Should there be an emphasis put on vocational/workforce related training in public schools?

According to some critics such as Whitney Tilson, who supports education reform, American children should receive 17 years of public education with the sole emphasis placed upon an academic education. Whitney assumes that only the bottom 20% of children are not college material and should only receive vocational training on their own after their school years are up if they decide they don’t want to attend a traditional college. Here is a blog on this topic by Tilson.

On the other side of this issue of course are people like Charles Murray, who says that only the top 20% of America’s children are 4 year traditional college material or higher. Also according to Murray is that many children can benefit from vocational/workforce training by obtaining an in demand high paying skill/trade with a headstart while attending high school. Here is a blog by Murray.

Please read both blogs before posting a response since they’re both reasonably short. Do you think that offering junior/senior high school students vocational/workforce related courses dumbs down or helps students?