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There was a time when learning a trade in high school wasn't considered weird, a backup plan, or where you sent the "bad students." Shop class, auto mechanics, welding, drafting, woodworking, electrical and other vocational programs were simply part of school. Kids could graduate knowing how to actually DO something.

Then America started changing its mind about what high school was supposed to be. And I think we're finally paying the bill.

Go back to the 1980s.

In 1983, a famous federal report called A Nation at Risk warned that American students were falling behind academically. The response made sense. Schools needed stronger academics, more math, more science, more English, higher graduation requirements and better preparation for college.

But there are only so many hours in a school day. Something had to give, and vocational education became one of those things. (Enter sad face)

According to federal education data, the average high school graduate took 4.6 vocational credits in 1982. By 1992, that dropped to 3.8. During the exact same period, average academic credits increased from 14.2 to 17.3.

Here's another number that gets me. In 1982, 33.7% of high school graduates concentrated in a vocational field. Ten years later, it was 24.4%.

Nobody in Washington walked into every high school in America in 1992 and ripped the welding machines out. It happened much more quietly than that. We changed priorities, graduation requirements and scheduling. But probably most importantly, we changed the definition of success. And that’s what has been heart breaking for me to understand.

College became the scoreboard.

Think about what happened culturally in the 1990s and 2000s. High schools proudly displayed where their seniors were going to college. Counselors talked about SAT scores. Parents bragged about university acceptance letters. Teachers told kids they needed a degree to get a good job or join the military. Remember how hard all those branches recruited? I do.

Somewhere along the way, vocational education developed a stigma. I know plenty of people who remember hearing some version of, "If you don't get good grades, maybe you can go to vocational school."

Think about how backwards that statement looks today.

The kid who struggled sitting behind a desk for seven hours wasn't necessarily stupid. Maybe they needed to move. Maybe they needed to build something. Maybe they needed someone to put a wrench in their hand and explain why algebra suddenly mattered. Maybe they were an entrepreneur, and nobody knew it yet. I wish someone told me, “Hector, you can use your talking skills to land huge jobs in construction. You can become a traveling Welder and make 6 figures.

Instead, we built an education system increasingly focused on preparing almost everybody for the same next step: college.

College wasn't the mistake.

College is fantastic for the kid who needs college. We need doctors, engineers, teachers, accountants, attorneys and scientists.

The mistake was turning college from an option into the definition of success. You still see it now daily with kids schools. Wear your favorite college shirt on Thursdays and hear this as young as first grade.

We created this weird idea that smart kids went to college and everybody else worked with their hands. That might be one of the dumbest ideas we've ever sold American teenagers.

Have you ever watched a great electrician troubleshoot an electrical problem? Have you watched somebody diagnose a commercial HVAC system? Have you seen an industrial maintenance technician figure out why a million-dollar machine suddenly stopped running?

Those aren't low-skill jobs. They're highly technical jobs that happen to involve your hands.

Fast forward 30 years.

Now the same country that spent decades pushing students toward four-year degrees is screaming: WHERE ARE ALL THE ELECTRICIANS?

Where are the welders, HVAC technicians, pipefitters, industrial maintenance technicians and diesel mechanics? Where are all the people who can actually build and maintain the physical economy?

We shouldn't be surprised. We weakened the pipeline.

And now something is happening that could make this problem much bigger.

AI is coming to places nobody expected.

Everyone talks about AI replacing workers. I'm watching something completely different.

AI is creating enormous demand for people who work with their hands.

ChatGPT might live in the cloud, but the cloud lives in a building. Somebody has to build that building. Somebody has to bring power to it. Somebody has to install the cooling. Somebody has to install generators, controls and electrical equipment. And somebody has to maintain everything when it breaks.

And some of these projects aren't being built in New York, Chicago or Los Angeles. They're coming to places most Americans couldn't find on a map.

Paducah, Kentucky is a perfect example.

A community of roughly 25,000 people is now looking at a proposed AI/data-center and energy project with announced private investment of more than $100 BILLION. The project is expected to require around 8,000 construction workers and eventually approximately 600 permanent employees.

Read that again.

A sleepy Kentucky town. Roughly 25,000 people. $100+ billion in proposed investment. Around 8,000 construction workers needed.

My first thought isn't, "Wow, that's a big data center."

My first thought is:

Where the hell are 8,000 workers going to come from?

That's not an AI question. That's a workforce question.

You can't build an economy without building workers.

You can announce a $10 billion factory, a $50 billion data center, a new shipyard or another massive energy project. You can put politicians on a stage, hold up a giant check and cut the ribbon.

But eventually somebody has to show up Monday morning wearing work boots.

And if that person hasn't been trained, the building doesn't care how big the investment announcement was.

This is where I think America is headed. The 1990s were about pushing more kids toward college. The next decade could be about figuring out how the heck we're going to rebuild the vocational training infrastructure we allowed to shrink.

I don't think traditional education can solve this problem by itself. We're going to need community colleges, high-school CTE, union apprenticeship programs, employer academies, nonprofits and yes...

A LOT more privately owned trade schools.

Because something massive is happening underneath the AI boom that almost nobody is talking about.

We're not just running out of skilled workers.

We're running out of places capable of producing them fast enough.

And in Part 2, I'm going to show you why this problem could get much worse.

Because Paducah isn't an exception.

It's a preview.

Until next time, control what YOU can control, take action on something, and don’t forget to smile. Like what you read? Here’s how you can help:  Share this newsletter with friends who could use a boost. Sharing is caring! Connect with me on X (formerly Twitter) – let's chat and support each other.

Find me at @Trade Schools Secrets-WIOA Whisperer