Helping schools and business shake hands. (1995, 27 February). Long Island Business News, (9), 6.
This article describes the School-Business Partnerships of Long Island (SBPLI), a not-for-profit private organization. The organization develops partnerships between Long Island business firms and public schools on Long Island. The article describes the program as an apprenticeship program similar in context to journeyman programs conducted by the building trades. In fact, however, the programs described in the article are more closely related to the intern programs conduced by business organizations for upper-level college students. In the case of the SBPLI programs, the participants in the programs are upper-level high school students who are being prepared for lower-level work than are participants in college-level intern programs.
SBPLI consults with participating schools to effect changes in curricula that will benefit Long Island area business firms. This approach is sound for students who are going to enter the work force soon after graduating from high school; however, the approach likely would prove detrimental to students who aspired to more than two years in a community college program subsequent to graduating from high school. SBPLI also consults with participating schools to effect changes in teaching procedures to assure that such procedures are appropriate for business. Unfortunately the article does not elaborate on the character of teaching procedures that would be considered to be appropriate for contemporary business firms. One cannot entertain seriously the thought that teaching procedures used by professional teachers should be dictated by business managers of firms located on Long Island.
The students participating in the SBPLI programs both attend school and work part-time in participating business firms. Student may be structured either as (a) attending school and working on alternate days of the w...