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A Quality Education…with a Side of Fries
 We couldn’t say it better than Jack Earle, a former franchisee of McDonald’s restaurants in the Greater Philadelphia Area and Southern New Jersey, who has real insight into the so-called McDonald’s career track. Here is his recently published commentary.
They were stunning questions.
A lawyer for our state’s senate president pro tempore posed it recently to a witness testifying in a lawsuit that challenges Pennsylvania’s deeply flawed system of paying for public education: “What use would a carpenter have for biology? What use would someone on the McDonald’s career track have for Algebra I?”
Perhaps I can offer some expert insight into the second half of attorney John Krill’s snide question.
After a career in banking, I became a proud McDonald’s franchisee, with my chain of restaurants around Philadelphia and South Jersey growing to seven before I sold the last of them last year.
McDonald’s proved to be an outstanding “career track” for me, a working-class kid from Boston who was the first in his family to go to college at La Salle University.
Even more to the point, in operating my restaurants, I was committed to the skill development and further education of my workers — more than 15,000 of them over the years. I relish the successes so many have had in life after leaving the shelter of the Golden Arches. Former crew members of mine have gone on to be doctors, lawyers, teachers, police officers, and even a professional basketball player.
In recent years, many were propelled along the way by the tuition support offered to them through McDonald’s Archways for Opportunities program.
Of the many ways that Krill’s snarky words offend me, it’s hard to pick which is the worst. First is a notion that lurks beneath, that working in a restaurant requires no learning or skills.
Nonsense. Food safety is Job 1 in any restaurant; nothing is more important. And crew workers have front-line responsibility for it. Fulfilling that duty requires a grasp of mathematics and biology.
Second is the assumption that working in fast food is a dead end rather than a springboard. Again, no. Our crew members learn skills — teamwork, dealing with the public, taking responsibility — that follow them throughout life. Just ask former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, who will tell you how much his early job at a McDonald’s taught him. Just ask the large contingent of McDonald’s franchisees who started out as crew members and went on to seize the American dream of business ownership.
Lastly — and this may be the most distressing part — is the underlying, cynical dismissal of the potential and needs of thousands upon thousands of young Pennsylvanians, from Coraopolis to Camp Hill to Chalfont. Mr. Krill’s words suggest that the Republican majority in Harrisburg believes it’s simply not worth investing in these kids’ potential — because he thinks the most many can aspire to are jobs for which he can barely disguise his disdain.
Just to be clear: I am a lifelong Republican. To me, my party is founded upon an embrace of the American dream, and how it can be pursued through opportunity, personal responsibility, hard work, good citizenship, and free enterprise.
The attitude displayed by Krill (and his client?) forgets several basic conservative values:
All work has dignity. And the job you have at a given moment does not define you, nor where you can go in life.
The foundation of American opportunity is a good education. Teaching algebra, biology — or history or computer science or Spanish or literature — to our young people is not a frill, an extravagance, a waste. It is an investment — in them, in ourselves, in our state’s future, in the American dream.
Here’s something I find hard to fathom: While McDonald’s — a publicly traded corporation that needs to make a profit — invests eagerly in the educational progress of its workers, the elected leaders of our General Assembly look at our young citizens and go, “Nah, why bother?”
When I ran restaurants across a far-flung region, I knew I could not be everywhere and do everything. I had to rely on the judgment of the people — many of them young — who worked for me. Listening to these “boots on the ground” gave me some of the best tips I ever received on how to run the business.
That’s why I got to know them, cared about them and, most of all, invested in their development.
Mr. Krill and Sen. Corman, I don’t think it’s too much for us to expect the elected leaders of our great commonwealth to do at least that much for the young people whose creativity, work ethic, and sense of citizenship will drive Pennsylvania’s future.
As a volunteer leader of a national business association, I’ve spent plenty of time on Capitol Hill in Washington and around state legislatures. I expect lawmakers to exercise good judgment. Sen. Corman and your colleagues who are battling this lawsuit, it’s time to ensure all Pennsylvania students have a chance to pursue their dreams.
It’s time to do the right and best thing. Work across the aisle to craft a fair, thorough, and efficient way of paying for public education. Other states have done it. You can, too.
And, while you’re at it, please, cut out the snark.
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