Brent Tuttle has taught welding for 24 years to more than 3,000 students. He says California high schools should offer more classes like his, training students in trades rather than steering them all toward college.
Shop courses can help turn around students who are absent or disengaged from school, he said, a problem that grew during the pandemic. And there’s a growing demand for hands-on career education.
Tuttle, 47, teaches at La Mirada High School in Los Angeles County. Students there get more than 1,000 hours in a welding shop, learning metal arc welding, plasma cutting, fabrication and welding sculpture. They also take courses in the summer, and many go on to college or to jobs or apprenticeships after graduation.
Tuttle even partners with an engineering teacher to give fifth-graders a taste of electrical, plumbing, woodworking and welding. He joked that the district was a little worried about giving tools to children, but the value of exposing them to screwdrivers and hammers at a young age made a world of difference by the time they reached high school.
Recently I talked with him about the students who regularly ditch their classes, but always show up for welding. His responses have been edited for clarity and length.
Q: You’ve said career technical education classes can help kids who are chronically absent or late re-engage with school. What do you mean?
I find that the kids that are in what we call our pathway, the ones that are really into welding, their attendance is over 95%. .. They’ll come to school just to make sure they don’t miss my class … If I can hook in my claws into them, their graduation rate goes up.
Some of these kids aren’t traditional academic students. … I have one (student) for four hours. I have a couple for three hours, because of the way I do my course sequencing, and then a lot of them for two hours. … The kids that I see that have a lot of frequent tardies, once they buy into my program and get into my advanced class, I see a lot of those absences and tardies disappear in my class.
Now, do they still do that in some of their other classes and they flake? Yeah, unfortunately, but they are driven to come into the CTE (career technical education) program.
What skills are they picking up in your classes?
With the support of Harbor Freight Tools for Schools, it’s been awesome because I’ve been able to expand a lot more. With trade teachers, as soon as one good trade teacher retires, it’s hard to fill it and they usually shut the programs down. Within the last five years, they shut down our wood shop. … But me and the engineering teacher kept a lot of the equipment, and we’re teaching our kids. We’re not teaching them full-on woodworking, but we’re teaching them how to use those tools.
My shop is pretty unique. I don’t know how many shops in California have this. We have a full-on powder coating booth. When you go to McDonald’s or you’re at Disneyland and all the railing looks like it’s a real nice, shiny paint, but it’s really a plastic paint. We’re teaching kids how to do that. … So we’re teaching the kids a lot of the finishing stuff, and just powder coating alone is a skill that these kids can use in the future.
I have a tool room that has four of every tool out there — drills, woodworking tools, metal tools … We’re using 3D printers. I mean, everything you could think of we’re doing.
Why aren’t more schools doing this? What’s holding schools and districts back?
It’s funding … and then the lack of qualified teachers.
The difference between my program and, let’s just say, an engineering or computer or graphic design class — their upfront cost is going to be one time. They’re going to buy computers once every five to 10 years.
With mine, everything’s a consumable (item), so I’m relying on my school budget. Luckily, I have strong support. We built a big program and now with the partnerships with Harbor Freight Tools for Schools, the school sees it. But my budget is around $40,000 to $50,000 a year. They could spend $40,000 on a computer lab and then not have to do anything with that classroom for five years.
The consumables make automotive, construction, welding, and those types of classes with the ongoing costs a deterrent.
What other issues hold schools back?
A big component is to get qualified teachers. I’m a unicorn. I worked in the industry for a couple years when I was young and … I was bouncing from job to job, trying to find a welding job. And that’s when my instructor said, “Hey, think about teaching. You know, there’s an opening at your old high school.” I started teaching when I was 21.
But a lot of people don’t do that. … To get somebody to leave industry and come teach — because that’s what you want; you want people who understand what the work world is — they’re going to go from making $150,000 a year. A starting teacher in California with no teaching experience makes like $60,000. So you’re asking a professional to take a big cut.
Once you get somebody who’s retired … they don’t have a teaching background. I’m not going to lie, some of these kids may drive them nuts. You have to do a better job of supporting them on how to be a teacher.
Why do some kids seem to prioritize welding classes over academic classes?
It’s almost any class that’s hands-on for that type of kid. … If there was an auto shop, I would probably lose some of my kids, just because those kids gravitate toward doing things with their hands.
It’s not a traditional class. They’re not just sitting there digesting information. They get to listen for a little bit, digest and then go apply. To them, they don’t see doing a math problem as applying what they’re learning. They just see, like, “I’m going to have to ingest all this information. I’m supposed to memorize it and take a test.”
Here, we’re in the classroom once a week, but we’re in the lab four days a week. And I’m going to tell you guys what to do and now we’re going to go out and do it.
You’ve said the students your courses attract are mostly not the academically elite. What do you mean?
They may not be your best. There’s several times, countless times, where teachers will be like, “Oh my God, you got so-and-so in your class. And I’m like, yeah, he’s my best student.” And he might be a pain in the butt in every academic class, but for me, he’s found a home.
And usually I could, in a couple years, flip that kid to where now the teachers are even saying, “Hey, that kid’s doing a really good job.” And he may not be an ‘A’ student, but he might be a ‘B’ now and he’s doing his homework.
I get these young men — and we do have females right now; I think 15% are female students — I get them when they’re 14 or 15 years old, and by the time they’re 18, they might have spent more hours with me than sometimes their own parents.
What should schools do differently to have a similar impact on students?
If you’re in California, you’re familiar with A through G (Requirements)… A through G was designed to get kids ready for a four-year university
Why not give them a skilled trade? A lot of times, they’ll make more money right away than somebody with a four-year degree, and not have to pay back all the student loan debt. Most of these kids have no idea what they want to do if you make them go to college. Whereas they may pick up a trade and they’re making six figures in four or five years.
When can welders make $100,000?
If they apply themselves and they grow with it, I can say within five years a lot of them could.
Should schools offer more career technical education courses?
You should have more hands-on courses. I think schools are starting to buy in. … Some people still think auto and welding and construction is just a dumping ground for the bad kids. Being an auto mechanic is not (being) a gearhead just turning wrenches. There’s a lot of computers involved. … It’s an actual viable opportunity for these kids to earn an honest living.
But they may say, “Hey, I want to find a welding program but can you find that qualified instructor?” There’s not a pipeline of teachers teaching CTE.
What can be done to build that pipeline?
Why would somebody leave a $150,000 job to make $60,000? A lot of districts don’t recognize CTE as a credentialed teacher, so they pay them by the hour, and they pay them very little compared to what a normal teacher gets.
I’m in a district where they actually respect us and pay us pretty decently, and we have the same opportunities to make as much as the regular teachers. … And I don’t work during the summer and I have two weeks off (over the winter break). You’ve got to sell that to those people.
Financial support for this story was provided by the Smidt Foundation and The James Irvine Foundation.