WHY I KEEP POSTING THE SAME THINGS. Milwaukee's Charlie Sykes links to a disturbing article about shortages of skilled workers.

Manufacturers already are struggling with unfilled job openings because they can't find qualified help, said John Engler, president of the group and former governor of Michigan.

"The emerging problem in manufacturing is not a shortage of jobs, but rather a shortage of qualified applicants," Engler said.

"A full 36 percent of our members have said they have employment positions unfilled right now because they cannot find qualified workers. This confirms what our members have been telling us: that the people applying for manufacturing jobs today simply do not have the math, science and technological aptitude they need to work in modern manufacturing."

So much for shop class as a dumping ground for the stoners and burnouts. Yes, I'm talking about those humanities professors who couldn't carry my calipers too.

"But there are very few companies looking for low-skilled workers," Engler said. "That's not where the demand is."

Instead, companies aren't able to find enough qualified help to work in an increasingly technical and more demanding manufacturing environment, according to Engler.

"I am not saying you have to know complex algebra to get a job on the plant floor, but you do need fundamental math, science and communication skills," he said. "You can't be illiterate and communicate with other members on a manufacturing team."

Why, then, continue to frame math -- particularly computation and estimation, not analysis -- and the lab sciences, not to mention rhetoric and composition as college-prep stuff? (That preparation isn't being done terribly well, either, but that rant is here.) Those are all things the high schools used to do, and in my view better years ago, and it continues to serve all our students ... whether they be desk jockeys, disk jockeys, Dash-8 jockeys or Demag jockeys ... well to have those skills. Call it a core curriculum, not college prep. And the inefficiency of college-for-all is getting the attention it deserves.

Parents and teachers are partly to blame for the shortage of skilled workers, said Phyllis Eisen, vice president of the Manufacturing Institute, the research and education arm of the National Association of Manufacturers. They have promoted four-year college degrees as the key to success, even if those degrees are not well connected with current employment trends, Eisen said.

Hey, King, I see an allusion to your Department of the 3.7 GPA and all of those [your choice here] studies programs.