2012-02-03T09:24:19-08:00 http://embrangler.com/ Paul Craciunoiu paul@craciunoiu.net 2009-10-05T00:00:00-07:00 http://embrangler.com/2009/10/ed60-labaree <p>As part of my education 60 class, we have to read a paper by David Labaree, on schools: seen as a private vs public goal.</p> <p>Summary:</p> <ul> <li> <p>Three alternative goals for american education:</p> <ul> <li><strong>democratic equality</strong>: for citizens, everyone needs to know as much as possible, education needs to be accessible to everyone in order to create a true democracy, so anyone can contribute (public good)</li> <li><strong>social efficiency</strong>: for workers, everyone benefits from more skilled workers, make education more practical by offering more practical study matters and some degree of stratification (private training for public benefit)</li> <li><strong>social mobility</strong>: for individuals, the benefit largely goes to the individual consumer, who gains a salary increase or mainains his/her position on the social scale; this provides further stratification and differentiation between institutions (even with similar programs), as well as within institutions (from remedial to gifted)</li> </ul> </li> <li> <p><strong>Democratic equality</strong> - Summary:</p> <ul> <li>Most political purpose of American education</li> <li>Three distinct operational forms:</li> <li>Citizenship training &#8211; prevent selfishness, instill dedication to public, &#8220;it&#8217;s hard to make Republicans,&#8221; need to training</li> <li>Equal treatment &#8211; Horace Mann, fear of class conflict, sense of shared membership and community, egalitarian to sex, race, ethnicity</li> <li>Equal access &#8211; everyone should have an equal opportunity, provide enough schools, higher education becomes the norm</li> </ul> </li> <li> <p><strong>Social efficiency</strong> - Summary:</p> <ul> <li>Practical constraints, vocationalism: make the school curriculum more responsive to job needs</li> <li>Ruled by the simple reality that students eventually leave schools and join the workforce</li> <li>Result was the creation of vocational programs, particularly at high school and community college levels</li> <li>General education seen as impractical: &#8220;For a long time all boys were trained to be President&#8230; Now we are training them to get jobs.&#8221; (Robert and Helen Lynd)</li> <li>Compelling logic: benefits public (anyone) to spend on education. It is in the interest of the taxpayer (sound investment)</li> </ul> </li> <li> <p><strong>Social mobility</strong> - Summary:</p> <ul> <li>Individual benefit, status attainment. Private good.</li> <li>Asks &#8220;what can a school do for me, the individual consumer?&#8221;</li> <li>Education understood as a way to get ahead or stay in sync.</li> <li>Grading, hierarchy, more selective at higher levels to ensure distinction</li> <li>Qualitative differences between institutions</li> <li>Qualitative differences within institutions</li> <li>Contrasts with previous two, education is seen as an <em>exchange</em> value rather than a <em>use</em> value</li> <li>&#8220;Students quickly come to the conclusion that what matters most is not the knowledge they learn in school but the credentials they acquire there&#8221; (Labaree)</li> <li>Education becomes more <em>meritocratic</em>, leads to competition and wariness =&#62; fairness</li> <li>Meritocracy much more visible in higher levels</li> </ul> </li> <li> <p>Historical patterns of goal ascendancy</p> <ul> <li>19th century was dominated by democratic equality</li> <li>increasing number of students led to need for distinction, potential for getting ahead =&#62; social mobility and efficiency</li> <li>1960s - 1970s - democratic equality again, for racial and sex discrimination</li> <li>1980s - 1990s - shifted back to social efficiency + mobility, for educational standards and usefulness of education</li> <li>More and more, education goals emphasize winning over learning, opportunity over efficiency</li> <li>Resulted from decentralized control (little federal and state ruling), which led to market/local education, consumer choice, competition, stratified curriculum, local autonomy for schools</li> </ul> </li> <li> <p><strong>Social mobility vs social efficiency</strong></p> <ul> <li> <p>(agree with democratic equality) Social mobility supports greater access to schooling for people to have an equal chance of getting ahead</p> </li> <li> <p>(agree with democratic equality) Social mobility allocates rewards based on individual achievement, not race, gender, ethnicity, class, etc</p> </li> <li> <p>Ideology of the three programs:</p> <ul> <li>democratic equality: politically democratic, socially egalitarian</li> <li>social mobility: politically liberal, socially meritocratic</li> <li>common ground between the above two, socially + politically is considered a progressive view</li> <li>social efficiency: politically conservative, socially reproductive (reinforce existing