cost of day-care alone, precluded further schooling. She needed a job, so she went to work, first for a temp agency, later for Standard. But without further training, she will not move up to a better job, one with a future. Because her job requires little training, she is easily replaceable. She is stuck.
Luke, on the other hand, started out at a four-year college as a pre-dental student. He soon decided it was not for him. He transferred to a two-year college where he eventually found his way into the Machine Tool Technology. In the next three years, besides lots of hours in the shop learning to cut metal, he studied lots of math (which he admits comes easily to him) and lots of computer programming. Thus, when he got a factory job, he was able, after five years, to work his way up to running the most sophisticated machines.
So, we have two bright, hard-working young people, one with a future in rapidly changing American manufacturing, the other with no future, nor any way to get one. Both did well in high school, but one had access to post-secondary education and the other did not. We can fault Maddie for some poor youthful decisions, but Luke spent a few years bouncing from one course of study to another until he found one that suited him, so he probably had resources that enabled him to do that. Maddie, on the other hand, is unlikely to be able to quit work long enough for further school or training. The important thing is that their bottom lines are very different.
This brings us back to what Obama said and what Santorum made of it. The question is not whether one should go to college (the answer, candidate Santorum notwithstanding is yes), but who should get to go – who should have access. Obama, remember, is not necessarily talking in terms of a four-year degree, but in terms of various degrees and flavors of technical education and training for today’s specialized jobs.
If these case histories reflect reality, ability is not the determining factor; both young people seem to have been academically capable. Both come across as hard working, with good attitudes. We gather that their high schools were of at least adequate quality. Both have virtu. It is in fortuna that they differ.
We are always told that American industry is hamstrung because it cannot find workers with the skills needed to do the jobs. That is why jobs must be off-shored – to find an adequately skilled workforce, we are told. Yet here we have a young lady who would no doubt improve herself if she could see a clear way to do so. And I feel, as a result of watching decades of high school seniors pass through my classroom, that she may be all too typical. That is certainly the main thrust of Davidson’s article.
Once upon a time, a bright young factory worker could move up in his workplace, from the production floor to a supervisory or even executive position. The company and/or the union would provide the training necessary, he would provide the time and effort. He could earn and learn. This created for many a path to upward mobility. But such things are disappearing from the manufacturing sector and are seldom done today. Even as there are fewer and fewer jobs available for unskilled and semi-skilled workers, there are more and more young people who cannot access the training they need.
WWFD? What would Finland do, this little country in the north woods that is held up to us as bettering us educationally? Publicly supported education (there are few private schools or universities in Finland and no for-profit ones) is pre-K through post-secondary. Young people who do not qualify for University have numerous opportunities for publicly subsidized education. Most take advantage of these opportunities. Of course, we wouldn’t do that because it smacks of socialism, which we find distasteful. Still, it would solve what will be an increasingly knotty conundrum in years to come.
It has been frequently noted that America is developing an income inequality greater than any since the 1920s. Those at the top are prospering as never before, those at the bottom are losing ground and are worse off than they were. It is troubling to think that we might become a nation of haves and have not. The causes, I am sure, are many and complex, as are the implications for the future. We have long believed in education a key driver of upward mobility. But along with this growing income gap, we seem to be developing an education gap, the former driving the latter. ***
We see this at work in Davidson’s article. Luke has education and specialized training that Maddie does not. Barring unforeseen disaster, Luke has a middle class future that Maddie does not. The middle and upper classes have better access to the education that might help them rise or stay in place. The less fortunate do not. Intentionally or not, the so-called income gap seems to be self-reinforcing.