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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP, 
I get it. I think a lot of people posting don’t really understand how the German system works. It’s not as if you are doomed to some low-level, unimportant job if you fail to show success in 4th grade.

The school choices and offerings are robust and they make sense. No, not everybody should go to college. And it’s not just because of intellect/ability; society doesn’t need everybody to go to college.

German vocational programs are robust, and they lead to very important jobs that provide for stable living. Their on-the-job apprenticeships set students up for success in a way we don’t.

[/quote]

+1 the programs in the vocational track are often fantastic career paths with good earning potential. They just aren't jobs that require a college degree. In the US we just wind up requiring a college degree for someone to go into marketing or video editing or some other field that is not particularly academic (which doesn't mean it's easy or doesn't require refined skills, just that they are not skills that require a four-year university degree). Worse the US has even started requiring masters for some of these jobs. Truly confounding.

I would be 100% a-ok if my kid wound up in vocational high school in order to pursue a field they liked and were adept at, AND could enter at 19 instead of waiting until 22 and having to go through tough college admissions processes and getting a liberal arts degree that required them to take courses in areas they actively disliked or struggled with.

I would also be happy if my kid wound up in the academic track due to their interest and aptitude and excited that they could pursue that track with other kids happy to be there and invested in academics to a similar degree.

We have a really broken system in the US in terms of getting people the training and education they need to pursue fields for which they are suited and acually want to be in. Kids hate it, parents hate it. It's not efficient and it's incredibly expensive. It's good for certain college who sell degrees (rather than truly educating students) and for the whole complex of schools and services who prey on people struggling to navigate the system (the entire college prep industry for instance). But that's it.[/quote]

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