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Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1998 12:27:53 +1100
To: voced-coord@owl.qut.edu.au
From: Ken Price (Ken.Price@central.tased.edu.au)
Subject: VocEd: GUEST: More money through the school Gates

Hello again,

A second issue which emerged very clearly out of my US visit was the corporate involvement in schools. This was no great surprise as I was looking at courses developed by computer companies such as 3Com, Cisco, Microsoft, Novell, Apple, Intel etc and delivered in public schools. However, a case in point might provoke some thoughts.

I visited Bellevue Community College in Seattle, and was taken through their curriculum and premises by an extremely forward-thinking educator, Suzanne Marks.

This college is almost next door to Microsoft's world headquarters. It has extensive computing facilities, including a HUGE room of several hundred computers (funded by Boeing Aircraft) and a high-end multimedia facility funded by Microsoft. It also runs courses developed by major computer vendors.
[Ed: a guided tour of the North West Center for Emerging Technologies (part of Bellevue Community College) is at http://www.nwcet.bcc.ctc.edu/tour/nwcetmap.htm]

Through wise planning, it is not simply a high-tech college but offers a wide range of courses. However, under less vigilant management such a model could readily be accused of being heavily driven by a computer company, and of compromising independent thought for corporate sponsorship.

Now Microsoft (and other companies) make it quite clear that they don't want these situations to be dominated by their corporate directions (though of course they do want some exposure). Microsoft, for example, set limits on how many hours of Microsoft curriculum a student is allowed to take as part of their load. However there are some unavoidable and subtle influences which can't help but penetrate school planning and thinking.

This is one step beyond the "McDonalds High School" discussion of a while back. As schools in Australia begin to take on these vendor-developed courses and high levels of corporate sponsorship, are there issues to the concept of

"Welcome to Microsoft High School" (or, of course, any other computer company you care to name)?

That is, how can we tell where and when to draw the line between
on one hand
-giving students training which renders them immediately employable, getting badly-needed facilities into our school,
and on the other
-maintaining independence of thought and action in school education?

Your thoughts and reactions are welcome,