By LIESEN SLANDER Daily Planet Slave
In a ground-breaking move, the local school board put its students to work last night.
From now on, students from kindergarten through 12th grade will be assigned a weekly product output quota, which will depend on the pupil’s school, that will count for one-third to one-half of the student’s final grade.
“This is ground-breaking and it’s good for business,” said Harvey Developerwitz, a school board member. “It’s good for America.”
Parents and school officials weren’t so sure, but faced with crippling state and local budget cuts recently, they didn’t have much choice.
Lillian Imadope, whose daughter Grozny, 5, is about to enter the public school system, said her main question was the type of product will be made at the little girl’s new school.
“I mean, is it going to be hamburgers or diesel engines?” Imadope asked. “I don’t want her doing any manual labor.”
Vaughn Skeasie, superintendent of the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District, left last night’s meeting before it was over. When asked outside on the way to his car about the radical new education system here, he said, “Yeah, it might work.”
He then climbed into his new Mercedes Mybach and sped away. Earlier that day, he got a parking ticket.
The product a school makes will depend largely on its main corporate patron, most of whom have not been identified. John Moore Elementary is the one school to have already chalked up a partner. It was renamed McRonald’s John Moore Elementatry in an elaborate ceremony last month.
Rumored to be in talks with other area schools are Burger Sling, Pizza Nut/Taco Hell, Daimer-Criysler, Wal-Fart and the U.S. Army.
Last night’s meeting was more about procedure than it was about what school will make what product.
Based on guidelines approved by the board, school-age children will spend each afternoon just like they do now — with teachers and lessons and homework. Mornings will be reserved for classes and specific manufacturing work, which will be designed by school officials in conjunction with their various corporate partners.
As pupils move up in grades, they will be kicked up the corporate chain until in the middle of junior high where they are sifted into “accelerated” and “normal” curricula.
“That’s just a sham cover for white collar and blue collar, for rich and poor,” said Hope Leslie, the parent of a 10-year-old and 14-year-old. “I’m terrified what these corporations will do to my kids. Look what they’ve done to the Promenot.”
Corporate officials say such concerns are unfounded. In an important concession to district officials during the lengthy negotiation process that provided the new education framework, business leaders agreed to allow a full-day of classes to be taught to those students who could either pay the equivalent of a day’s work or earn scholarships.
“The option of the past is still there for those who want it bad enough,” said Gray Flak, a spokesman for the consortium of businesses that negotiated the contract.
Flak vowed that businesses would adhere to strict child labor laws to be determined later. He dismissed current child labor laws as “a little too wordy.”
Critics both local and national have condemned the school district, but Superintendent Skeasie said the city and state were to blame.
“If they’re not going to give us enough money to educate our children, then we’ll find someone who will,” he said. “And our kids will be treated a lot better than those poor children in China or India who make most of the junk on our shelves today.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on April 1, 2003. Read the original PDF.