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June 17, 2013
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 Business Goes to SchoolPosted on Sep 14, 2009
By Mike Rose (Page 2) Now, we all know that there are a lot of mediocre and downright awful teachers out there, and a number of schools and school districts are in desperate need of managerial shake-up and rebuilding. No question: perspectives and procedures from the world of business can be valuable here. But once you’ve swept clean, what will you put in place? Here is where pedagogical knowledge is essential. The reform superintendent in a district whose story I’ve been following addressed the terrible problem of dropping out by creating a special school for young people who have failed repeatedly—a continuation school of sorts. Classes are small; there’s a good ratio of adults to students; and there’s increased counseling. These are good moves. But the curriculum is deadly, a repetition of the skills-and-drills approach that these students have encountered for years, and without success. Teaching and learning are not simply a management problem. Reformers need to incorporate rather than disregard the rich wisdom of the classroom, for the history of policy failure is littered with cases where local knowledge and circumstance were ignored.
Why School? Reclaiming Education for All of Us
By Mike Rose
The New Press, 144 pages
In all the public discussions I’ve heard, the focus of school-business alliances is solely on the problems with the schools and what it is that business can do to help remedy those problems. The discussion never seems to include business’s contributions to the conditions that have limited educational achievement. And it’s here that the image of Michael Milken before the blackboard begins to take on powerful added meaning. Milken is a financial genius and a major philanthropist. He also represented, in his earlier incarnation, an ongoing, damaging trend in American business that pushes short-term interests over long-term prosperity and the social good. Although clearly not representative of all American business leaders, figures like Milken bring into stark relief a fundamental contradiction in American business practice: its mix of boardroom rapaciousness and public generosity. Business must examine this contradiction if it wants to affect educational reform in any comprehensive way. It is a good thing for business to give money to the schools, but the schools also need business to consider broader issues of economy and culture. To take one point, various elements of the business community lobby, litigate, and proselytize against tax increases, minimum- or living-wage laws, and a whole range of policies that would help poor and working-class families better prepare their children for school through decent housing, health care, and educational resources. Just think of what regular eye exams and proper glasses alone would do for academic achievement. Instead, what we have is an erosion of broad-based economic support and growth and, in its place, a selective philanthropy—which, I’ll be the first to admit, is better than a selfish, opulent capitalism. But such generosity is targeted and partial. There has been a dramatic increase in the involvement of large, private foundations in school reform. And some of this foundation involvement drives a particular ideology that might not mesh with the general public good. If business is to help inner-city schools and schools in depressed rural and transitional areas, it will have to understand school failure within a socioeconomic context. It will have to ask itself hard questions about the way national economic policies and local business decisions have limited the development of communities, and the effect these policies and decisions have had on schooling. Schools in a number of cities have deteriorated as decisions by major industries have devastated their local economies. The hope of a better life has traditionally driven achievement in American schools. When children are raised in communities where economic opportunity has dramatically narrowed, where the future is bleak, their perception of and engagement with school will be negatively affected. We must ask whether, for example, donating a slew of computers to a school will make kids see the connection between doing well in the classroom and living a decent life beyond it when all they feel is hopelessness the moment they walk out the schoolhouse door. From what I can see, after surveying the position papers of advocacy groups like the Business Roundtable, the business community, perhaps because some of its members so cherish a Horatio Alger mythology, has not thought deeply about the profound effect economic despair can have on school achievement. The business community needs to take a hard look as well at its apparent willingness to create virtually any product and marketing campaign that will turn a profit and at the negative influence business interests exert on entertainment and news media. So many of the commercially driven verbal and imagistic messages that surround our young people work against the development of the very qualities of mind the business community tells the schools it wants the schools to foster. Our new economy, we are told, requires people who are critically reflective and can make careful distinctions, who can troubleshoot and solve problems, who have an interpretive, analytic edge, who are willing to stop and ponder. Yet young people grow up in an economy of glitz and thunder. The ads that shape their needs and interests champion appearance over substance, power over thought. Their entertainment, by and large, makes easy distinction between right and wrong, the effective move and the blunder, and it trivializes intellectual work, from medical science to archaeology. The news they see highlights glamour and poise over knowledge and blurs fact and “simulation.” And all this is crafted from the titillation of quick movement. Such tactics make money in the short run, but what effects do they have on youth culture over time? The relationship of mass culture and individual habits of mind is complex, to be sure. But there is a significant disjunction between the kind of youngster business says it needs from the schools and the kind of youngster one could abstract from the youth culture that is so powerfully influenced by business interests. If business truly wants to have a positive effect on the education of our children, the discussion must extend beyond the problems with our schools to the economy and culture in which those schools try to do their work. Business-school alliances will not result in fundamental, long-range educational change if the terms of the alliances essentially have the powerful passing judgment and bestowing dollars on beleaguered classrooms. A more complex and self-critical discussion will have to evolve. We’ll need more than the one-directional reforms symbolized by a billionaire standing before a blackboard. Copyright © 2009 Mike Rose. This excerpt originally appeared in “Why School? Reclaiming Education for All of Us” by Mike Rose, published by The New Press. Printed here with permission by The New Press.
