College Readiness Mayor Says Skip College, Become A Plumber

Mayor Bloomberg offers some career advice:

Some advice from career counselor Mayor Bloomberg: If you are a so-so high school student, steer clear of college — and learn to clear clogged drains.

Bloomberg said on his weekly radio show Friday that going to trade school to become a plumber is a better economic bet for many teenagers than obtaining an undergraduate degree.

“The people who are going to have the biggest problem are college graduates who aren’t rocket scientists, if you will, not at the top of their class,” he said.

“Compare a plumber to going to Harvard College — being a plumber, actually for the average person, probably would be a better deal.”

He said plumbers make a good living without having to pay off college loans.
“You don’t spend ... four years spending $40,000, $50,000 in tuition without earning income,” he explained.

Another benefit: Plumbers don’t have to worry about their jobs being outsourced or handled by computers. “It’s hard to farm that out ... and it’s hard to automate that,” he said.

The mayor said “a number” of studies conclude that plumbers start their careers with less debt and higher wages than their peers who attend college.

This is some interesting advice from the mayor who has made "College Readiness" one of the signature policies of the education reform movement he has pursued in NYC schools.

Every class students take these days must promote "College Readiness" by forcing students to write argumentative essays and read information texts with complex vocabulary.

Even in art class and vocational classes, argumentative essay writing and informational text reading has replaced all other activities.

Want to practice fashion design in your fashion design class? 

Sorry - not until you write that argumentative essay about Coco Channel.

Want to draw and paint in your art class?

Sorry - not until you read this twenty page handout on perspective during the Renaissance and write a  three page summary using twenty five words from your lexical array of complex text terms.

I actually agree with the mayor that students who are not enamored of the academic life should find themselves a skill or trade that pays well and cannot be outsourced.

Quite frankly, we need more skilled plumbers, electricians, and the like, but the mayor's Department of Education has done everything it can to dismiss this kind of educational track by closing vocational schools, forcing the remaining vocational schools to turn vocational classes into academic classes and tracking how many students schools send off to college after graduation and using those statistics in the school report card metrics.

Is the mayor unaware of the consequences of his education policies in the NYC school system that privilege the college track over everything else or was he just blathering on to fill air time on his radio program?