“The world needs plenty of bartendahs!”

– Alec Baldwin, as “Captain Ellerby” in The Departed

Should kids be allowed to quit school at 16 years old?  Is it any better if they wait until age 18? Keeping them in school until 18 only creates people with a history of 730 more days of enduring classes they don’t want to participate in.

My point of view? I couldn’t care less what some gerbil thinks is best concerning this subject. If a kid thinks he can survive in this world without a high school education, more power to him. This isn’t a matter of me being mean. It’s a matter of the kid isn’t my responsibility.

The employment/unemployment arena of competition is geared to those who perform based on school experience and effort expended to get the job done. If you couldn’t cut it in school what do I have showing me you can stay on the job? Nothing.

We need manual laborers. Not everybody’s cut out for the Executive Washroom other than to fold towels and polish toilet fixtures.

Sound uncaring and unfeeling? Tough. There are enough mistakes made by hyper-educated dumb basses (H.E.D.). We don’t need the illiterate gumming up industry and the economy.

The reason we have so many drop-outs is so many people think they know best what’s good for everybody else. The U.S. Department of Education, a virtual treasure trove of H.E.Ds, stocks faulty ideas like salt-pork before a famine. They aren’t necessarily good for much, but they have a stockpile to last for ages.

These kids are only 12 years from having their butts wiped for them. Few remember why these ages were chosen for quitting school. It was because an eighth grade education worked in the primarily industrial/agrarian society of the 19th century. Kids worked to support their families. Education was practically based: not theoretically. That era’s long dead and we’re more aligned with the technology of agriculture and industry than manually planting and manufacturing.

Because we foolishly allow them a driver’s license at this age in many states it’s somehow accepted they’re mature enough to decide the direction of their lives and futures. Most high school sophomores and juniors (15-17 year olds) have no serious idea what they want to do after they graduate. I’ve interviewed many kids. They barely approach the terminus of their drives to be basketball, baseball, football stars for boys and actress, homemaker and diva for girls. So many settle for working in a plant or getting a cosmetology license along with the other 35 bazillion people trying for the same jobs.

With no more clairvoyance than this to articulate what their life goals are, how can anybody allow these lambs to walk stupidly toward the meat-grinder we all face daily in the real world?

The answer key is a matter of relevance. Take any school administrator and ask: why do you choose the courses you teach? Get past the boilerplate (and thus totally unimaginative answer pointing to the problem) answer of: we teach state requirements. What dumb bass decides what’s relevant?  The most interesting answer I ever got was: we want to create a more well-rounded person. Who arbitrarily decides what well-rounded is? And who decided the model of success we should carbon copy our kids to follow as they shoot out of that mimeograph (that’s an ancient copier, folks) we call public education. Obviously it’s done with a Ouija Board, because it makes no sense otherwise.

We must start children thinking about careers somewhere in the range of 6th grade. We should hammer on this with a rubber mallet more than a sledge to see they understand time isn’t infinite for a human. You must prepare sooner than later. Get the kids’ input, help them select courses they’ll need to succeed and track them as they move through high school. Alter and re-define expectations until you HELP a kid smooth the rough edges rather than espousing unrealistic collegiate drives only padding teacher’s resume’s with success stats.

Think of it parents: do you want your kid emulating all the failed duds saying a college education is the ONLY way to go?

Who’s going to build anything; including America?

Sheesh!

Thanks for listening.