Don't the high schools teach car repair any more?

[Alex]

You'd likely have to look to vocational schools for modern car repair programs.

Beyond the pedagogical priority and funding issues you have the simple fact that modern cars simply aren't amenable to the kind of manual repair and maintenance that you used to do.

There was a guy who called into Car Talk on NPR a few months ago saying he wanted to learn how to fix his newish car himself rather than paying people. They essentially told him that except for some stuff around the fringes you can't anymore. You need extremely specialized tools and computers for most things around the engine.

Even changing the oil is difficult on most modern cars. They're all safer, lighter, faster, and more efficient but at the cost of simplicity and ability to just hit at them with a wrench until everything works again.

So when debating whether to fund an autoshop class it is probably a decision made easier when it is would actually have to be a pre-1990 autoshop class.