CEOs Are Clueless

Fortune 1000 senior executives are lucky they're not being tested about their knowledge of the Internet. They'd flunk.

Some 43% of the big guys thought rock star Fiona Apple was a kind of computer, according to Newsweek, reporting on a recent computer quiz conducted by Volchok Consulting. Another 53% thought an Arch Deluxe was a PC part. Kids are way ahead of the execs here. Some 98% of sixth graders who took part in the quiz knew their McDonald's menu.

But it gets worse. Only 23% of the execs could explain what a modem is, compared to 93% of the sixth graders. Some 68% of the corporate guys thought the Internet was controlled by a corporation -- and 23% thought it was part of Microsoft. Among the sixth-graders, 98% knew that no one owns the Internet.

Norquist Plays With the Facts

Milwaukee Mayor John Norquist, who has a passion for bashing the public schools and extolling the virtues of vouchers for private schools, has an interview in the March issue of School Reform News, a publication of the conservative Heartland Institute. In the interview, Norquist pooh-poohs the idea that vouchers may lead to more segregation and polarization along racial lines and provide a way for more white people to flee the public schools. "The evidence in Milwaukee shows just the opposite. ... Private schools are just as integrated or more integrated than the public schools," the mayor claims.

Rethinking Schools called the Catholic high schools in Milwaukee, which have the strongest private school infrastructure. At Pius, 3% of the students are African American and 88% are white. At Marquette University High School, 5% of the students are African American and 84% are white. At Divine Savior/Holy Angels, 3% of the students are African American and 91% are white. At Messmer, 83% of the students are African American and 5% are white. At St. Joan Antida's, the most diverse Catholic high school, 19% of the students are African American and 44% are white.

And while there are not any public schools in Milwaukee that don't have African-American students, the same is not true of private schools. At St. John's Evangelical Lutheran School, a K-8 school at 68th and Forest Home, there are no African American students (and only a handful of Hispanic students), according to school officials.

Within the Milwaukee Public Schools, some 60% of the students are African American, 5% are Asian, 12% are Hispanic, and 21% are white, based on the system's 1996 Report Card. Figures for the three most sought-after MPS high schools for that year were: Rufus King -- 53% African American and 35% white; Milwaukee High School of the Arts -- 45% African American and 44% white; and Riverside -- 48% African American and 27% white.

That's America!

Eighth Graders at Macopin Middle School in West Milford, NJ, sell candy and magazine subscriptions to raise money, just like thousands of kids across the country. In the past, students had pooled money for an activities fund. This year, the school set up individual accounts for each student, based on how much each had fund-raised. Some students have a lot of money, others have hardly any money at all.

"That's America," vice principal Ray Johnson told The New York Times about the new approach. "It's a good lesson in economics and capitalism. In America, you're supposed to reap what you sow, so to speak."

With that Kind Of Money . . .

The Edison Project has raised $56 million from a group of new and existing investors. That boosts the amount Edison has raised since its founding in 1991 to $161 million, according to an article in the February issue of The Education Industry Report.

Chris Whittle, founder and president of the for-profit chain of schools, said Edison hopes to use the money to triple its schools from 25 to 75.

Let's see, 25 schools have so far eaten up $105 million in private investment money. That comes to a cool $4.2 million per school -- not including the tax dollars the schools get.

The investors include the J.P. Morgan Capital Corp., which coughed up $20 million.

Quotable Quotes

"Big is better, as long as it is in the private sector. Big government -- that is to say, government -- is out (except for old-time pork barrel like the highway bill), but big business and big banking are in, way in."

-- Benjamin Barber, Professor of Political Science at Rutgers University, in an April 16 essay in The New York Times.