A bit of history.
Commonizing attempts to make the U.S. more competitive
actually started with the use of Frederick Taylor's Scientific Management in public
(at the time called common) not private schools, during the industrializing
economy of the early 20th century. That was when we were “ruled” by the Fords,
Morgans, Vanderbilts, Rockefellers, and other corporate leaders (Robber Barons)
of their day. Their congressional and Presidential henchmen allowed them to
rule the economic roost.
For years, most
institutions and schools operated under the Frederick Winslow Taylor assumption
of a century ago. This assumption presumed that the masses were drones that
badly needed coercion, strict instruction, precise direction, and threats with
punishment because they fundamentally disliked work and would avoid it if they
could. “Work,” Taylor stated, “consists of simple, not particularly interesting
tasks. The only way to get people to do them is to incentivize them properly
and monitor them carefully”. That is what we often call classroom management. (Think
of the straight rows and folded hands on desk total obedience model.) Think of
what today’s education policy makers are saying about teachers and how they
want them to work.
In education today,
it seems as if our reformers still live by the standard of industrial America
developed a full century ago by Taylor. Captains of industry (robber barons)
supported scientific management, as it was called, in order to make their
employees more productive. Their belief in the “mediocrity of the masses” (as
supported by empirical testing) has fostered a systemic, algorithmic approach
that has made “mediocrity the ceiling of what can be achieved.” Today’s policy
makers want to turn teachers into industrial employees, churning students out
like Ford workers churned out Model T's.
Taylor, who as a
member of the elite of his era, attended Exeter and was to go to Harvard until
his eyesight deteriorated, and his followers turned efficiency into the
justification for such changes. The industrial leaders of a century ago believed
implementation of scientific management would benefit both workers and society
at-large. Today’s policy makers have bought it
hook, line, and sinker.
The best example of Frederick Taylor’s ideas at work in education today
are high-stakes standardized tests--tests which have a significant effect on
funding for schools and the careers of individual students and teachers.
Although these exams can create enormous tension for students and
administrators, it is teachers whose lives are most affected by them. Thanks to
mounting pressure to get students to score high marks, teachers must
concentrate on teaching the curricula chosen by test-designers, rather than
local school boards or themselves.
The other major example of
history repeating itself is in the meaning of "common". According
to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary the primary meaning of “common” is: "Of or relating to a community".
However two other definitions are: "Characterized
by a lack of privilege or special status" and "lacking refinement".
Common Core proponents claim to use the first
definition, but given the fact that only public (common) schools are required
to follow these “national” standards the latter 2 definitions may actually
apply. The elite’s private schools do not have to follow anything common.
CORE can be defined as: - the usually inedible central
part of some fruits...I leave the conclusions to you.
All of this produces greater inequity, retards social
mobility, and increases the isolation of the elite in our society. As the new
ruling class tightens its grip, its members become more and more isolated from “commoners” with the result being a smugness
and arrogance they assume is their superiority as “the best an brightest”.
Beware you “white
suburban moms who — all of a sudden — their child isn’t as brilliant as they
thought they were, and their school isn’t quite as good as they thought they
were.”
William Deresiewicz provides us with some data about our
250 most “selective colleges”
|
YEAR
|
% of students from top quarter
of income distribution
|
% of students from bottom half
of income distribution
|
|
1985
|
46
|
|
|
2000
|
55
|
15
|
|
2006
|
67
|
3
|
“As of 2004, 40% of students from at [even] the most
selective state campuses came from families with incomes of $100,000 and up….
The decade since, it’s safe to say, has only made the situation worse.”
Once again we can easily track why this happens
besides increased tuition. These elite
sheep have been manufactured. As every product has it’s production costs, so do
they. To pass inspection they must be able to be admitted to the top
universities or colleges. What does it cost families to do this? Even without
actual dollar amounts we can see how expensive an elite student is to produce.
First, a family must be able to afford either a
top-notch private school or live in a community whose public schools are as
good or better.
