Corporate Sponsorship Of Education

[phoenixx]

Read this on PAB today and it gave me the willies.

I doubt there will be much of an outcry as the education of the underclass is slowly handed over to corporations eager for a docile, under-educated workforce.

[rmthunter]

This is just the part where the iceberg rears its ugly head. This has really been going on in a subliminal sort of way in American schools for a long time, since "education" came to be equivalent with "job training" (albeit the jobs in most cases are white-collar and higher status than flipping burgers). (And what happens when McDonald's switches to automated burger flippers?)

Also note the increasing emphasis on internships in American education in recent years. This is the hands-on, "community service," "real-life training" or whatever you want to call it. Internships involve mainly scutwork, the corporate equivalent to flipping burgers, although they can vary widely (I did try to give my interns solid information on how the auction business runs and skills that they could carry over to arts management in general, but I may have been exceptional; they still, however, did a lot of the gruntwork). Although internships presently involve mostly college students or recent graduates, that's certainly not carved in stone.

This actually, like most things in this world of ours, can cut both ways. However, I'd be pretty suspicious of any arrangement that gave corporations control over curriculum or programs, which they're going to demand if they are forking over the dough.

Bob --

Who is grossly over-educated and barely employable

[frazzledspice]

We've had Partners in Education in our schools for years. The poorest schools usually get the best partners--the ones who give them new computers or other expensive goodies.

But the high school in the 'wealthy' part of town received an offer from its corporate neighbor to build an activity center. The school board wouldn't approve it until the high school in the 'poor' part of town had an activity center. They set up a committee and got all sorts of donations--some corporate, some individual. As soon as their center was built, the corporation got the go-ahead to make its gift to the school in the wealthy part of town.

Our local college has been doing tons of expensive building--lots of it corporate sponsored. And, of course, the corporations build the buildings that will best serve their future workforce (technology, science.) That's OK....technology and science are good careers.

One former company owner died and left $24 million--part of it to the arts! Hooray for him!

I think that corporations need to know that their donations don't buy them the right to set curriculum--but their donations can certainly help.

[drmomentum[$]]

What would corporations do with an unenducated underclass? We've got immigrants to take those jobs and it seems to me that there's more a critical need for competent higher-level workers than there is a need for more lower level workers.

I am somewhat skeptical that Corporate America has this as an actual plan. More likely they're focused on making more $$$ in the short term and not concerned about screwing up education. Greed likes instant gratification.

-JP

[rmthunter]

I don't think it's a plan. I think it's just the end result of the nature of large corporations. They are the ultimate bourgeoises -- they want to control everything, because that way things stay stable, and stable is good.

They want workers who are educated enough to do the jobs that need to be done, but not so well educated that they're unhappy doing those jobs (or buying what the corporations produce, whether that be goods, entertainment, or information, no matter how shoddy or ephemeral). Please note that something like 82% of the people in this country hate their jobs. (I'm not really all that sure that upper management is going to care about that, as long as the jobs get done. Workers who hate their jobs just make a better market for whatever will take their minds off of it.)

As for the need for competent higher-level workers, take a look at the kinds of jobs that are migrating overseas. It's not all assembly line stuff. IT jobs have been really hard hit in this country, and that's a little higher level than mowing lawns in upscale suburbs or cleaning offices. (Besides, if Huckabee gets elected and deports all the illegal immigrants, then where are we?)

When one considers the state of education in this country, it's obvious that no one really cares to fix it. And is corporate sponsorship of an activity center really going to do anything to improve reading ability, math skills, or being able to find the US on a map? I doubt it, but a reading program is not something you can put a plaque on. The corporations are going to go for the biggest bang for their buck, particularly if it's bricks and mortar.

And it's late and I'm rambling, but no, I don't think it's a vast corporate conspiracy. It's just the way things happen when you're not paying attention.

[pippadaisy[$]]

Wow. And here I thought you were talking about Rochester. Where Tom Golisano, founder of Paychex, did exactly what you are describing. Tossed money at the school and changed not only curriculum, but how they taught. And no, he doesn't have any sort of degree in education.

[Helen_B[$]]

Gee, Pippa, that's really amazing. And to think it all started back in the day with free booklets and filmstrips about buying and using Kotex. Where will it end??

John D. Rockefeller wanted workers who were well enough educated to do the job, and orderly enough that they showed up for work on time and sober. What else do we need, free thought? After all, isn't the corporate reality OUR reality?

[rmthunter]

Digby on curriculum and corporate largesse. Corporations are now donating money to universities for programs on the philosophy of Ayn "Greed Is Good" Rand, with Atlas Shrugged as required reading:

It's not about literature or about philosophy. The point of this is to indoctrinate young business majors into the Rand philosophy, which is a perverted and radical form of capitalism that bears no relationship to the way the world really works. (In fact, it's real agenda may be to indoctrinate young people into believing that overpaid executives actually deserve to make hundreds of times the average worker's pay while driving the company into the ground.)

Whatever you think of Rand (and I went through the required Ayn Rand stage in high school, and got over it), the idea that a corporation is funding a program that the university would not otherwise support -- in essence, dictating curriculum -- is not something that makes me real comfortable.