A liberal arts degree?!?! For shame!

The City Paper's Political Notebook has a little feature about Tom Knox. While most of the column is devoted to how much scratch Knox has, it does drift dangerously close to talking about issues and policies towards the end.

Knox uses these precious column inches to push his ideas for increasing funding for job training in the city to make the city's workforce more attractive to potential employees. His pulled-up-by-his-own-bootstraps background makes an appearance with this subtle dig on all those latte-drinking, sushi-eating, Volvo-driving, New York Times-reading, Hollywood-loving folks out there when he says:

We used to have skills training schools for kids, then somewhere along the line, the school system decided that everyone should have a liberal arts degree.

It seems to me that politics is ignoring facts once again. While job training is great and would prepare people for decent wage jobs in manufacturing and other factory jobs, the fact is those aren't the jobs we have here. Heck, even Tastykake is on the way out.

In the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics report, you'll find that in the city of Philadelphia, 59 percent of the jobs are in the Educational and Health Services, Professional and Business Services, Information, Financial Activities and Leisure and Hospitality sectors. Manufacturing and Construction represent 6 percent.

I appreciate that Knox is trying to do something for people who need jobs now - those for whom school is a distant memory. Who knows? Maybe we can attract a new factory or two with a better trained workforce. But the numbers bear out that we should be concentrating on preparing people for the jobs that are here now and are most likely to be here in the future. Don't get me wrong, I think it's great that the School District and the building trades union are expanding opportunities for public school children to enter the construction trades. However, construction work represents just 2 percent of all the available jobs. That'll be a lot of people competing for very few jobs.

"Job training" is a good soundbite but it ignores the reality of this city's economy. The only way large scale change will happen is if we dedicate ourselves to the proposition that every single child, from birth, needs to be prepared to go to college... and get that liberal arts education. That means no more "college isn't for everyone" attitudes from parents and teachers. Aside from being degrading and, in many cases, racist, it's just a way of giving up. Parents, teachers and the students need to try harder and be given every possible resource to make it happen.

If we're gonna talk ideas, why don't we do something really big? Why don't we tell everyone in this city, regardless of age, that they can start over. If you agree to stop dealing drugs or stealing or if you just want a chance out of a menial, low paying job, we'll make it possible for you to start from as far back as you need to in order to learn what you missed the first time through. Then, through loans, work study, grants, etc. you go to college. Sort of like Billy Madison for everyone... except not a joke. By the time you're done, you'll be able to fill any of the jobs that are actually here and not just pine away for the ones that left decades ago.