TRADE SCHOOLS

Why, oh why does Tom Friedman have a column gig - and I don't?

One of America's most important entrepreneurs recently gave a remarkable speech at a summit meeting of our nation's governors. Bill Gates minced no words. "American high schools are obsolete," he told the governors. "By obsolete, I don't just mean that our high schools are broken, flawed and underfunded. ... By obsolete, I mean that our high schools - even when they are working exactly as designed - cannot teach our kids what they need to know today.

"Training the work force of tomorrow with the high schools of today is like trying to teach kids about today's computers on a 50-year-old mainframe. ... Our high schools were designed 50 years ago to meet the needs of another age. Until we design them to meet the needs of the 21st century, we will keep limiting - even ruining - the lives of millions of Americans every year."

Let me translate Mr. Gates's words: "If we don't fix American education, I will not be able to hire your kids." I consider that, well, kind of important. Alas, the media squeezed a few mentions of it between breaks in the Michael Jackson trial. But neither Tom DeLay nor Bill Frist called a late-night session of Congress - or even a daytime one - to discuss what Mr. Gates was saying. They were too busy pandering to those Americans who don't even believe in evolution.

You know what seems to have slipped under old Tom's radar here?

Schools aren't for job training. They're to teach basic skills like reading and math, and they're for learning critical analysis.

It's an important distinction. Like a monkey, a human can be taught a specific task - writing computer code, for instance. But unless he or she also has critical thinking skills, he or she will be caught holding his or her own dick or vulva when the wind shifts and they no longer need people to write code.

The way it used to be, back in the good old days before Ronald Reagan, was that you applied to a company, they tested you to see if you had the capacity to learn, and if they hired you, they trained you for your job.

In other words, they invested in you.

During the Reagan years, this work-force training idea took hold, and no one seems to have spotted it for what it was: Yet another massive corporate subsidy. It was a sneaky way to shift training costs onto the taxpayers.

Think about it. Somehow, it became the financial responsibility of we, the people, to train workers for businesses! No one batted an eye, no one questions it. But now it's gospel.

Maybe it makes sense. Maybe it doesn't. But has anyone ever bothered to gather the data and see where it leads?
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