Nothing is more important than education. And today more than ever, education is not just an issue for children. We must be concerned about people of all ages and backgrounds, citizens and newcomers, those who are literate and those who are not. The future of America depends on it. (Barbara Bush, BusinessWeek, 1989) Our nation is at an educational crossroads. Education must prove that it is equal to the challenges of technology and the information age. The success of our economy and indeed, the survival of our democracy have become more dependent than ever before on each individual’s ability to master increasingly complex knowledge and skills. (Educational Testing Service, 1989) We are students of words: we are shut up in schools, and colleges, and recitation-rooms, for ten or fifteen years, and come out at last with a bag of wind, a memory of words, and do not know a thing. We cannot use our hands, or our legs, or our eyes, or our arms. We do not know an edible root in the woods, we cannot tell our course by the stars, nor the hour of the day by the sun. It is well if we can swim and skate. (Emerson, 1844) In March and April 1990, the main television channels in the Uni ted States of America broadcast nightly a series of advertisements exhorting the business community to become much more closely involved with its local schools and colleges. Much of the rhetoric used in this campaign is similar to that used in ministerial statements and Training Agency, TUC and CBI reports published in Britain. The message, for both Britain and America, is seemingly clear — for both nations to compete effectively in world markets, educational goals must be based on the needs of business, and, in turn, business must contribute to and be actively involved in education. This chapter examines that message in its American context and considers some of the initiatives it has spawned. In addition, this chapter will also compare those initiatives to their current counterparts in Britain. © Peter Raggatt and Lorna Unwin 1991. All rights reserved.
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