Sherwood, Ore., high school engineering teacher John Niebergall, left, and teacher Allison Meadows instruct student Garret Heckenberg on how to use a high-tech PlasmaCam, which cuts steel.
—Leah Nash for Education Week
High schools develop high-tech training
By Fenit Nirappil
The Oregonian
A drone helicopter to record marching band formations. A $75 French horn mouthpiece made for just $5. Phone cases emerging from a 3-D printer.
Those are the kinds of projects that Sherwood High School students in Oregon are already churning out. With a $494, 000 grant from the state, school officials plan to buy more equipment and expand technology and manufacturing instruction to middle schools, and share their knowledge across the state.
Simple woodcarving in shop class doesn't cut it for the 21st century job market, school officials say. In the corner of the computer lab, a 3-D printer rests alongside the paper printer. In adjacent, wide-open rooms, students are carving metal, building robots, and using laser and vinyl cutters.
"You read statistics that manufacturing is coming back, but the jobs coming with it are advanced and high-tech, " said Gary Bennett, the academic chief of the 5, 100-student Sherwood school district, which is near Portland.
National research bears out Mr. Bennett's point. By 2018, 42 percent of jobs in manufacturing will require some postsecondary education or a degree, according to findings from the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. A 2012 ManpowerGroup study indicated that machine operators and engineers are among the top 10 jobs that U.S. employers have trouble filling.
Many schools are working to meet the demand by modernizing their manufacturing education programs. Nearly 1, 300 public high schools and 1, 700 two-year colleges offer programs in career-technical education, or CTE, with an enrollment of about 14 million students, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
"There isn't a day that goes by that you could live without the output of CTE programs, " said Timm Boettcher, the chairman of the Industry Workforce Needs Council of the Association for Career and Technical Education, which works to increase support for CTE from government and business. "The jobs that require CTE are used everywhere: the mechanics, technicians, engineers, welders, and the list goes on."
A NextEngine 3D machine scans materials in teacher John Niebergall's engineering class at Sherwood High School in Sherwood, Ore. The school put in place a program to teach students the technical skills they will need to land high-tech jobs in the manufacturing industry.
An Image Problem
Still, advocates recognize that their interests have suffered from an image problem, with the perception that manufacturing in the United States is dwindling, and the jobs it offers are largely low-skilled.
