Regionalism and Education
 

National Assn. of Manufacturers (NAM)

John Engler is a member of the New Commission on Skills of the American Workforce as well as supposedly representing American Manufacturers. 

NAM - glossy on 2007 Agenda - "Investing in America"

While Engler was giving his presentation supposedly as a representative of 'American' manufacturers, the truth is that he represents Chinese manufacturers that used to be American corporations. 

John Engler, President of the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM)

Recently he held a press conference to give NAM's 2007 Agenda for the Congress. When you listen closely to Engler, you can't help but hear the fraud and duplicity in what he says.

To the right, you'll see a couple of audio clips showing how Engler is speaking out of both sides of his mouth.  He talks about the plan for schools to make America competitive but then he advocates increasing H1-B visas to import cheap labor.   He talks about making American manufacturers competitive but then he talks about the multi-modal, international transportation system that will facilitate bringing imported Chinese products into the country faster. 

CLICK HERE to listen to the entire press conference.

Engler: High Performance Schools Audio clip

 The term "high performance schools" has a very specific meaning.  It refers to vocational education which is what the NCEE school reform plan is all about.  It is about "skills training with certifications" for the workforce - not about education.   

Engler answering a question on education during the Q & A part of the presentation.  In his answer, he mentions his participation New Skills Commission and the  the Tough Choices or Tough Times report.

Engler: Q & A on his participation on NCEE Commission Audio Clip

 Engler talking about infrastructure 'improvements' they intend to pursue.  Clearly what he is talking about is the Trans-Texas Corridor, the NAFTA super-highway TO BRING GOODS IN FROM CHINA!   He also talks about "creative financing" to get some of the value out of building infrastructure - obviously he is talking about selling U.S. highways to foreign corporations.  U.S. taxpayers build them, then these bastards sell them - and you can bet they are pocketing the money - it does not go back to the U.S. taxpayers. 

Engler: Infrastructure to support Chinese imports audio clip

From Reason Magazine:

"As part of his 1991 proposal to overhaul the nation's education system, President George H.W. Bush invited big business to take part in the fun. "The architects of the New American School should break the mold," he advised. "Build for the next century....Start from scratch and reinvent the American school....

A few months after Bush's 1991 address, a group of CEOs created the New American Schools Development Corporation. Furnished with $130 million in contributions, they aimed to shake up "the nation's stagnating education system with the entrepreneurial spirit of the private sector." In 1993 billionaire publisher Walter Annenberg upped the ante with a $500 million pledge for public schools. A year later, IBM introduced its Reinventing Education initiative; during the next decade, it invested $70 million in the program. Since its 2000 inception, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has distributed more than $600 million to 1,457 high schools and committed more than a $1 billion to the Gates Millennium Scholars program, a college scholarship program for low-income minority students. Hewlett-Packard has contributed hundreds of millions of dollars in equipment and cash to schools and universities. Wal-Mart donated $40 million to education-related causes in 2003. According to the Foundation Center, a nonprofit organization that compiles information on U.S. philanthropy, elementary and secondary schools received $1,176,520,000 in grants during 2002, or roughly 7.4 percent of all distributions that year.

         To make Money

What do corporations know about education?

        They have training programs for their employees to provide specific skills necessary for the corporation

What do the corporations who participated in the New American Schools redesign challenge specialize in?

They are in the technology business - designing computer systems for business processes, selling software, computers and services

What did they come up with for a redesign of the public schools?

Employers are considered the customer and the new 'education' system is designed to accommodate their desires.  That's why it is integrated with the state Workforce Development Departments (formerly the state Employment Offices).  It is a Supply Chain Management system that produces 'workers'.  It is data-centric assessing and measuring 'the product' becomes the goal because these corporations design computer systems and it was a natural.   It is like corporate skill training because certificates are earned for 'skills'.  The certificates become attributes of the product: 'worker' in the integrated education/workforce development system.

Teachers don't seem to realize that the ultimate goal is to eliminate them to the extent possible with Internet-based education software.  On-The-Job training is to replace the classroom.

Will the taxpayers save any money on this 'New Education System'? 

Please... be serious.  Refer to the first question.    

Will the 'product: worker'  be better educated?

Most students will be barely, functionally literate.   Because this system was designed for employers, 'workplace skills' will be taught from K-12 which means that they will be taught the same things year, after year, after year. 

