Per the CT Mirror, the Connecticut Board of Education has targeted Vo-Tech schools — along with many other programs that benefit poorer students — for the majority of the cuts, with a proposal for closing two schools and eliminating sports at the others.
This is an unconscionable proposal, which takes aim at a historically soft target that can’t fight back: state vocational schools that serve a critical purpose.
Education is not a stencil that can be applied to every single student. Many students that struggle in a sit-down classroom environment are far more receptive to a hands-on experience. Only vocational schools are the only place where students can learn in a more amenable fashion while gaining key experience and, in many cases, required apprenticeship hours towards their favored trade.
The State Board of Education has sent a clear message that dates back to my time as a student: they don’t care about any of that. Stuff kids in the local high schools, and if some fall through the cracks, that’s OK. If others have to go heavily into debt to go to a for-profit vocational program like Porter and Chester later, that’s not their problem anymore. It’s callous disregard to a section of students that can become immediately useful members of the work force upon graduating high school.
That’s not to say that the Vo-Tech schools don’t put kids into college, either. Great strides were being made during my time in school to put graduating seniors into college programs, and those efforts have improved since. Vocational school graduates have gone on to become engineers, executives, even mayors.
When I was a freshman, my baseball coach that year derided what he called the “tech school mentality”: a perception that vo-tech students were unexceptional, and treading water. Over the years, we have proven that to be a load of bunk. The State’s proposed solution would permanently entrench it, destroying opportunities for some and removing athletic incentives for others — mere years after O’Brien students fought for and won a decades-long fight for a football team – and turn vocational school students into second class citizens.
It’s bad enough that, for all the good of EOB’s $94m makeover, students weren’t allowed to actually touch anything because of state-enforced labor contracts. I’ve spoken to former students who said they basically sat around while contractors — many of them surely former students of the system – did the things these kids were there to learn. The State has done enough damage already.
I urge all of Connecticut’s politicians to disregard any attempts to cut programs at state vocational high schools, and find their cuts elsewhere. In a state with an economic crunch, we need more able bodied young people able to contribute to the work force, not less.
Sincerely,
Christopher Bowen
Quality Assurance Engineer, Ventus Wireless
Emmett O’Brien Technical High School Class of 1999 – Electronics Program
