the testing/standards industry, not teachers.

. . . . . why would Exxon Mobil shill for an industry in which, so far as I know, they have no interest?

Here's a link to someone in the know who finds herself only speculating about their motives: http://www.missourieducationwatchdog.com/2012/06/petro-dollars-get-behind-common-core.html

Mandatory imposition of standards, bad.

Requirement of mandatory testing that makes standards into limits of what's taught, the end-all and be-all of teaching, evil.

Industry likes standards. The TX state board of higher ed has a set of college and career readiness standards, what industry and colleges can reasonably expect to be known by the average HS students upon graduation. I like. (Too bad it's not the same as what high schools have to teach.)

In the interest of full disclosure:

I used to visit the corporate headquarters and they were some of the nicest people you'd ever meet. Down to Earth, working class, open minded folks. Not piggies. Many years ago. Some of the other oil companies - well, not so much.

color me skeptical about their motives

Could it be that they've been tipped off that the Gov might think about taxing the oil companies for extracting California oil while they've been getting a free ride all this time? Dunno. It's pretty suspect how they're putting a pro-teacher ad campaign on here. It's as if they're trying to influence thinking before any possible prop is put on the ballot?

You can fool some of the people all the time.

Their ad says they "support" teachers but don't say how they support them or the purpose of the ad. I yell back at the TV whenever I see the ad saying they can support teachers by refusing the subsidies they don't need so the money can be used for education.

Another ad I don't understand is the chick who works for another oil company is thanking her high school physics teacher. ????????????? What is that all about????

"The Guide to Fracking" and such.

--imm

In chemistry you may learn to like chemistry, even science. A lot of that is physics.

It's where you put the math together with macro-level physical phenomena. It's one of the first places that it's obvious that math is a way of describing the physical world, of looking at forces and stresses.

A lot of students exit chemistry thinking they sort of like science. Few exit chemistry thinking, "Gee, engineering!" More exit physics realizing that they like forces and stresses, they like heat conduction and friction or electricity and magnetism. (If it's done right.)

Which strangles public schools to the point that teachers have to pay for supplies out of their own pockets ...

Then ? .... They 'support school teachers' ?

Fucking hypocrites .....

They probably get a write of as public service or some such shit. The Alec bunch like to appear as something other than evil. Public opinion for both of them is severly low so if the commercial is played enough, people will begin to believe the shit.

It has to be for testing companies and their profits. I think it also implies that teachers need help of some kind. Like there is some sort of weakness.

Exxon should focus on cleaning their environmental messes, and leave our kids alone.

Decades after the Exxon Valdez spill, the soil is still oozing oil. SOBs.

Volunteer to pay a windfall tax on your biggest profits ever made in the history of the world and make sure the money goes to educational programs.

Those fucking ads make me angrier than anything I've seen on TV recently. To see the goddamned hypocritical oil companies bitch about why our education system is so fucked up while they are paying millions to politicians in order to avoid paying the billions in taxes that would actually "solve this".

Fuck 'em. I turn the channel every time I see one of those friggin ads. I hope nobody is fooled by their bullshit but hey, this is America in 2012, and there are a lot of gullible stupid mofos here.

the same reason companies like Boeing run ads. None of us is going to buy a Boeing plane, but if we like them enough, or at least dont completely hate them, then we will keep voting their whores into Congress.

they need American Engineers... care to check where we are at producing such critters?

And it is a specific type of engineer or two, which we are not producing enough off.