Friday, December 10, 2010

Should Government Motors really be getting into the educational / social engineering stuff now?

The Detroit Free Press: GM to pump millions into helping United Way improve metro Detroit high schools

General Motors plans to give $27.1 million over the next five years to help the United Way restructure five metro Detroit high schools, as the company continues its post-bankruptcy emphasis on turning around its home city.

The donation, which is the largest ever to come from GM’s charitable foundation, targets the 22 schools in southeast Michigan that have graduation rates of less than 60%. The schools must submit applications in January to get turnaround money and, if chosen, will follow an existing United Way model with the hope of increasing their graduation rates to at least 80%.

As GM has returned to profitability and to the stock market, the automaker has returned to charitable giving.
Now, helping Detroit area schools is indeed a noble (and herculean) task and 27 milion is ust a fraction of the government money the company has received, but should GM, still owing the US Government (read: taxpayers) billions of dollars in bail out money be putting its money into this program?

After shouldn't the Department of Education be the federal government's source of education dollars rather than GM, its new motor vehicle production department?

Is GM just another source of government funds ready to be diverted to government approved social causes?

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