Second, regardless of the quality of the school, these
families are convinced they must pay for tutors, test prep, music lessons, paid
for community service programs, enrichment camps, sports equipment and travel
teams, and any other means necessary to game the system.
Who can afford all of that? We know. So do they. More
from Deresiewicz:
Less than half of high scoring SAT scores are by students
from low income schools even enroll at 4-year schools. Or as Paul Krugman puts
it, “ smart poor kids are less likely than dumb rich kids to get a degree.”
We are not talking about the Roaring Twenties here. “One
study found that 100 (.3%) of all US high schools…account for 22% of students
at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. Of those, ALL BUT 6 are private!!!!” (The caps
and !!! are mine.)
The universities know too. They know who butters their
bread. Even with some new generosity, they must have a certain percentage of
“full payers” and need to cater to their donors and “legacies”. They need to service the upper and what they
call upper middle-income classes to survive.
As a result they produce one big happy family of students, future faculty,
funders, administrators, corporate leaders, and policy makers who “know how to
do things right” even if they don't “do the right thing”.
Whew. As a result, doing things right means belonging to a
meritocracy. Meritocracy needs data and algorithms. It means success on tests
and high scores. It translates into how they decide who is good and who is bad.
Anything unmeasurable, by those standards
is bad. Funny how that word slipped in.
Why do they do it? They believe it. They have been raised
to believe it. They have become it. To deny it would be to deny themselves.
This is how they were measured as great. They think their sense of entitlement
is due to them because their SAT, AP, GPA, GRE, scores were higher. We are “hot
shit”, and that is how you need to become “hot shit” too. Too bad if you cant
afford the manufacturing process. They have, too often lost touch with real
people. They don't often grow up with plumbers, electricians, cops, or union
members. As a result, their version of service (TFA) and government
intervention (Race To The Top and Common Core) is condescending.
They are “excellent sheep” who, for all intents and
purposes, have been raised in a bubble pasture. They are what they have been
fed. They will seek to raise their lambs in that same protective pasture and
create a world based only on what they know. They have merit and everyone else
does not. They do everything to justify their own position and ideology.
Ironically, we have seen this all before. E. Digby
Baltzell, most noted for his creation of WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant)
wrote in his Protestant Establishment, “History
is a graveyard of classes which have preferred caste privilege to leadership.”
According to him, the WASPs reached their peak during another period of extreme
excess, the roaring twenties. I will spare you the consequence. I trust you remember.
What do we do now, you ask? We know some level of inequity
will always exist. The key as Deresiewicz says “is to prevent that inequality
from being handed down.” “Above all it means eliminating inequality in K-12.” That
would take equitable funding nationwide or providing low-income families with
what they need to compete from the beginning as they do in Finland Canada, and
Singapore.
I ask, how can we do that without a change in our
excellent sheep who, according to Caitlin Flanagan, “preen ourselves on our progressive
views on race, gender, and sexuality, but we blind ourselves to the social
division that matters the most, that we guard most jealously, that forms the
basis of our comfort, our self respect, and even of our virtue itself: class.”
The answer is Deresiewicz’s. “If we are to create a
decent, a just society, a wise and prosperous society where children can learn
for the love of learning and people can work for the love of work, then that is
what we must believe. We don't have to
love our neighbors as ourselves, but we need to love our neighbor’s children as
our own. We have tried meritocracy. Now it is time to try democracy.”
David Greene
Author: Doing The Right Thing: A Teacher Speaks
Save Our Schools Treasurer
TWITTER: @dcgmentor
While your blog has a catchy title, I don't see any recommendations for how we might fix education policy. Please elaborate?
ReplyDeleteYou write, "That would take equitable funding nationwide or providing low-income families with what they need to compete from the beginning as they do in Finland Canada, and Singapore." Easier said than done. How about some more specifics. If you can clearly articulate a plan that can be implemented and, yes, even adopted as policy, many American educators would be willing to work with you to make that happen. Sincerely, Leslie Rose