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IBM High School To Churn Out IT Pros
theodp writes "This week, NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg announced that the City University of New York and IBM are creating a computer science-focused school in the city that will span grades 9-14 (students leave with an associate's degree). Graduates who pass muster will reportedly be first in line for jobs at IBM. 'The idea is to create a new [educational] model for science, technology, engineering, and math — areas where companies are aggressively hiring,' explained IBM's Stanley Litow. 'If you look at hiring requirements, you won't see a huge amount of difference in a lot of entry-level IT jobs.' No word yet on the school colors or whether a uniform will be required. IBM is giving the city $250,000 to create the school, which might have looked pretty generous if that Zuckerberg kid hadn't upped the ante with his $100,000,000 donation."
Given the recent history of IBM and other major corporations and their aggressive outsourcing of formerly well paying science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) jobs, ironically the very sort of jobs that Obama is desperately trying to promote amongst America's brightest high school students, why should we accept their PR crap without looking at what they really want. No doubt IBM is hoping to use and then discard bright high school students, taking advantage of their brilliance and naivete about the real world to squeeze lots of low cost work out of them before burning them out and discarding them. How are we supposed to get bright high school students excited about the years of schooling and study required to get a STEM job only to finish years later and find that no job is waiting for them? Surely these bright high school students can see through this charade? Well, one can hope anyway. IBM and the others have much work to do if they are to regain the trust of perspective science and technology students. Perhaps if they are wise, and I'm not holding my breath, they can start here by promising not to use and then discard these bright students as they have been known to do with their present employees; loyalty is a two way street after all.