Shouldn't we have vocational high schools or will all the cons protest trying to protect their beloved "trade"?

I have no problem with that concept... Your challenge will be to get the uber-Lib educators to back off on their social engineering courses so there would be time to teach students something they could actually use in life. But even then, there will always be a place for trade schools to teach advanced skills that go beyond the basics taught in your vocational high school.

That already happens in lots of high schools. Lots of dual-enrollment plans in schools. Most kids don't want to do that, though. Most parents don't want that for their kids either. Also, that's not what most liberals want. Most liberals want everyone to have a liberal arts education and to get everyone to "discover yourself."

Actually, what you're proposing is probably something a conservative could support. It could be like Europe, where kids go to school until they're 16, and then the last 2 years kids can choose between getting a vocational education or a college-focused education.

I personally like the way the American high school system is now. Students get 12 years of schooling and plenty of time to decide what the students want to do when they graduate.

There are some high schools where a school bus would take you straight from school to work and then back. Then when they graduated, they would get hired. Again, that's a good idea too. What you're proposing already exists. It's just that most people don't want to do that.

1. What does republican or democratic have to do with high schools ?

2. There are already vocational high schools all over the US

Its called Vo-Tech, you spend half the day in regular high school and the other half the day at Vo -Tech learning a trade.

3. My high school offered machine shop, welding, electrician, heating and air conditioning, carpentry and whatever hair dressers are called.

You did the first 4 class's are the high school, then the last 3 class's at Vo-Tech.

We do have vocational high schools, genius. There's one in my city (Greater New Bedford Regional Vocational Technical High School) and about 75% of my friends went there.

And conservatives think the public sector does a worse job in service than the private sector because it's a demonstrably true fact. The public sector is forced to have lower quality and higher costs because they have to accept everyone. This is why the USPS always runs a billion dollar deficit and UPS doesn't. Competition and selection always always always drives down prices.

Name one service that the government provides that is also provided by the private sector where the public sector version costs less or is more efficient. You can't. Mail delivery, education, medical care....all done at a lower overall cost and with more efficiency than the government...fact.

(Hey, Sans, should I mention the services at Walter Reed that were privatized and were a disaster? http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/03/10/310286/-L...

Unfortunately, both liberals and conservatives have been conditioned to believe that everyone in the country needs an academic education to be a success in life. The fact that 80% of them will never use a thing they learned after the basics never seems to occur to them. If all students were shunted to either academic or vocation high schools by testing, we would be much better off. The teachers at the academic schools would no longer have to waste their time teaching students who neither care nor are capable of using random facts like the Battle of Hastings being fought in 1066. We would have more people graduating from both schools, and we would no longer lag behind the rest of the world in math, science, etc.

I always think of the cartoon Wizard of Id in which the king came out on his balcony and said, "In order for this to be the most educated nation in the world, I hereby confer upon all citizens an Associate's degree." This attitude unfortunately is held by both sides.

there are vocational high schools .. One of the biggest one is named after a Democrat by the way.

we have vocational high schools

not as many as traditional high schools, but we definitely have them

ADD:

Be careful though, if too many kids start using vocational schools, the left's beloved garbage degrees like minority studies and the history of dead languages might just disappear

We DO have vocational high schools. There is almost a 100% chance you personally know someone who went to one yet you don't know they exist. Obviously, you're a Democrat.

Where do you get this "conservatives and only conservatives support/like/own trade schools" crap from? Did you get turned down for admision or something? You're acting like a fool...Or perhaps not acting?

Cons would never go for that since 90% of trade vocations are unionized. It wouldn't matter that it mean a better, more educated and better trained work force.