so Wal-Mart is going to be getting help from Tennessee community colleges

[mark414]

Tenn. gov. pushes for 'Wal-Mart degrees'

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen wants the state to do a better job at preparing students for careers at Wal-Mart. But he's not talking about stocking shelves or checking out customers at the retail giant.

Instead, Bredesen wants to tailor community college programs to offer courses on retail management.

*snip*

Bredesen told The Associated Press he would consider an arrangement where community colleges teach Wal-Mart-specific skills, if the company would agree to guarantee jobs for graduates with good grades.

*snip*

Bredesen said working with community colleges to develop retail-specific management skills could help jump-start recruitment and help Wal-Mart expand.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060806/ap_on_bi_ge/wal_mart_degrees

so our public colleges are now officially work farms?

am i the only one who feels a little uneasy about this?

[Nite Owl]

1. OMG this sounds like

blatant facism. The corporation rules, the state exists for the purpose of corporate America.

[mark414]

2. that's what i was thinking

this is fucked up...this guy's a democrat too...and about 5 other governers have been talking to wal-mart...all democrats...

[Nite Owl]

4. I'm not understanding why

Wal-Mart or any other corporation needs trained managers why they don't offer to pay the tuition for employees who they feel they want to promote? Isn't that more in line with them filling their needs rather than having community colleges tailor a program to their needs?

There have been so many things with this company from locking employees in at night, flying in teams to break any whiff of a union, firing people for discussing the forming of a union, not paying people for hours worked, telling people how to apply for Medicaid instead of offering a decent affordable health plan. The list goes on and on, they want to make the rules and refuse to follow and having courses tailored to them seems to be training little Nazi like managers to enforse their standards (or lack thereof).

[Horse with no Name]

15. It is very simple

Because the ones that don't get those cushy WalMart manager jobs have a worthless degree--unless they work at WalMart.
So they will all be hired on entry level positions and already be trained at their own expense OR at the state's expense via grant money.
It generally costs about $4-$5k to train and retain an employee.
It also weeds out the undesirables.
It's another boondoggle for WalMart.:mad:

[NMMNG]

3. Holy.....

Let's just purposely set people up for a lifetime of slave-wage jobs that go nowhere. :scared:

[NotGivingUp]

16. exactly

[NMMNG]

18. Purposely breeding a permanent underclass

Just to further entrench the divide between the uber-rich and the poverty-stricken.

Go GOP! :sarcasm:

[regnaD kciN]

5. This isn't going to be great P.R. for the state's higher-ed system...

I mean, think about it: "Enroll at a Tennessee Community College! If you study, work hard, and get good grades, you'll be assured of a job at Wal*Mart!!!" :eyes:

[Crowskie]

6. Every time something like this happens

I just imagine Mr. Walton hanging his head in shame at what his company has become.

[enigmatic]

7. Boot Camps

To get worker drones programmed. That's pretty much what it is...

[Sherman A1]

8. It's not good at all, but

it is somewhat pragmatic on the part of the Gov. Perhaps he can see the future a bit with heavy outsourcing taking the well paying manufacturing jobs and is trying to get some training for his citizens to compete for what jobs there might be? I have worked in retail for the last 33 years and I know where I am at we see a "graying of the workforce" with a 8-15 year age gap between the current store level, department management and senior workers with the next generation who will be filling our shoes when we retire. There are also far, far fewer of those in their 30's who will be available to run the stores. The factors leading to that were an attempt to emulate Wal Mart's "part time" workforce model back in the 1980's along with a 2 tiered wage structure which lead to a huge turnover in those that would be our replacements. The article does state that the Gov is looking at the management jobs and not the checkers, stockers (the grunts), they will continue to get poor pay and benefits without being unionized, however management does very, very well for themselves in most retail operations so on the whole, this isn't entirely without merit. Don't get me wrong, anything that helps Wal Mart I consider to be bad, but people need to work and have the skills to do so. Just my thoughts.

[Cerridwen]

9. The only thing new about this, is that it is so blatant.

In the past, it was more covert:

In 1888, the Senate Committee on Education was getting jittery about the localized, non-standardized, non-mandatory form of education that was actually teaching children to read at advanced levels, to comprehend history, and, egads, to think for themselves. The committee's report stated, "We believe that education is one of the principal causes of discontent of late years manifesting itself among the laboring classes." (emphasis mine)

In his 1905 dissertation for Columbia Teachers College, Elwood Cubberly—the future Dean of Education at Stanford—wrote that schools should be factories "in which raw products, children, are to be shaped and formed into finished products...manufactured like nails, and the specifications for manufacturing will come from government and industry." (emphasis mine)

Several years later, President Woodrow Wilson would echo these sentiments in a speech to businessmen:

We want one class to have a liberal education. We want another class, a very much larger class of necessity, to forego the privilege of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific difficult manual tasks. (emphasis mine)

While President of Harvard from 1933 to 1953, James Bryant Conant wrote that the change to a forced, rigid, potential-destroying educational system had been demanded by "certain industrialists and the innovative who were altering the nature of the industrial process." (emphasis mine)

Excerpts from an article stored at The Memory Hole: The Educational System Was Designed to Keep Us Uneducated and Docile discussing John Taylor Gatto's book, The Underground History of American Education: An Intimate Investigation into the Problem of Modern Schooling (New York: Oxford Village Press, 2001).

[Sgent]

10. How is this

different than offering a degree in auto mechanics, network administration, electrical work, or practical nursing?

All of those are taught at many (most?) community colleges. At least in Mississippi, a corporation (any corp) can enter into a public/private relationship with thier local community college for training of welders, CNC operators, etc. Its been available at least since the mid 60's.

[mark414]

11. because it's solely tailored to wal-mart, that's how

[China_cat]

14. Our local tech school put in courses tailored

to train people for Bosch and Cummings. I don't see any difference except for training WalMart wannabes as being ridiculous since they consider their greeters as 'management'.

[readmoreoften]

12. you are definitely not the only one who finds this disturbing.

once again a government agency in the service of Walmart.

[ClintonTyree]

13. This reminds me of, "The Store", by Bentley Little.

"The Store" takes over every facet of the towns they decide to build in, from groceries to government and they do it in ways that are not standard business parctice. I thought about Wal*Mart with every page I read of that book. It got a little over the top in some places but it was chillingly spot on in others.

"The Store". Wal*Mart on steroids....a good read.

[NotGivingUp]

17. I think it really stinks. Not only is cheap-ass Wal-mart NOT going to

pay to train their own people for their pitiful, go-nowhere jobs...those people will pay for their own training and do it on their own time. I say everybody tell Wal-mart to stick it.