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Comment by giardini | Hacker News Reader

He's nuts and education researcher Roger Schank would agree. You don't need a high school degree and you don't even need math to drive a taxicab.

All this yak about raising the education standard in the USA, when we've got Ph.D.'s in unemployment lines is disheartening. Retraining is the greatest joke. If you're an unemployed IT worker, what is the "next tier up" on the ladder to success? Material physics, which requires 5 years study to get online?

Economics and economists have some credibility in microeconomics, but outside that limited subject they are herd-oriented and usually wrong, wrong, wrong. Ask Nicholas Taleb what he thinks about the economics profession. Hell, look out the window and remember what economists have told you about the economy over the last 20 years. Were their predictions ever better than a crapshoot?

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I don't think pure academic advancement is the answer as a means to invent and thereby dig ourselves out of the recession. More kids graduating high school really doesn't imply that they'll find better jobs or rather even be better off because of it. I would argue it's even the same metaphor for college. Most people go to get better jobs, but in reality, the risk is just as high to not find one, especially in this economy. Honestly I think we're still at the point where people are too prideful to get work just for work. I know plenty of college grads who are "above" working at Starbucks or restaurants of the like. The problem is that there's a definite devaluing of infrastructure type jobs that keep the country running. I think Mike Rowe (my hero) summed it up best: http://www.ted.com/talks/mike_rowe_celebrates_dirty_jobs.htm... Maybe it's just another crapshoot, but I think it's another way to rethink our education system.

Thanks for the link; that talk was brilliant and excellent food for thought to make us think about the "follow your passions" common wisdom around here.

Japan and Germany dominate industries like machine tools in part by beginning skilled craft training in high school. They have self-selected fifteen year olds learning how to use industrial lathes and such. Or in the case of Japan learning the hi-tech business of modern fishing actually out on the high seas.

It seems like there might be a good idea there. But of course Friedman is just talking about making sure everyone suffers through algebra II even if they learn nothing from it.

The German system (What SKorea and Japan took as blueprint to design theirs) goes like this. After High School you do 1 of 2 things (doing none is not accepted from society, well it happens, but is seen as fail): you either do prolonged High, which means you qualify for studying at University (wich is dirt cheap) or you take the route of learning what we call a profession (It's different word usage from US). What this means is, you work 3 years in an industry as apprentice (almost full-time). That's how the talk goes: "What do you do?" "I am making an apprenticeship". In parallel you go to "professional school" to learn some theoretical stuff. That is the basic qualification everyone has over here. You can upgrade by going to college or making a "Master", again different meaning from US usage. Or you can just stay that way. But basically everyone has a basic qualification and a home industry. This has produced a quality workforce (so far).

One of the weirder things I saw in Germany (and I'm not using this to refute your argument, just an aside) was the apprentice carpenters going around asking for handouts.

There's an article here about them:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,416564,00.html

I found it to be just plain weird.

It's basically the historical version of the internship. Craftsman would work together with collegues from other regions of the country, they learn the tricks of the trade of each other.

I think the word in the US is "trade", as in learning a trade.

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