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By Usability Testing, March 9, 2012 at 2:40 am Link to this comment
I wonder if there is a motive behind all those businessmen going to schools to talks. I agree that they have a wealth of experience that they are able to share with students, but would it cultivate a sort of business-like elitist culture in the students? What I would hope for is for more people from charity backgrounds, social workers or people of the arts to give talks. They would offer a very different view of the world.
Report thisBy businessphoneco, December 8, 2011 at 6:57 pm Link to this comment
The education system in the America needs a complete revamp. Pointing fingers at the teachers, the businesses and the rising school fees will not solve any problem. A concentrated effort to analyse the problem from the roots is needed. Education will always be important no matter what era will are living in.
Report thisBy Atlantic Global, June 29, 2010 at 8:31 pm Link to this comment
Education in our school system to a significant degree should be focused on the formation of the fundamentals of English, Maths, Science, Politics, History and Geography. To impede the basic education with a vocational intervention destroys the freedom to explore and become. Emotional intelligence and social behaviors could be an important syllabus in our education as this will then prepare for our tertiary education where the formative years have achieved a base in which to develop and specialize in an area of the individuals chosen vocation.
Report thisBy jonahclint, June 14, 2010 at 9:23 am Link to this comment
Most of the time a student spends in the educational system is informative and too little of it is actually formative. Business owners are looking for students with certain skills and knowledge that are useful for them and they are not pleased with what the students have learned so far. That is why they tend to get involved in the educational system and pull strings for a certain kind of education that will later help students become their employees.
Report thisVoip phone systems
By Outraged, September 17, 2009 at 10:47 pm Link to this comment
Business in not the only factor influencing our nation’s schools. In Texas, one of the major textbook buyers therefore a major player, we see more events unfolding. It’s about time!
“AUSTIN — Texas high school students would learn about such significant individuals and milestones of conservative politics as Newt Gingrich and the rise of the Moral Majority — but nothing about liberals — under the first draft of new standards for public school history textbooks….
....The first draft for proposed standards in United States History Studies Since Reconstruction says students should be expected “to identify significant conservative advocacy organizations and individuals, such as Newt Gingrich, Phyllis Schlafly and the Moral Majority….”
....Another board conservative, Ken Mercer, R-San Antonio, thinks students should study both sides to “see what the differences are and be able to define those differences.”
He would add James Dobson’s Focus on the Family, conservative talk show host Sean Hannity and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee to the list of conservatives. Others have proposed adding talk show host Rush Limbaugh and the National Rifle Association.” (Rush Limbaugh…???? will they tell the students what a ditwad he truthfully is, or will they DEPICT him as a supposed “opposing voice”?)
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/6581189.html
There was also this:
“Americans for decades have struggled over religion in public schools. Today’s battleground is Texas, where six “experts” are making recommendations that could affect the religious content of textbooks sold in all 50 states.
The six experts hired by the Texas State Board of Education to review social studies textbooks used in the state include an evangelical Christian minister and the president of a Christian heritage advocacy group. These two, and another conservative Christian on the panel, are urging that Texas textbooks place more emphasis on the influence of Christianity in American history. They also want students to be taught that American government is rooted in religion, a claim that is historically inaccurate.”
http://buddhism.about.com/b/2009/07/29/texas-and-textbooks.htm
And this:
“David Barton, who critics call a “Christian nationalist history revisionist,” comes off more as smooth-talking history buff than fiery evangelist.
