You have a valid point. Back when I was in high school, we had a fresh renovation (completed half way through my Freshman year) with motorized battens. It was great not having to worry about adding and removing weights whenever we'd do a new hang, but the kids at the cross town rival school were way ahead of us in educational regards because they had a counterweight system. Their school was relatively new, having been built in the '90's. Our technology and overall space was better, but they learned more rigging fundamentals than we did. Sure, there's always college, but some people don't go to college and instead choose to go straight in to the field. In their case, it would be nice to have learned the basics in high school rather than out on the job where time is money.
Hydraulic orchestra pits are nice, but are they necessary in a high school where it will only get used a couple times a year?
I tend to disagree. While the building I teach in has some great stuff, it is certainly not spectacular in its backstage capabilities (i.e. no motorized battens, no motorized pit, etc. etc.). The thought that a public school should not be progressive when given the opportunity is unfortunate, and not what the schools need.
I work hard to spend our limited budget to improve our space, just as many of us do, here on CB. If given the opportunity to offer my students and community a substantial upgrade and more of a space to be proud of, you bet I'd lobby to get every last thing (dollar) I could.
If a student comes out of a school only with the knowledge of how to operate their single piece of equipment, the teacher failed. What I love about teaching theater and theater tech is helping kids to become problem solvers, regardless of the equipment at hand. So many other places in the school teach kids to get 'the right answer' in the 'prescribed algorithm.' My kids learn concepts that will guide them regardless of the system used.
You can't fault a student whose community made an investment in their theater (often times, big jobs like this come in the form of community votes on a bond issue) and then tell him he should have worked on regressive equipment. It really just sounds like jealousy. Often times public schools work to get new materials, infrastructure, computers, facilities, etc. so that their students are prepared for the future. One of the largest 'non-educator' complaint about education is about how our kids aren't prepared for the future. I think it's more of a problem solving issue. So, if a teacher with an aging system doesn't give opportunities to problem solve, their student is no better off than that of a teacher with a state of the art system with the same teaching methodologies.
So are the advanced technologies appropriate in high school? Of course; more of the question, however, is how are teachers working with kids to help them get a thorough understanding of what they're using and maybe what they're not using.
~Joe