The discussion of SLC's (small learning communities) reminded me of things my father told me when I was a teenager contemplating college. When he first came to this country in the 1920's, he attended Park Region which was a combination high school and junior college. He learned bookkeeping, and his first job was in bookkeeping in a bank. Because financial aid was a thing of the future, he had to pay his own way through college (also no parents around to assist. They were all in the old country and too poor to help). So much later he felt that I should go learn some skill that would guarantee me some sort of job while I was in college so that I could help myself. With such a large family, he said that anyone interested in college would get one year's help and then have to make it the rest of the way on their own. Which is pretty much what happened for me.
My point? Learning saleable skills in high school is not necessarily a DISTRACTION from a college track. It may end up being the thing that makes college POSSIBLE. Republican congresses have vandalized the aid programs I knew in my college days. Students today, in all but a few cases, have jobs AND huge college debts. Moreover, when the job market changes several times a decade with lots of layoffs, those huge debts can be hard to pay. So, maybe (with that always valuable GOP aid), we're back to the 1920's (on our way to?) where "college prep" should include the prerequisites to paying work to make college realistic. Jim Mork Cooper-Longfellow-Minneapolis "Mom, the dog ate my financial aid" TEMPORARY REMINDER: 1. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. 2. If you don't like what's being discussed here, don't complain - change the subject (Mpls-specific, of course.) ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
