Robert Reich had some interesting things to say in a post on Salon.com about the need for a new model for work force education in the U.S. in light of the erosion of the manufacturing sector.

Here’s a snippet of what the former Secretary of Labor had to say in the piece:

America’s biggest challenge is to educate more of our people sufficiently to excel at such tasks. We do remarkably well with the children from relatively affluent families. Our universities are the envy of the world. and no other nation surpasses us in providing intellectual and creative experience within entire regions specializing in one or another kind of symbolic analytic work (Los Angeles for music and film, Silicon Valley for software and the Internet, greater Boston for biomed engineering, and so on).

But we’re in danger of losing ground because too many of our kids, especially those from lower-middle-class and poor families, can’t get the foundational education they need. The consequence is a yawning gap in income and wealth that continues to widen. More and more of our working people finds themselves in the local service economy — in hotels, hospitals, restaurant chains and big-box retailers — earning low wages with little or no benefits. Unions could help raise their wages by giving them more bargaining leverage. A higher minimum wage and larger earned income tax credit could help as well.

Not all of our young people can or should receive a four-year college degree, but we can do far better for them than we’re doing now. At the least, every young person should have access to a year or two beyond high school, in order to gain a certificate attesting to their expertise in a particular area of technical competence. Technicians who install, upgrade and service automated and computerized machinery — office technicians, auto technicians, computer technicians, environmental technicians — will be in ever-greater demand.

Some argue that even if I’m correct about all this, the erosion of traditional manufacturing impedes the capacity of Americans to learn important symbolic-analytic tasks, because such learning depends on an intimate understanding of the manufacturing process.

This is the same argument being put forth by some of those who support the idea of a new community college in Erie.

It’s a valid argument, though the caveat must be that a new institution must deliver education that fills a significant gap in Erie’s work force training system.

We don’t need a school that would train folks in skills that are already being taught at the private post-secondary institutions.

What we should be striving for here is something that would train workers for skilled growth careers. To do that, we actually need to identify some sectors that are likely to have a need for skilled workers 5-10 years from now.

I haven’t yet seen a plan that provides this type of analysis (unless I missed it somewhere). Erie does have an opportunity here — but it must be done right.