Ford needs workers, but American schools aren’t giving them the education needed

Ford CEO Jim Farley turned heads this week when he revealed the company has 5,000 vacant mechanic positions — jobs that pay twice the salary of the average American — and yet he still can’t find enough qualified applicants.

The problem, he said, is “we don’t have trade schools anymore.”

He’s right about the opportunities, but wrong about trade schools.

They still exist, but these days we call it Career and Technical Education, or CTE.

The real question is whether they have what it takes to train the workers Farley needs.

Because CTE doesn’t stand for “can’t take exams.”

Skilled trades are no longer fallback for kids who struggle academically.

Gone are the days when if college isn’t for you, the trades will catch you.

Nor are these jobs safe from the technological forces shaping the rest of the labor market.

While skilled trades face far less risk of outright replacement by artificial intelligence than many white-collar jobs, they’re still being transformed by automation, digital tools, and AI-assisted diagnostics.

The trajectory is toward more technical skill, not less.

Farley underscored this himself when he said today’s mechanics aren’t “grease monkeys.”

He’s right.

Today’s auto technicians work with computer software, advanced sensors, high-voltage systems, and digital schematics.

Servicing an electric vehicle requires interpreting data flows, troubleshooting electronics, and following precise, multistep instructions.

That demands literacy, math, and the ability to solve complex problems.

So the real question isn’t “what happened to trade schools?”

It’s whether America’s K–12 system is any more capable of producing a workforce that is career-ready than it is at producing a generation that’s college-ready.

Consider this week’s disturbing report out of UC San Diego showing one-in-eight freshmen admitted to one of the nation’s leading research universities can’t do middle school math.

That problem doesn’t go away when you take college off the table.

Whether students enter apprenticeships, community college, or straight into the workforce, they all need the same baseline skills: the ability to read technical material, understand measurement and precision, and work comfortably with increasingly digital tools.

Too many graduate high school without these basics.

To be clear, CTE is a comparative bright spot in the K–12 landscape.

Students who take CTE courses have better employment outcomes, higher wages, and stronger long-term prospects.

Students and parents alike like CTE because it leads to real jobs; employers value it because it aligns education with the labor market.

But even the best CTE programs cannot compensate for weak academic preparation.

Workers who struggle to read grade-level text cannot read complicated technical manuals or diagnostic instructions.

If they can’t handle middle-school math they can’t program high-tech machines or robotics, or operate the automated equipment found in modern factories and repair shops.

Right now they can’t.

As of 2024, only 27% of US public school eighth graders reached proficiency in math on the Nation’s Report Card.

That is not a workforce-ready pipeline; it is a warning.

If three-quarters of today’s graduates can’t read or do math at a middle school level, the millions of jobs Farley is desperate to fill — in automotive technology, advanced manufacturing, construction, aviation maintenance, and beyond — will remain out of their reach forever.

America does not lack good jobs.

It lacks a K–12 system capable of preparing students to seize them.

Until that changes, companies like Ford will continue offering excellent wages for essential work — and continue struggling to find anyone academically or technically ready to do it.

Robert Pondiscio is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a former New York City public school teacher.