I've been editing a text book on human resources and we have an entire chapter on ethics. There were several interesting questions that were raised.

One of them was: Should businesses be involved in government activities such as self-regulating industries, developing community programs with schools, running schools, etc.?

What do you think?

I think businesses involving themselves in schools at all curriculum levels can have enormous pay-off for the students, to interest them in what they're doing and have some real-world applications.

I don't know that I want to privatise schools, police, fire, etc.

The danger, of course, is that schools will become glorified trade schools, geared towards educating the kinds of future workers the business needs.

Certainly children and young adults need to be educated to enter the workforce, but they also need a wholistic education, including exposure to the arts and literature.

In smaller, rural areas, where one factory might be the primary employer in a town, the factory might be so geared to training employees for its business that the kids will be "tracked" towards it.

In larger, urban areas, this is less of a concern.

Having lived in a very liberal small college town in South Dakota with a very conservative base of small business owners, I saw the Chamber of Commerce try to block not only Wal-Mart but employers offering "high" salaries of $8.00 an hour, because they feared that they would have to offer their underpaid employees higher salaries to compete.

The Vermillion Chamber of Commerce would not be a friend to families who want their children to have a better life.

That is certainly a concern in smaller towns -- I'd advocate partnership, but not control.

There was an excellent article about this very topic in today's Washington Post.

Its interesting to note that the school written about is Fairfax County's newest high school - built a half mile from my old house - and the administration still is seeking outside funding with the large tax base there.

Advertising May Pay, Fairfax Officials Say

A couple of issues going on here. One, in the article Joubert cites:

Quote:"Schools should be holy, schools should be sacred," Nelson said. "But the bottom line is, where is the money going to come from?"

I think that ideally, corporate sponsorship would not be part of our kids' education. I'm as big a captialist as the next person, but I don't necessarily want to raise a generation of rabid consumers. God, I remember a time when sports arenas were named after public heroes, not MegaCorporations. Branding is fine, but everything of value in life does not have to bear a brand for crying out loud.

But, where is the money going to come from? If I were in a money tight school district and I had the opportunity to raise cash for a state-of-the-art lab, just by putting a corporate brand on it, you bet that I would.

Morally, I'm not sure how it all sits with me. Practically, you do what you have to do to get what you need for the kids.

As far as corporate involvement in schools in order to get the next labor force....I say, the more the merrier. Education for the sake of education is more than fine, but people have to be able to feed themselves too.

I was just having a conversation today about the state of graphics arts education at the University level. It has been my experience that the education that is provided in graphic arts (note, I am not talking fine arts, I'm talking graphic arts) is not even close to "real world". You can go through 4 years of college, obtain a graphic arts degree and not be qualified to do much of anything real world.

I guess the best of both worlds would offer young people choices......

:confused:

Andrea

Many industries have experienced a labor shortage over the past decade. And we're not talking just the computer industry. Jobs that require very little skill (and pay only $6 to $10 an hour) are very hard to fill. It's one of the reasons that there has been a service crises in many industries. People are so desperate to get employees that they're not willing to discipline them when they abuse the customers.

So one of the creative techniques used is to go into the high schools to recruit. Of course, these industries can't hire high school students, but they can offer educational programs (emphasizing that the kids should go on to college and that all the skills taught are transferable) to gear kids toward their industry.

As the author of one of these programs, I understand the aims of the industries and how important these programs are to the industries in question. As a mother, I have concerns. I'm uncomfortable with the fact that some schools now require children to pick a career in 7th grade and then they're stuck with six years of education for that field only. I find that unnecessarily limiting.

Quote:As a mother, I have concerns. I'm uncomfortable with the fact that some schools now require children to pick a career in 7th grade and then they're stuck with six years of education for that field only. I find that unnecessarily limiting.

Well there you go. As a mother I have no intention of allowing that to exist even at the college level unless my children make that choice themselves. As far as I'm concerned, college isn't a trade school. If either of the boys wants to major in basket weaving, that's fine with me. Education has value unto itself.

I'm pretty much done with hiring people with marketing degrees, BTW, for marketing. Give me a basket weaving major with a gift for critical thinking and it will all work out much better. I've not found a marketing major yet who brought a single element of value from their education to the table.

Back to my boys for a second - one of the reasons that I can be so free with my mental agenda for their education is that I'm raising them with business skills. When Adam was 2 and was selling his pretend muffins to the family, I was teaching him how to do it at a profit. I involve the kids in discussions about my career, and we involve them in Don's home business too. They can go off and major in basket weaving, but they'll have a foundation in business as well.

So, I like the idea of 7th graders, in your example, getting exposed to real world business. I like the idea of teenagers having an eye toward the practical elements...but I don't like the idea of them being swooshed into one path in their education. A good education is not merely training for the business world.

Why can't we have both? Is that so hard?

The most valuable employees are going to have a varied background.

Andrea

Quote:Originally posted by pluckyduck


Back to my boys for a second - one of the reasons that I can be so free with my mental agenda for their education is that I'm raising them with business skills. When Adam was 2 and was selling his pretend muffins to the family, I was teaching him how to do it at a profit. I involve the kids in discussions about my career, and we involve them in Don's home business too. They can go off and major in basket weaving, but they'll have a foundation in business as well.

You sound like my accountant father, who often spent dinnertime explaining taxes to us or teaching us mental math tricks. It's because of those discussions that today I know how a mutual fund works and can pretty much do my own taxes.

Cindy

I think part of the problem is that knowledge is becoming so specialized. Personally, I agree that I'd rather have someone with a broad knowledge who knows how to learn and can think critically. That person is going to be of value longer because they'll be able to adapt. I'd take just about any bet that the specific technical skills necessary for success in today's workplace will be different 20 years from now.

However, industries who are trying to recruit more people into their unfilled jobs--especially the service industry--have highly specialized needs and want to start training people for their specific skills.

The program we developed is two years long. Granted, we try to make the skills transferrable--leadership, communication, guest service, accounting, etc. We also include plenty of computer, reading, and math activities that have a bent toward our industry. But that's a two-year commitment from a high school student. The businesses and college educators in our industry are pushing for us to go back even earlier. Heck, I spent about a week reviewing a program written for elementary students that an educator wanted us to publish. And we still might.

For industries that are trying to change their image, going into the schools seems like a bright idea. But how ethical is their involvement when their goals are very different from education's goals?

Time to dig this thread up.

Martin Luther King III , in Fast Company magazine.

Quote:America has gone wrong somewhere. We are importing a workforce of talented people to bolster the technology sector. Yet we have an entire population in America that wants to learn these trades but that doesn't have access to adequate education and training. For selfish reasons, we should all want to develop the minds of the generations coming after us so that U.S. companies will have a viable workforce for the future. I understand why we are importing so much talent today, but I don't understand why our education system is failing. If we applied the same ingenuity to education that we do to business, our society would succeed beyond our wildest dreams.

Strong argument here for business and education working together, for the good of the economy and society.

What would be the worst thing to happen, should the pendulum swing too far the other way and our schools became more trade school like, especially in the poorer communities?

Could it be a worse situation than we have right now?

Andrea