Better we look at Brazil, Denmark, France, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Netherlands, or Sweden. We have local control of K-12 education. A constitutional guarantee of equal expenditure per pupil. Teachers are civil servants with lifetime tenure and higher pay. Apprentice-trained workers in all fields have a mastery of both academic subject matter and occupational proficiency.
Every student can see the immediate value of academic study especially the apprentice-bound.
As one report put it, virtually all German apprentices have six years of a foreign language, plus political science and economics equivalent to our community college level. Better quality control. Less equipment down time. And a shift of some costs of education to very willing, and fully participating, businesses. On a flight from San Diego recently I sat next to a German industrialist who s an enthusiast for the German apprenticeship system.