SURPRISE!    The 'New Economy' was a fraud.   Globalization is sending technology and information technology jobs to third world countries for their cheap labor. 

                                     Administrative Coup d'Etat - Cripple the Economy, Break the Country

Why?   North American Union - Regionalization - Third Way Communism-Fascism

Former background: Managing Director and member of the Board of Directors of the Wall Street investment bank,  Dillon and Reed.  She was also Assistant Secretary of HUD under the first Bush Administration.

Audio Clip of Fitts

Text from the transcript on Rense

In the mid-90's Jim, we knew that a huge amount of jobs and income-generating activities in America were going to get outsourced to Asia. I mean, those decisions were made in the early 90's, and we knew that was going to happen.

Rio Declaration on Environment and Development - 1992

[They included people and jobs as tradable commodities under the WTO-GATS agreement.  In effect, the Clinton Administration SOLD OUT the American people by making it possible to trade away our livelihoods - our jobs.   By putting our high technology jobs on the global market, Clinton stuck a knife in the heart of America's economy]

And I was a leader in Washington promoting a model whereby Americans paid down their debt, refinanced their communities and themselves on an equity basis, and redeveloped their skills. I mean, we knew the workforce was going to have to reengineer itself, and our pension funds and retirement arrangements were not going to be financially credible unless the workforce reinvented itself, and paid down its debt, you know, then.

[Retrain for what?  With no manufacturing and no knowledge jobs, there is nothing to retrain for - except how to be a Walmart Greeter and a McD's Burger flipper.]   

So we knew then we had a problem. And what happened is was my team was kicked out of Washington, and a decision was made instead of reengineering folks, skills, or migrating them to equity and starting new businesses, a decision was made to float the economy of the biggest wave of debt that I can imagine. And what we've done is we've seen consumer debt skyrocket.

Now, when you move all your income abroad, and you leave your growing debt at home, it doesn't take long to understand what's going to happen to a Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac or a Ginnie Mae. At some point the growing debt has got to get serviced, and the question is how?

Entire Fitts Interview

Knowledge Trade Initiative

The U.S.-India Business Council and the Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) are pleased to announce the Knowledge Trade Forum, the culminating event of the Knowledge Trade Initiative (KTI), to be held in Bangalore, India, November 29-30, 2001.

The KTI was launched during President Clinton’s trip to India in March 2000, and was subsequently organized under the auspices of the USIBC and FICCI. The KTI is a bilateral forum between India and the U.S. to discuss key issues affecting the trade of knowledge-based products and services between the two countries. The KTI aims to solidify Indo-US leadership in the knowledge economy by harmonizing bilateral positions on key issues affecting knowledge trade.

The Forum will also provide the backdrop for the presentation of the final report of the KTI. The KTI has formed a series of working groups to consider key policy areas that affect the trade in knowledge-based products and services. Over 150 international experts in each of their fields have met regularly over the past months coming up with policy recommendations for India and the U.S. to secure their positions as leaders of the new economy.

(Actually - India is the leader of the new economy because this trade initiative is draining our country of knowledge jobs and corporations and shareholders and getting obscenely wealthy on the deal.)

Joint Statement Between U.S. and India   November 9, 2001
Joint Statement Between the United States of America and the Republic of India

A trade agreement with India having to do with knowledge jobs and Information Technology using 'terrorism' as the reason is a Great Non Sequitur. 

The point here is to show that the game plan still includes importing goods from China which is killing our manufacturing base and it includes importing cheap labor from foreign countries on visas.  It includes the continuation of exporting technology and knowledge jobs to third world, cheap labor countries.  The bottom line to education reform is that they intend to privatize it - drain the money out of it - replacing real education with vocational training as dictated by the "regional competitiveness authorities".   The only way for a "regional competitiveness authority" to plan the economy in a region to ensure jobs for the young people they train in their soviet poly-technical schools is to have a "zone" where they can dictate the types of businesses that will either be funded or will be allowed to operate in their "zone". 

These 'regional authorities' will be the Lords and Ladies over economic zones called Foreign Trade Zones, HubZones and Intermodal Commerce zones.  They are given exemptions from taxes and other regulations to give them an unfair competitive advantage, thereby putting legitimate American businesses out of business.  This is the way the American economy will be converted to a planned and controlled (communist) system.