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Detroit high school students can now earn an A in Wal-Mart
February 26, 2010 - 12:38am
I want to say this is bad but I have this nagging feeling that it might just be realism on the part of the school board.
Four inner-city Detroit high schools have decided that employment with Walmart is an opportunity worth training their students to pursue. The schools have teamed up with the giant merchandiser to offer a for-credit class in job-readiness training that also includes entry-level after-school jobs.
According to the Detroit Free Press, the principal at one of the schools optimistically suggested that "the program will allow students an opportunity to earn money and to be exposed to people from different cultures -- since all of the stores are in the suburbs."
Well I suppose there's an upside to this. I can't tell what it is and can only feel badly for the unemployed in that city who will be at the mercy of a single industry employer and not much hope for the future. 40 new Wal Mart uber centers coming to Canada in 2010
Realism? How myopic.
I didn't know that the increase construction of our everyday lives around capital was called "realism". Maybe this is about the substantive effects of the intersections of political power of the wealthy and increased commodification of our lives than about facing "reality".
It's become a country of two political choices in many ways. In this scenario the kiddies can look forward to working long hours for low pay, or they can join the army for higher pay and benefits, and put a grab on some cash for college. It's Uncle Sam's way or the Wal Mart way, And they can travel to far away lands and meet new people in exotic cultures. And then kill them. Either way they meet interesting people from interesting cultures.
In reflection, I am bothered by the realism tag. It's one thing to mull over the issue and dismiss it as an inevitability.
It's another to think about what is really at stake. I think that we should be recognizing that the formal education experience is being reduced to how to function within and produce wealth for Wal-Mart. Formal education *can* be empowering, especially given that resources like huge blocks of time, trained teachers, learning materials, etc. are the components of a great learning experience. That Wal-Mart gets free training at the expense of these learners and the resources that should be for them - it is an injustice!Whatever the story is, it can't be about too few high school dropouts in Detroit. According to this NPR report, fewer than 25% of high school freshmen in the Detroit school district go on to graduate: that's a dropout rate of 75%. (The story is from 2007, but the numbers are probably not radically different three years later.)
ETA: Going by the numbers in Wikipedia, there are about 90,000 Detroiters between the ages of 18 and 24: together with the high school drop-out rate above, I would say that there are tens of thousands of young (18-24) high school dropouts in Detroit.
Um, those numbers are disturbing but are you somehow inferring that means this is a good idea? Because I have no idea how people can make that correlation.
It's always fix the disease not the symptoms.
In no way was I suggesting that the Walmart high school program is a good idea.
Michelle offered an explanation as to why Walmart is partnering on this program: in particular, that there aren't enough high school dropouts for Walmart to exploit. I believe that the numbers are a strong argument against that particular explanation. I'm sure that there is some explanation, and some interesting, and possibly nefarious, backstory. But, given the numbers, whatever the backstory is, it can't be about too few high school dropouts in Detroit.
Agreed?
I guess but I'm not sure then why you're so keen on clarifying Michelle's hyperbole with your drift, especially all the detail. You just chose this thread to correct an error in fact?
And I thought that in particular, Michelle's opening sentence you left out of your quote is telling. Sorry for pointing out your painting of a defence.
We're agreed.
I wasn't saying it was a good idea rather that perhaps it was a last ditch desperate idea grabbed at by a school board trying to be helpful to their students in a fairly hopeless situation. As for why Wal-Mart's doing it, it's a PR thing. They get to look good(ish) offering inner city kids some of the only open jobs in existence in the Detroit region. They also get their training costs reduced.
Really, at this point the best thing you could do for Detroit graduates is to give them six months' living expenses and a train ticket for elsewhere. Hope that they send money to their parents. Nobody's riding to the rescue for the city - nobody did during the boom and they certainly won't during the bust.
I'm curious. Is it possible to be a career-ist WalMart-er (from your teen years to retirement)? What kind of living can you make by being with WalMart for 25 - 30 years or more? Are there any opportunities for advancement within this company if you start at the bottom?
It is possible actually. One can gain an entry level position in youth as a shelf stocker, work your way through to cashier and department associate, and wind it down by greeting customers with the sort of warmth and happiness that can only come from a fully satisfying career of wage exploitation.
Someone put this guy in the babble Hall of Fame!
This is truly appalling. Walmart and the products they peddle are responsible for the situation many post-manufacturing cities find themselves in. Walmart and their "low prices" have destroyed countless jobs and businesses while giving consumers poorly made disposable products. And we all know what kind of jobs Walmart offers to the communities it establishes in. Low pay, minimal benefits, part-time hours and non-union.
Don't be fooled by the "low cost" of goods at Walmart. The greater cost of the jobs lost and communities destroyed far out-weights the deal on shampoo socks you got.
These high school students would benefit much more from a program that helps them find apprenticeships with trades people in their communities. They could take courses in small business administration and accounting while doing on-the-job training.
This situation is indicative of the bigger issues facing our society. Corporations digging into their nails into every aspect of our lives and increasingly our schools.
Vote with your feet and boycott Walmart!
P.s. Walmart has a new motto "Save money. Live better." I imagine that does not apply to their employees. They don't have the means to save money and I doubt working for Walmart makes their lives any better.
Would the program be a bad thing if the partner was a retailer other than Wal-Mart? There might be some merit getting kids working for credit and money at the same time. I think my nephew, who is intellectually disabled, was in a similar program and got a lot out of it.
There are a lot of black families living in Detroit and surrounding areas. Low wage jobs is what they expect. It's a good place for McJobs economy and military recruitment in still racist America.
The Obamacrats and Repugnicons all have a dream. And it's for black and white Americans to die in poverty together.
If they pair this class with a "how to start a union" course, I could be convinced, actually.
I would expect less so. If it was, say, Mountain Equipment Coop, paying exactly the same, same hours, same everything, I doubt it would be such a red flag waving in the breeze.
Just curious, but does anyone really expect that a student with the potential to go far is going to say "screw that, I want to get on this low wage Walmart thing, pronto! Any chump can go to law school!"? Seems to me this is a classic case of something not being bad, but being not good enough.
"Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity or it becomes the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world." - Paulo Freire
The reason the drop out rate in Detroit is so high is because the kids don't see any utility in doing the work for a high school or post secondary school education.
This program isn't wrong if it keeps kids in school, and allows them to gain some skills on the job that enable them to get good jobs later.
However, there's no "good jobs" program, in fact this depression/recession has been about the upper class gleefully gutting as many good jobs as possible from society.
Well, Michelle, sometimes it's hard to communicate tone on a bboard. Anyway, it could easily be the case that Walmart likes the idea of having fully trained, and Walmart-acculturated, personnel ready for work upon graduating from or dropping out of high school.
now only if they did this when i worked in micky d's back then
Meanwhile, Walmart closes, Community builds a giant library
It appears where retail giants fail, public libraries succeed. McAllen, Texas converted a 124,500 sqft "big box" into the largest single floor library in the US.
Target or Walmart, which is better to work for
Walmarts actually close? Iunderstand in that specific case the walmart was vandalized alot but other than that?
In order to defeat walmart one must strike at its' heart (somewhere in the electronics department) or nothing will change.
Sorry, another South Park reference.
Neither. They're both union-busting megacorps.
But, local colleges are only responding to demand. Here in eastern Canada, NSCC campuses have programs for off shore oil rigs and shipbuilding.
Of course, I understand a walmart course is ridiculous. Poor Detroit.