Among the panel of experts appointed to guide the Texas textbook standards writing process, Barton is probably the most committed right-wing activist. He served as vice-chair of the Texas GOP for many years. He was responsible for the uproar over deletion of a reference to Christmas that the chair of the board of education tried to tamp down first thing this morning…...
.....Board member David Bradley, last seen calling out President Obama for his indoctrination speech, gushed that Barton is able to identify every figure in a famous painting of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
Another member, Barbara Cargill, decried the “reference to US imperialism—propaganda is the word used” in the draft of high school history textbook standards. “Our students have to learn about American exceptionalism and how unique our country is,” she pleaded to Barton, asking him to hold forth on how best to “take out the negatives.”
Report thishttp://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/09/
barton_brings_religio-historial_road_show_to_tx_bo.php?ref=mp
By Jean Gerard, September 17, 2009 at 12:55 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Rose’s article is poorly captioned. Businesses don’t “go to school.” In fact, they deny all the important things schools try to teach: Fairness, cooperation for the common good, consideration for feelings of others, honest research, how to detect propaganda, how to analyze what you read, how to separate truth from falsehood, relevant from irrelevant, how to put 2 and 2 together and get 4.
Businesses are always looking for a profit in dollars and cents. They are quite happy if they can put 2 and 1 together and get 50. Schools are always looking for a profit in learning and understanding, for tolerance and compassion. Big businesses are overflowing with money; schools are starving to death. Businesses try to preserve the status quo as long as they are “winning.” Schools often want to change the status quo because they can see that education is losing the battle for hearts and minds.
Report thisIf business really “went to school” the entire economic system would become more humane.
By bogi666, September 16, 2009 at 6:36 am Link to this comment
The purpose of the business community involvement in education is to train students from an early age the obedience required for the workplace. Business and law schools now teach their students how to get “to big to fail”.Sound familiar.
Report thisBy Outraged, September 16, 2009 at 1:57 am Link to this comment
Instead, what we have is an erosion of broad-based economic support and growth and, in its place, a selective philanthropy—which, I’ll be the first to admit, is better than a selfish, opulent capitalism. But such generosity is targeted and partial. There has been a dramatic increase in the involvement of large, private foundations in school reform. And some of this foundation involvement drives a particular ideology that might not mesh with the general public good.”
“Might not” is putting it mildly. Small businesses, especially in rural communities many times donate funds, products or services genuinely, however when we start entertaining the notion of huge “philantropist” organizations, it’s quite another ballgame. Large business entities (and their offshoots) NEVER do anything out of the goodness of their hearts. Never.
Think about it, big pharma, insurance companies, oil companies…?, food companies….? Do they clean up their pollution? Do they make sure their products are safe? Do they take initiatives, for the public good regarding their services?
No. They scam fees off customers, they wreak havoc on the environment, they hide known dangers in their products, they market to toddlers, they break the law…. fraud, antitrust and others. They never, ever do anything in the interests of the public. Most of them won’t even pay their own employees a fair wage. Yes, I see a great deal of danger in their “philanthropy”.
A word regarding Bill Gates’ “philanthropy”:
“Microsoft has created a new foundation, the CodePlex Foundation which claims to be about bringing open-source and proprietary software companies together to participate side by side in open-source projects. Yeah. Right…
.....Microsoft doesn’t mind stealing from open source, but any deals it makes are only good while there’s a clear, short-term benefit to Microsoft. The second that changes, or Ballmer decides to have an anti-open-source fit again, the deal is off.
Besides, just like the snake in the story, Microsoft is more than happy to poison open-source software even as it proclaims that it wants to co-operate with open source. Just off the top of my head there’s the revelation that Microsoft’s ExpertZone training for Best Buy and other retailers is stuffed with anti-Linux lies.
