WL>  WL> I just read an article in Fortune magazine on "who is the 
WL>  WL> customer." In the business context, it was the fad a while
WL>  WL> ago for departments
WL>  
WL>  MS> I don't see how relevant the article would be to the issue of 
WL> who
WL>  MS> the  "customer" is in K-12 public schools.  Fortune's article is 
WL>  MS> in the context of total customer choice without added cost 
WL>  MS> for buying the same product/service from another supplier, 
WL>  MS> where suppliers have no right to coerce payment from non-
WL>  MS> buyers,
WL> 
WL> Wrong, wrong, wrong.  Wrong in the other rants I clipped for
WL> brevity, too.  Either you didn't read the article, or you are
WL> completely clueless about what it's like to work in a large company.
WL>  
    I admit to not having seen the article.  
    But AT&T cannot coerce payment from MCI users in the way public schools 
have the right to coerce full payment from those choosing private schools, 
and car buyers have the right to choose a Chevy instead of a Ford at 
near-zero additional cost for a comparable model.
    "Customers" of the Fortune 500 have a whole lot more rights than 
"customers" of the Podunk Public Schools, and it shows in how Fortune 500 
companies treat their "customers".  The Fortune 500 and the Podunk Public 
Schools just interact with their "customers" in fundamentally-different ways 
due to the near-zero rights of public school "customers"! 
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