Thirty years ago, high school shop class seemed on track for extinction.
As school funding became a matter of standardized test scores in reading and math, the budget tightened for classes that taught woodworking and printmaking. From the 1990s to the early 2010s, students took fewer credits in shop class — or as it is now called, Career Tech Education — according to data from the National Center of Education Statistics.
Instead, the priority turned toward securing students spots in four-year degree programs.
