Very interesting article; thanks for posting it.

I have volunteered as a technical mentor for a FIRST robotics team in California. I never had a student on the team, but was talked into helping out, that was in 2006. The students on the team are supposed to be the smartest and most motivated in the school, but that has not been my experience.
The conspiracy followers will suggest that ever since the Federal Department of Education has been at the wheel, the quality of education in the USA has decline. This intentional, they say, as a way to dumb down the society to make it easier to control. I don't know if this is true, but if so, they have been successful...

One problem that I have observed is the idea that all high school kids will go to college; they must go to college. This means that the students who won't go to college are left in the cold on graduation day. I'm all for a technical/vocational track in high school that can start in their sophomore year, when everyone knows if they are really college bound. They will graduate prepared to enter a trade and a satisfying job. I tell people around me, "If everyone becomes an engineer, who will build what they design?"

One of my favorite parts of high school (1970) was shop; wood shop, metal shop, small engine shop, etc., and it pains me to see that they are gone from current high schools with rare exception. They called it "Industrial Arts", and that's what it is, and we need it back...

But the problem of a generation of apathetic and unmotivated young people will not be fixed with shop class, in fact it is such a huge problem that it feels unsolvable. Kids don't want to get dirty anymore, they are protected from anything that could cause even a minor injury; and therefore are missing something from the experience of growing up. They need to be tearing apart their bikes or skateboards, or building model airplanes and cars. This is a small thing, and difficult for parents to promote when phones, and computers, and video games have so much appeal.

I think that we may able to fix the situation, but it will take time. The way social and economic cycles work, it might automatically fix itself in a generation or two... Thanks for listening... ;-)