Apple CEO Tim Cook on '60 Minutes' on Dec. 20 with Charlie Rose.

I was going to post something about Sunday night’s “60 Minutes” segment about Apple, but Shannon beat me to it.

She did a much better job than I would have.

Shannon and I were interested in the question “60 Minutes” correspondent Charlie Rose asked Apple CEO Tim Cook about why his company’s manufacturing workforce was based in China. Rose wanted to know if Cook and Apple were considering bringing those jobs back to the U.S.

Not really, said Cook. He said the reason Apple was in China was because of its workforce.

“China put an enormous focus on manufacturing in what we would call vocational kind of skills. The U.S. over time stopped having as many vocational skills. You could fit every tool and die maker in America in this room we’re currently sitting in. In China, you would have to have multiple football fields. It was a focus of their educational system. That is the reality.”

One reason Shannon and I found this interesting is because institute fellow and University of West Florida Vice President Rick Harper has been talking about the need for more vocational education in our high schools.

A study by Harper and his staff found that in the next five years, Pensacola industries would need 2,150 people to fill advanced manufacturing jobs. But as Shannon pointed out in her column, our schools and workforce training programs are on track to produce only 300 people trained for these 2,000-plus manufacturing jobs.

Harper has been encouraging school districts to look at more schools like West Florida High School. Every student at the school goes through a curriculum track geared toward giving them real-world experience in a specific career field.

Juniors Allison Woodfin, left, Taylor Jones and Cedric Moultrie try stripping speaker wire in Tom Connors’ Cox Academy class at West Florida High School. / Michael Spooneybarger, Pensacola Today

Perhaps because students are getting the kind of education and experience they want, West Florida has the highest graduation rate of any high school in the Pensacola metro area. Escambia’s graduation rate is 66 percent; Santa Rosa’s almost 83 percent.

West Florida’s is 94 percent, which is one of the highest in the nation.

Cook’s comments on “60 Minutes,” as well as West Florida High’s success, make a compelling argument that Escambia, Santa Rosa and the rest of the state would benefit from more career academies like West Florida High.