I would like to see more hard data regarding how well- or ill-prepared for adult life graduating high school seniors are these days, and how knowledgeable they really are about running or managing a business. But if I were to refer just to my own experience way back when I was that age I actually find very little to criticize in the second, longer blockquote. Coming out of high school way back in the Pleistocene (i.e., the early 70s) I was pretty clueless about how businesses really operated; in fact I even knew next to nothing about such basic matters as how to get and hold onto a job, or what skills I had or could acquire that would be useful to a business. Many years later my father, who was in management by then, made presentations and helped to conduct seminars at high schools and colleges on the basics of business, so I sort of understand what Brat is saying about consulting with area CEOs during high school curriculum and course development. I am, however, convinced that education professionals will still need to be in overall charge of it and be the teachers of it.

I don't know what other positions Brat has staked out in this area, but what was quoted here did not strike me as being very contrary or contentious. It is possible that I am misreading this due to not being at all informed about Rep Brant's other pronouncements on education policy, but I didn't get the impression that he was talking about the grade school-level basics of commerce that Dok mentioned. Rather I think he was referring to helping high school students develop the more comprehensive understanding of business that would be very useful to them as adults. I certainly could have benefited from some of that back when I was still in high school. I saw Brat's point here as being not really ideological but rather practical in nature. Again, these remarks may be part of a broader context that I am not aware of though.

I never understood why most non-IT workers (or anyone not employed as a blogger or journalist) would need or even have web access at their workstations, since it is such a big security risk and is probably not even relevant to their job functions.

I worked for the state government, and none of our computers ever had access to the internet. Things like email were handled by the state government's own closed network. There was no web access, and we didn't even have web browsers installed on our workstations. (The government had its own web site on the internal network, but we had no access to it.) And oh yes, all use was monitored and logged, because our work was paid for with the people's money and so we all had to be accountable for everything we did on their dime. It was very restrictive, but I totally understood why they did it that way.

The biggest computer-related scandals that occurred during my time there included a few incidents of workers installing fully-licensed but unauthorized productivity software on their workstations or being caught playing too much Solitaire. Violations of IT policies were quite rare overall, though.

Hugh G. Rection.

Support the troops.

I finally googled "spotted dick" and ... ZOMFG!!

I think it was also used as a textual element in many R. Crumb drawings.

Your freedom is at hand.

... or gasp it.

I tried to get into that class for three years in a row but it was always already filled up. By frat boys, I suppose.