If your teaching in or around Detroit you'll be fascinated by the attached Harper's article "End of the Road: After Detroit, the Wreck of an American Dream." For those of you teaching teachers in MI the article feels like essential reading for pre-service educators.
The majority of the article talks about the impact of Toyota on a small town in Kentucky by exploring the usual labor, management and production issues that surround the auto industry. These humdrum concerns take a turn toward the bizarre in the last section of the narrative where the author details a high school curriculum created by Toyota in partnership with the public schools surrounding the auto plant.
The story is rich with paradox and it will generate more questions than answers around human capitol, unionization and public education.