http://www.thethoughtfulcoalminer.com/p/coal-companies-in-classroom.html
Coal in the Classroom
(excerpt)
...Though many can agree that corporations often overstep their bounds by funding political campaigns and heavily influencing legislation through lobbying organizations, one must ask whether or not corporate infiltration into the classrooms of impressionable American youth is simply crossing the line.
Tactics, such as these, are not limited to non-profit company organizations. In Eastern Kentucky, public schools have been regularly visited by the Junior Kentucky Coal Academy, an organization within the Kentucky Community and Technical College System. Their website states,
"Delving even younger than the traditional workforce age, the Kentucky Coal Academy has been making strides to educate high school students and to entice them to make a successful career out of mining. With that intent, the Kentucky Junior Coal Academy was formed to extend coal education at the secondary level and to provide career paths for secondary students."
The work to continue coal dominance in the Appalachian economy does not end there either. In Kentucky, Friends of Coal license plates, of which 60,000 are proudly displayed by Kentucky motorists, each collect $10 to be used for a scholarship program in mining careers as well as educating the public about the benefits of coal. The effectiveness of the the coal industry's public relations campaign to rally coal miners and their families against increasing environmental regulations has certainly been effective, but this newest intrusion into public schools is cause for alarm, not just in Appalachia, but the entire nation.... MORE at link provided above.
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