General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsShould business be invited to shape education to provide the workers they desire?
Much of the opening of the State of the Union expressed, from a couple of different directions, that business should be a partner in education so we train and teach to meet the current needs of business.
I can argue either side of this because there is no yes or no answer, but rather questions of degree. (no pun itended)
The starting point is that it would be absurd for education to be indifferent to the skills desirable in the contemporary economy. Of course making students better potential workers is one priority.
As a practical real-world matter, the people survive and thrive only insofar as they serve business and it does benefit the people themselves to be able to be what business wants, in the way of work skills.
Yes, public education, public-supported training, public colleges do a very real service to their students in teaching them how to be a more desirable worker in the system, because that system is where they are going to be living.
And nations with better workers really do prosper in ways that benefit everyone. A waitress or gas station attendant in a town that attracted a big tech company to locate there is benefiting from the community's concentration of skills. (In the same way a waitress near a union auto plant benefited from the circulation of union wages in the local community.)
However...
It is creepy as Hell to ask some fricking corporation what out curriculum should be to best suit its commercial needs. And it makes tax-funded education partially a donation to business. And since business has little interest in the long-term benefit to the individual being educated, the interests of business are not entirely aligned with the interests of the student, which should be paramount.
And...
We are living out experience with education creating the workers business wants.
It sometimes seems that Americans know more about particle physics than we do about macroeconomics. For instance, all Deficit hand-wringing the last five years has been denying-evolution level clueless idiocy based on ignorance.
And it really does feel like business has created workers who think about wages the way business wants them to. (For instance, there are lots of real workers who support "Right to Work" status... though without an ability to quite explain why.)
And who vote the right way. (Not just R vs. D, but constraining politics itself to pro-business-D versus pro-business-R)
VanillaRhapsody
(21,115 posts)I think that is what he is talking about here...
NightWatcher
(39,343 posts)They'd get rid of critical thinking skills and focus solely on customer service jobs. Trade schools are fine, but I dont think elementary and high schools need to get away from the idea of "well rounded students" and work on spitting out 13 year old welders. That might replace math and science class with classes teaching how to work the Fryolator and what is the proper amount of secret sauce for a big mac.
sinkingfeeling
(51,279 posts)this state's premier university's curriculum.
gwheezie
(3,580 posts)I find it stunning that business not only doesn't want to pay to train folks but also feel they don't need to pay taxes for the training of new workers via public education, not to mention get a tax break for employing low wage workers and not pay them enough to live without some kindof tax payer funded assistant, but I digress.
I was interested in the part of the speech when Obama talked briefly about apprentice programs. This is how things used to be done, if an industry wanted trained workers specific to their industry, they trained them or paid for them to get the training they need. I would support that.
Alamuti Lotus
(3,093 posts)Sheepshank
(12,504 posts)what educational standards or training makes a person employable in their industry.
Of course everything in moderation, but I don't find the idea alarming. School may very well still be using the abacus if not for realizing different skill sets needed by the employer. Schools can only guess at skill sets...they are in a bit of a bubble....employers can help with that knowledge.
JCMach1
(27,544 posts)the needs of these companies will most likely be completely different going forward into the future.
Do we really want people whose value system is based on bottom line profitability determining what children are taught. Business puts a price on everything, but has no value system; no ethical constraints, no notion of individual worth, no historical sense beyond the last quarterly earning report, no sense of loyalty to the nation or group beyond the 1%, no civic sense. How can anyone look at the behavior of corporate leaders and place any trust in their good faith or commitment to the public good?