And, then there’s Microsoft’s patent attacks on open-source using companies like TomTom and its thwarted efforts to sell anti-Linux patents to a patent troll. According to Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Linux Foundation, “The details are that Microsoft assembled a package of patents ‘relating to open source’ and put them up for sale to patent trolls. Microsoft thought they were selling them to AST, a group that buys patents, offers licenses to its members, and then resells the patents.” What actually happened was that Microsoft ended up selling the patents to the Open Invention Network, a pro-Linux intellectual-property organization.”
http://blogs.computerworld.com/14716/
if_microsoft_really_wants_to_be_friends_with_linux
And this: “But the weirdest one of the week involved Microsoft’s sale of a series of patents.”
Report thishttp://www.techflash.com/seattle/2009/09/
microsofts_linux_soap_opera_continues_with_another_wild_week.html
By herewegoagain, September 15, 2009 at 7:46 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
The author writes: “Also, in one report and press release after another, business advocacy groups have been defining the purpose of schooling in economic terms. Kids go to school to get themselves and the nation ready for the global marketplace, and this rhetoric of job preparation and competition can play into reductive definitions of teaching and learning.”
It is really sad that we have our children’s attention for so many years, and these are the main things we are trying to instill in them. Unfortunately, this rhetoric is also taken up by every President we’ve had since I can remember.
Report thisBy oldhip, September 15, 2009 at 5:16 am Link to this comment
OOPS—-
Sorry, I didn’t notice that Truthout already has the article posted today that I linked to in my previous comment. In other words… Never mind.
Report thisBy oldhip, September 15, 2009 at 5:11 am Link to this comment
This article…
It is seriously well worth one’s time to read this short article. I personally think with only 39% of Americans actually believing that the theory of evolution is true… That we are, as a nation, far further over the rails than I knew.
It’s the opposite of reality that is being “allowed” to continue to progress, behind the fogging white noise of all of the political yelling, from all sides, about the much more trivial aspects of all of our lives, as the extremely-very-few, who are now wealthy far beyond your ability to comprehend, are “allowed,” by you, to continue to gather even more protective wealth, to “protect” them from… us, and from the coming multi-leveled crisis of the long fall of current human industrial culture - That all of us are guilty of “allowing” to happen in the face of glaring undeniable evidence, and denied warnings.
The simple complexity of the complex simplicity is beyond most Americans.
The problem with the stupid and ignorant among us is that while they “proudly and patriotically,” allow their own self-destruction by fighting among themselves as they were programmed to do, is that they are destroying much more than just their environment, their livelihoods, their lives… They are destroying us all.
Ignorance is curable, stupidity is forever.
Fight the stupid - Educate the ignorant. Or stupidly pay the price.
Report thisBy ardee, September 15, 2009 at 5:01 am Link to this comment
I find this article to be, at the same time, enlightening and obfuscating. Perhaps it is my inability to grasp nuance, or perhaps it is the unwillingness of the author to delve deeper into the destructiveness of the system which puts capitalism and its need for endless profit above all else.
Truly the author does, to his credit, enumerate some the ills that corporate deregulation, greed, and avarice contribute to a failing education system. But, while he touches upon the contributions corporation make, if only for tax breaks and publicity, to the education of our youth, I think he doesnt go deep enough, doesnt make that final conclusion.
It should be mandatory ( there’s that word seemingly anathema to the right) for corporations to shoulder some of the education burden. Consider that our business community prospers because of the necessities the community provides, roads, rail and air, services of all kinds, tax breaks and protectionsim, and ,of course, employees educated to achieve success, both for themselves and for the business community.
I would want to see an end to the lack of collection of taxes from our business community, and the larger the business the seeming less its share of the burden. While the US imposes the highest tax rate upon its corporation, 35% in fact, the vast array of loopholes and dodges result in some not paying any taxes whatsoever and most paying far less than the aforementioned rate.
In a time of economic upheaval we need to focus on needed change, an end to corporate personhood, a collection of taxes if only in the form of contributions to needed services in lieu of tax collection, education foremost. Our business leaders seem a class apart, an aristocracy that believes itself apart from the nation, and its belief that it alone is responsible for its prosperity leads to the huge salaries and bonus structures independent of actual competency.
I see this nation as one people, with no class or segment more entitled than any other. To each according to need and from each according to ability.
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