MS>     This newfound Fortune 500 "committment" to education reform migh
MS> believable if the Fortune 500 was desperate for educated workforces 
MS> idling them here when it closes American factories to move productio
MS> of the least-educated, highest-illiteracy nations on earth.
MS>     Teachers should beware when some company that sees its future wo
MS> terms of workers who are abysmally educated even by current American
MS> starts talking of its "committment" to school reform and standards.
 
Hi Matt,
 
  Yes, I suppose this is valid if you're the eternal pessimist. [shrug]
I think that *any* commitment to education on the part of business (or 
anyone else for that matter) is a good thing.  Sure beats the apathy 
that would sit in it's place.  I am sure there are those businesses 
that fit the mold you allude to here, that I won't argue as I don't 
have any statistics on the hiring practices of the fortune 500 
companies.  I would speculate that certainly not *all* businesses 
(large or small) follow these same hiring practices. To brush aside an 
initiative such as this as suspect based on such a broad generalization 
about the use of foreign or unskilled labor seems reckless at best.  
Even within an organization that subscribes to those practices, I would 
argue that it is entirely possible to have concerned, committed 
business persons interested in playing a role in education reform.  The 
individual does not always embody the organizations values.
 
  It'd be interesting research to see of the companies participating in 
the Business Roundtable, Education Subcommitee, who used the hiring 
practices that you've identified and to what extent.  That would be a 
far more convincing position than "Big Business is Bad: Bad, bad, bad".
 
MS>     And the Fortune 500 sees that workforce in places like Red China
MS> Mexico...so why would they care about how well educated American kid
 
Well gee, maybe some of 'em have kids?!
 
Dale
--- TriDog 10.0
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