A Reader’s answer to a Job Corps student

-from A Job Corps student re: Job Corps an Unfailing Record of Failure

I am currently attending a Job Corps and am very disappointed. I feel it is below standards.

-advice from Howard:

Of course it’s below standard. Compare your Job Corps facility to any high school, junior college or vo/tech school that you know of.

Is the Job Corps any where near as clean? How well maintained is the facility? How clean are the bathrooms in the academic and vocational buildings? Are the toilets continually stuffed, is there enough toilet paper?  What about graffiti on the buildings and walls? Is there any landscaping to brighten the grounds?  What about the library?  Do you even have one?  How many computers are there and what kind of hardware and software is there?  What about the academic books and other learning materials?  Are your teachers certified? Is the administration staff certified in educational administration? What about the food in the cafeteria?  If you don’t have a culinary arts program as a trade, I’ll bet your food is full of fat, sugar, harmful additives, without any fiber or bulk, and highly processed – all things that are not healthy for you. And what kinds of activities are available after classes? How bored are you when classes are over? What is the ratio of staff to students after classes and on weekends?

How many graduates have gone on to college or some other institution of higher learning where you have to compete with the general public – not another Job Corps and other Job Corps students. How many have been able to join the military?

Of course it’s below standards – the contractors who run these centers are only interested in how much money they can make and not your well-being. They don’t care if the program is up to standard or not – Job Corps is a world unto itself. It’s the goose that laid the golden egg for these shysters.

-comment from Sandra

Let’s face it, Job Corps is a government run poverty program.  It’s not Harvard or Yale.  It’s not even your local community college. If the people who went there were very wealthy, the facilities wouldn’t look the way they do, and the programs wouldn’t be run as they are. It’s our government’s (a.k.a wealthy elite’s) way of keeping lower socioeconomic people from moving up the economic ladder while ostensibly  purporting to educate and train economically disadvantaged or handicapped (that’s a whole other story) students. “They’re poor, they won’t know that this is an inferior program, they don’t know any better. They don’t have any reference points to compare it to. They don’t deserve any better – they’re poor. If we give them nice things, they’ll just ruin them anyway.”  I’ve heard it all.

If this was privately funded, things would look very different. Look up Bill Strickland’s programs in Pittsburgh and elsewhere. They are privately funded and things are very different for his organization which delivers the same things as Job Corps alleges to do.

Job Corps is a ghetto created by the government that has fed on itself for the last 45 yrs. Kind of like inner city public housing.

Filed under: Comments, Contractors, Job Corps, Reader's Comments, below standards, graduates, Job Corps, Job Corps an Unfailing Record of Failure, Job Corps contractors