When corporations get involved in public school systems through charters or vouchers, they have their own goals for those schools. This is an amazing article about how one day the topic switched from literature to filling out a job resume for Walmart.
From The Daily Censored:
Corporate Barbarians at the Gate: Wal-Mart internships at Detroit SchoolsDumping ‘The Crucible” by Arthur Miller in favor of the crucifixion by business elites
When Jamal, an 11th grade student, arrived at his English class in January of this year, he thought he would be continuing with his reading and analysis of The Crucible, by Arthur Miller. The Crucible is 11th grade reading for the Frederick Douglass Academy for Young Men, a 6-12 high school in Detroit, Michigan . Jamal was sadly mistaken. As he took his seat in class the teacher notified all students that they would be shifting their focus, just for awhile she told them, from the reading and analysis of literature to the construction of a mock ‘resume’ or ‘job application’. The ‘resume’ or ‘job application’ the students were to produce in their class was to be based on a ‘resume template’ handed out by the English teacher, by which students would then create their own ‘applications’.
Education to train students to be better workers, not education for education's sake?
Jamal was shocked. Why would his English class shift from reading high quality works of literature to engaging in mock resume and job application constructions? Jamal, upon hearing from the teacher about the shift in curriculum, raised his hand and asked the teacher point blank, “What is this all about?” The English teacher told him, as his class mates sat silent, that the resume was the brainchild of Wal-Mart and that in conjunction with the Frederick Douglass Academy for Young Men, the transnational corporation had thought the experience of constructing and then filling out a job application would be a good academic experience for the young 11th graders to engage in. Jamal was stumped. “What kind of resume or job application will it be”, he went on to ask his teacher. “Oh”, she responded, “it would have questions such as: ‘Do you need a job? What kind of skills do you have, Where have you worked in the past, What is your work experience, What kind of work skills do you possess”, all typical questions that would appear on an application for employment at say, Wal-Mart.
Incredulous, Jamal raised his hand once again and asked, “Is this lesson, this resume thing mandatory”. The teacher told Jamal that no, it was not mandatory and that he did not have to do it. It was a ‘voluntary lesson’, he and the class were told, and students were not required to complete the job application/resume. At this point Jamal, in open voice in front of his 11th grade class told the teacher in no uncertain terms: “I’m not doing this!” “Why don’t you want to do it”, the teacher queried as the other students sat silently in their seats.
Here is more about Jamal's later conversation with the teacher.
When the class terminated Jamal had a small conversation with the teacher. He told me that she seemed distressed, frightened and really did not wish to talk about the fact she had been told, evidently by the school administration, to have students engage in the Wal-Mart lesson plan at the expense of any study of The Crucible; she indicated that basically she was asked to suspend her curriculum. Jamal did say that during the conversation the teacher did state she thought Robert Bobb, the Eli Broad graduate who runs Detroit Schools as the Emergency Financial Manager was “crazy” and he said the teacher seemed embarrassed and confused by the whole episode.
That is why I worry about charter schools run by private companies...they get taxpayer money but their goals are other than pure real education.
In a later meeting these words were spoken as the students fought against this corporation intrusion.
1. The young men of Frederick Douglass should be receiving college prep courses, not a Wal-Mart prep education.
2. That it is and was an outrage that the same week politicians and corporations are celebrating Wal-Mart coming into the schools, they sent out pink slips to many of the fine arts teachers, including directors of high quality, long standing programs.
Detroit Schools are also being pounced upon by the Skillman Foundation. Here is a video of one of the leaders of their parent group calling for the jailing of Detroit teachers. It is outrageous.
Sharlonda Buckman, CEO of the Detroit Parent Network, says jail Detroit teachers.The Detroit News, Dec. 12: Sharlonda Buckman, CEO of the Detroit Parent Network, called for jailing and civil lawsuits against anyone in the city's educational system that is not doing his or her share to help properly educate children. "Somebody needs to go to jail," she said in a tearful address to 500 parents gathered Saturday for the organization's annual breakfast forum. "Somebody needs to pay for this. Somebody needs to go to jail, and it shouldn't be the kids."
This group appears to be funded by the Skillman Foundation.
While Sharlonda doesn't seem to care about is that the corporations who pay her for her services, or the State of Michigan, or the U. S. Department of Education don't seem to have any plan to help alleviate the $219 million dollar hole in the Schools' budget or to help improve learning in the Schools. Never mind that that Skillman Foundation has almost a half billion in corporate assets (non-profit assets, of course) that they are not interested sharing to pay down the Schools' debt. What Sharlonda and her handlers are supporting is the plan to take $500 per month from each teacher's salary to bring down the budget deficit--with a promise to pay back at retirement time.
Not just Walmart and Skillman. Add Eli Broad (rhymes with toad) to the mix.
Detroit School Board sues Bobb for illegal payments from Broad Foundation.The Detroit Public School Board unanimously voted Monday night to file a second lawsuit against Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bobb, saying $145,000 in private foundation support he receives under his new contract is unlawful.
"It's a conflict of interest," said DPS board member LaMar Lemmons.
Bobb's supplemental income from private foundations increased from $84,000 last year to $145,000 this year, under a one-year contract extension signed by the governor and state superintendent this month. The only philanthropic donor publicly identified is the Broad Foundation, whose support of charter schools has stirred controversy among some members of the DPS community.
"This is more than putting the fox in charge of the hen house, it's serving up the hens to be eaten by this guy," said George Washington, an attorney representing the teachers and community activist groups who have spearheaded the lawsuit and who urged the board Monday to join them.
Heaven help the Detroit schools, as the Democratic party leaders do not seem inclined to do so.
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