Dan Walters: Education aimed at specific skills begins a comeback in California

As Californians worry – with good reason – whether the state will ever truly recover from recession and re-emerge as a global powerhouse, they know that education is one major factor.

They also sense, as demonstrated by a recent USC/Los Angeles Times poll, that California's school system is very troubled, plagued by financial uncertainty and poor outcomes, such as a high dropout rate and low scores on national academic tests.

Clearly, improving education is vital to California's future, and there's no shortage of political, civic and academic discourse about reform – especially in light of the incredibly wide economic, linguistic, cultural and ethnic range of the state's 6 million school kids.

Should we spend more money? If so, how should the funds be apportioned?

Should we have more charter schools? Should we give parents "vouchers" to be spent at private or public schools? Should teachers face greater scrutiny?

Should we require that all students be prepared to attend college, or should we restore what used to be called "vocational education" to our high schools?

The latter issue has become one of the most contentious.

During the last couple of decades, many local school systems sharply reduced vocational education, since renamed "career technical education" or CTE, in favor of college prep, even mandating the latter for all.

But as dropout rates have soared to scandalous levels – 50 percent or more in some districts – it also became evident that eliminating opportunities to acquire job skills was devaluing those not inclined toward higher education.

Former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger became a vocal CTE advocate and other political figures, such as Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, joined the chorus. However, many in the educational establishment were reluctant.

Slowly, however, as college graduates collect unemployment insurance while skilled workers in many fields, such as auto mechanics, are in short supply, the worm is turning.

There is a growing realization that not all students are destined for college, nor should they be, that there are too many variations in aptitude and attitude to stuff all kids into the same pedagogic mold, that many would benefit from job-oriented educations, and that society needs them.

A symbol of that realization is what happened this month in Lodi Unified, one of many school districts that had adopted a college-prep-for-all curriculum.

Lodi is eliminating that well-meaning but misguided dictum and telling its high school students that their educations can be tailored to their individual traits, whether that means college prep or vocational.

As one Lodi trustee, Rob Heberle, put it: "We're putting kids in classes that they are not prepared for and forcing them to fail."

May his number multiply.