Most Job Corps Centers are Closing at the End of June

[Yeshuasdaughter]

The federal government wants to shut down most of the nation's Job Corps centers by the end of June.

I am a Job Corps graduate. I have dozens of friends as well who went to Job Corps. It is a fantastic program that gives young adults the second chance to get a diploma. You also get driver's training, apprenticeship and certification in your chosen trade, clothing and shoes for your trade, and room and board. I don't know where I'd be without Job Corps.

Yes, there are a few kids who cause trouble, but they're terminated out of the program within a couple of months.

The beauty of this program is that it takes low income kids from 16-24, some of which have been in foster care or juvie or are homeless, and gives them a shot to do something with their lives. To be productive, to get that diploma, to learn a trade.

Graduates also have the opportunity to go on to advanced training centers in their vocation, to become a journeyman level. Or if they excelled in class and stayed out of trouble, some centers will pay for the student to go to community college while living on center.

Also it teaches responsibility and employability. How to get up and do chores and get ready at 6 am. How to live together in community. How to apply for jobs. What a good employee looks like. What a good customer service looks like.

They are shutting down all of the centers other than those ran by the Dept of Forestry because they think it's a waste of taxpayer dollars. They claim that there is a low graduation rate. Well, how many young people start, but don't complete community college? These are low income kids on the precipice. Naturally you're going to have a high attrition rate, because their lives are so difficult outside of school.

They want to bring American jobs home? Well, then invest in and train the American Worker! Give companies incentives to hire Job Corps graduates. They are highly skilled in trades that vary from restaurant cooks, to accountants, to LPNs, to welders, to seamen, to computer technicians, plumbers, firefighters, dental assistants, HVAC specialists, auto mechanics, carpenters, plasterers/painters, social workers, etc. They are trained and certified apprentice and journeyman level.

If there are problems, reinvest in the centers, and give these hardworking youth a chance.

I use the skills from my Job Corps education every day of my life.

And I know over twenty other people who do as well.

Job Corps is vital. It is a second chance at making something out of a young life. It is a terrible mistake to shut the centers down.

It's a crime against our youth to throw tens of thousands of them out on the street at the end of next month, when they are reaching for their futures!

 

[RemyZee]

sorry to hear about this, a great organization

 

[Aspychata]

That was sad to read. This means that more kids will resort to criminal behavior seeing they have no other options.

 

[Hypnalis]

That was sad to read. This means that more kids will resort to criminal behavior seeing they have no other options.

This is a stretch.

It's young adults, not kids. And criminal behavior is a personal choice, not an inevitable consequence of changes in the environment. But it's a good example of "Exaggerate, Embellish, Weaponize".

It would be interesting to get a cost vs training results and jobs for that organization though.
And also if the whole thing is being shut down permanently, or if only parts that were inefficient were shut down, and they're trying to keep parts that were effective and efficient.

There's a general rule for almost all necessary cost-cutting: some good things will be thrown out with the bad.
That doesn't make the change wrong if the end result is more efficient.

 

[Hypnalis]

@Aspychata

I'm an Aspie XX. I like facts, logic, and direct communication. Their opposites make me uncomfortable.

So I "target" inaccurate claims,, fallacious arguments, and debate techniques that are designed to mislead, and/or to be difficult to counter.

BTW I understand that many of those techniques are common online and IRL - so common they've spread and become widely accepted as reasonable. So I don't criticize the people that use them, only the techniques.

Stay on point and we'll only ever exchange information and opinions on topics where there's a mutual interest.

 

[Mary Terry]

This is a stretch.

It's young adults, not kids. And criminal behavior is a personal choice, not an inevitable consequence of changes in the environment. But it's a good example of "Exaggerate, Embellish, Weaponize".

It would be interesting to get a cost vs training results and jobs for that organization though.
And also if the whole thing is being shut down permanently, or if only parts that were inefficient were shut down, and they're trying to keep parts that were effective and efficient.

There's a general rule for almost all necessary cost-cutting: some good things will be thrown out with the bad.
That doesn't make the change wrong if the end result is more efficient.

Poverty promotes crime in America. Maybe it's different somewhere else in the world. The concentrations of crime in the US occur mainly in the impoverished inner cities, and the criminally inclined denizens of the inner cities follow the money to the suburbs to commit crimes.

Job Corps gives young people hope, direction, structure and tools to lead lives better than what they experienced as children. I'm saddened that it, too, is being chain-sawed out of existence.

 

[Hypnalis]

@Mary Terry

That's mostly fair. But there's another way to look at it.

For clarity, I accept that it's possible that the Job Corps system is cost effective. And also that the choice to pause it (wikipedia's wording) was hasty and not carefully analyzed.

But someone looked at it and decided to pause it (perhaps with the intention of shutting it down), so it's equally possible it's just not good value for the taxpayer dollars it consumes.

It's certainly true that any organization as large as the US Government has a lot of inefficiency and waste. Perhaps as a whole Job Center isn't worth the cost.

An interesting, and I think inevitable effect of trying to improve things, especially at scale:

There are always people who want to keep every component part of any organization that's undergoing a cost-cutting initiative. So if there are 100 sub-organizations, 100 mostly distinct groups of people will form trying to keep their favorite sub-organization (some of them internal of course - not many people want their organization to be downsized /lol.

But there's just one small problem. If they're all taken seriously, they're a huge impediment to improvement. Instead, everything just keeps growing. Until there's no money left, and everything starts to rot from the inside (not likely to wreck the country's economy in the US, but Venezuela, with a massive oil surplus, managed it)

The other part (relationship between socioeconomic status, education & training, and life outcomes) has been objectively demonstrated of course. Though I don't like that these days they tend to ignore cultural effects, family structure, etc that have been proven to very important predictors.

But the fact that there are real issues that are influenced by education and training doesn't establish that this particular organization is the most efficient way to use Federal funds to mitigate those societal issues.

To pull an example out of a hat: if some other existing program delivered a 50% better outcome for 50% of the cost, and is known to be scalable, you'd want to move the money there. But maybe go back to the less effective system and find a way to use the parts that were as efficient.

BTW - I know that a lot of things, not least politics in democratic countries, runs on the approach your post uses, and I know that's won't change any time soon.

But I also know that the US needs to find a way to deal with the government debt to GDP ratio, so cost effectiveness matters too.

 

[Mary Terry]

@Hypnalis - everyone knows that the deficit must be addressed. Unfortunately, the current big, beautiful bill will increase the deficit by at least a $trillion. I have an idea! Let's cancel the $50M+ military birthday parade scheduled for June.

Government is not a for-profit business and cannot be run in that manner.

 

[Gerontius]

People tend to get exactly the results they voted for.