Made In Their Own Image

The cover for the February 14, 2014 issue of Time magazine depicts the back of a graduate's head with the words "Just Hired" taped to her mortarboard. The accompanying headline reads The Diploma That Works.

The cover story is about Sarah Goode High School on Chicago's South Side - a very poor section of the city infested with gang violence as well as failing schools. Sarah Goode is new in many ways including the fact that it's only six years old. The students take courses that focus on STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) classes and when they graduate, they do so not just with a diploma, but also an Associates Degree. This is an amazing idea as well as a way to get kids in our inner cities out into the world earning money using skills that are severely lacking.

There is just one problem: Sarah Goode is a school whose "corporate partner" is IBM.

I don't have a problem with inner city kids being educated in ways that will accommodate our economy. In fact, I am gung ho on the idea. How ever, I must ask the question: Why can't state, and/or  Federal education create these schools and programs? Why does corporate money have to be involved - and how deep does IBM's influence run? Do they mandate the curriculum? Do they sell books and materials directly to the school?

The idea of six year High School is not new. In fact, there has been a rallying cry in terms of the way we are educating our kids for the future; but again I have to ask: Why do corporations need to be involved? 

The district I used to teach in - Newark Public Schools - are embroiled in the issue surrounding the fate of their public schools.  It would seem Governor Christ Christie (when not stumping for Trump) is attempting to turn the entire district into a "public charter" system. Like Chicago, they have committed financial help from a corporation: the Walton Family Foundation who own Walmart.

Back in 2010 Rupert Murdoch's News Corp (owner of Fox news) hired former New York City School's Chancellor Joel Klein. A few weeks later, News Corp purchased Wireless Generation - a New York based education technology company. Murdoch has stated his "interest" in helping improve public education, but in the wake of the Wireless Generation deal he also stated "When it comes to education, we see a $500 billion dollar sector alone that is waiting desperately to be transformed..."  In other words, he sees dollar signs.

Do we want corporations making American kids in their own image? Large corporations already run our government through special interest and Lobby groups. They have their grubby fingers all over our electoral process and have ruined our media. Now they want to run our education system? 

I thought we were supposed to be a country of free thinkers and innovators. The men and women who built this country were rebels at heart who also chose to color outside the lines and think outside the box. Now Rupert Murdoch is telling our kids what to study?  Do you want Walmart - a company who won't pay American citizens a living wage and imports most of its inventory from overseas - shaping the curriculum of our children? And while IBM has a massive amount of insight into what skills are needed today, that doesn't mean I want them walking the hallways of our schools making sure the individuals who come out are cookie cutter and ready to go to work...for them. How do we know that IBM or Walmart or News Corp won't make our schools "too big to fail" and threaten to pull their money unless we adhere to their standards?

This is all getting a little too Big Brother for me.