I just visited a shop class in Great Falls, Montana where high school students are building houses for people who need a place to call home.
Let that sink in for a moment.
High schoolers in Great Falls Montana, under the guidance of an excellent shop instructor and lots of community support, are building actual houses. Not birdhouses or doll houses – real homes, built to code from the ground up for real people, and move-in ready.
Yesterday, I toured the latest home these kids are in the process of building. It’s the 48th such home built since 1998, through this remarkable program. While I was there, I ran into Governor Greg Gianforte. Like me, the 
Governor was blown away by what these kids were doing and took the time to talk to each one of them, thanking them for their hard work and congratulating them for what they’d accomplished. I was then invited to join the Governor on stage at Great Falls High, where I answered a few questions about mikeroweWORKS, talked about the many opportunities in the skilled trades, and discussed the ways we might be able to encourage more projects like this one, in Montana and beyond.
It’s encouraging to see public/private partnerships done right. And really, it’s not that complicated; it just takes a few stubborn people in various organizations who won’t take no for 
an answer. In this case, too many to name, but a quick shout out to Pete Pace, the shop teacher at the center of High School Homes, the administrators in the school district, the principal at Great Falls High, Sherrie Arey and her devoted crew at NeighborWorks, the incredibly generous executives at Wells Fargo who offered another round of financial support, and a Governor with the good sense to push through the normal bureaucratic nonsense that kills programs like this. Bravo to all!
Mike
PS. This is the third time in two months I’ve seen a program like this in action. The first was in Western North Carolina, (Rebuilding the Hollars), the second was in New Orleans, (Uncommon Construction.) The projects all have one thing in common – a shop class with an exceptional instructor. Like I said, it takes support from every direction, but a high school shop class is always where it starts.
For years, I’ve argued that removing shop class from high schools was a mistake that would deny a whole generation of students’ critical exposure to a long list of essential careers and rob them of an opportunity to prepare for the all-important apprenticeships on which most skilled careers are built. Today, standing in the shop class at Great Falls, watching dozens of engaged students cutting, hammering, measuring, and fabricating, it occurred to me that I was wrong. Taking shop class out of high school was not merely a mistake – it was the single dumbest decision in the history of modern education. We didn’t just rob a whole generation of students, we robbed ourselves, in a 
colossal, self-inflicted wound that’s led directly to a host of unintended consequences – including the current shortages in every essential skilled trade.
Correcting it, should be at or near the top of every Governor’s agenda in every single state. Because tomorrow’s skilled workforce is currently in the 8th grade, and if we don’t meet these kids where they are – right now – with programs like this, we’re in for a world of hurt.