That closing line doesn't really sound like the gist of the piece at all. It sounds like manufacturing employers just don't want to or don't feel they can afford to pay works a fair wage.
If laborers are leaving manufacturers for better pay at fast food companies, workers need higher pay. Its not that complicated. If the company can't afford higher wages, maybe the demand for this skilled labor isn't what we think it is.
If these skills are actually in high demand, they will pay the bills.
I'd say our education system is working out fine if we're skipping the high-barrier jobs that don't pay a premium wage.
Several commenters have basically claimed that the manufacturers are behaving irrationally; a claim like that requires some powerful arguments to credibly support. I haven't seen much of that yet here.
I suspect that the truth is that manufacturers would be willing to pay to train workers if they could be reasonably sure that the investment would have time to pay off. But thanks to Moore's Law and everything that comes with it, manufacturing technology is changing far more rapidly than it used to when everything was more stable.
It seems likely that it's more cost-effective for the manufacturer to lower that risk by training lower-paid labor elsewhere and letting those workers go (or retraining them, if it's cheap to do so) when they're no longer suitable, than it is to do the same thing in first-world countries for much higher cost.
The pricing error argument can be made based on a definition of "value" that is in fairly common use around here (market price) and no more data than is included in the article: they offer a certain price for the labor and don't get as much of it as they want, therefore the price they offer is lower than the value.
Who are we supposed to understand is under-educated? The employers? Or was this a vain attempt to pull a fast one and shift blame to public schools for...? What? Pumping out kids with the mathematical literacy to understand that $14 is greater than $10 therefore McDonalds pays better than manufacturing?
I found a long-running thread where they discussed average wages for machinists / cnc operators, and it actually made me sad. It's here:
http://www.cnczone.com/forums/polls/42247-what_average_hourl...
When I compare this to what even mediocre programmers get, I can't help but feel that there's real blue-collar discrimination going on.
One thing though - there's a real variance in the responsibilities (and a abilities) of a "CNC operator"...
It's not just about "fair wage" at that point - enough to have a place to live, a car, food in your belly... but that "fair rate" also includes being paid enough to afford the $500-1,000/month student loan payment that is the outcome of getting such a degree.