structure)</li> </ul> </li> <li> <p>Successes from coalition between social mobility and democratic equality:</p> <ul> <li>variety of choices</li> <li>less discrimination</li> <li>accepting returning students</li> <li>hiring because of credentials rather than characteristics</li> </ul> </li> <li> <p>Primary opposition comes from social efficiency</p> <ul> <li>need for positions in job market is not met</li> <li>rising costs for poor families</li> <li>more worry about getting a job than getting ahead</li> <li>as taxpayers, contributing to education for <em>other people&#8217;s children</em></li> <li>produce workforce to provide measurable economic benefits to society as a whole</li> </ul> </li> <li> <p>Dispute over tracking, guidance and vocationalism</p> </li> <li> <p>Result is a bold mixture of purposes in American education, anyone has a possibility to get to the top (_contest mobility_, acc. to Turner), but with low probability</p> </li> <li> <p>Contrasts:</p> <ul> <li>greater access (mobility) vs reducing costs (effective)</li> <li>concentrate resources on highest levels (mobility) vs high quality on all levels (effective)</li> <li>undercuts learning by promoting minimum level to attain credentials (mobility) vs need to upgrade skills of the workforce (effective)</li> </ul> </li> <li> <p>Similarities:</p> <ul> <li>schools need to adapt to the structure of inequality</li> <li>subordinate schools to needs of market</li> <li>lead to highly stratified structure of education</li> <li>providing high access to highest end, most desirable jobs is counterproductive and also not giving an edge to a select few</li> </ul> </li> <li> <p>Social mobility can only be promoted to the extent that it reduce the chance for the lower end to get to the top (opposite of democratic equality)</p> </li> </ul> </li> <li> <p><strong>Social mobility vs democratic equality</strong></p> <ul> <li>both for equal access</li> <li>mobility against equal treatment and civic virtue</li> <li>equal <em>treatment</em>opposite of equal <em>educational treatment</em></li> <li><em>civic virtue</em> is about politics as opposed to the market. social mobility is for market value (progressive individualism, capitalist ideology), not political value</li> <li>progressive individualism = individual pursuing competitive success in the market</li> <li>purpose of democratic equality: republicans</li> <li>purpose of social efficiency: workers</li> <li>purpose of social mobility: winners</li> <li>social mobility caused school to have value not for its intrinsic usefulness (things you learn), but for its exchangeability</li> <li>citizenship training has become, as a result, much less present</li> <li>good citizenship has morphed into behaving in accordance with school rules</li> <li>social mobility encourages <em>surrogate learning</em> - <strong><em>as long as credits are gained, what occurs in classrooms is allowed to pass for education</em></strong></li> <li>exchange value is assumed (mistakenly) to reflect use value</li> <li>schooling for mobility is like farming for the market &#8211; maximize the exchange value</li> <li>Labaree suggests that the reason students are less successful from the perspective of academic achievement is because the purpose of schooling is, at its core, anti-educational &#8211;&#62; students are well schooled but poorly educated, master of forms but not of content. The classic question &#8220;Will this be on the test?&#8221; illustrates this.</li> <li>&#8220;levels of educational attainment keep rising, while levels of social mobility remain the same&#8221; (pg 70)</li> </ul> </li> <li> <p>Conclusion</p> <ul> <li> <p>Contradiction:</p> <ul> <li>these three goals created a contradiction that is contradictory and frequently counterproductive</li> <li>we <em>distinguish</em> students by merit and grades, but undermine this through <em>homogenizing</em> practices such as grade inflation, social promotion</li> <li>we bring all students under the same roof, but make sure everyone has a different experience there</li> <li>we offer everyone access to higher education, while assuming social benefits are sharply stratified</li> <li>we focus on preparing students for work, but devote our efforts to providing a thoroughly general education</li> <li>education is deficient at carrying out any of its goals effectively &#8211; we continue to ask ends that are mutually exclusive</li> </ul> </li> <li> <p>Credentialism</p> <ul> <li>translating educational attainment into social attainment</li> <li>since the interests are either job competency or general knowledge (from gen ed), credentials are expected to be irrelevant</li> <li>the reality, however, is the opposite &#8211; Boudon&#8217;s model predicts this</li> <li>elevates schooling into an instrument for achieving the American dream</li> <li>credentials market is where aspirations raised by education meet the cold reality of socioeconomic limits</li> <li>educational opportunities grow faster than job opportunities</li> <li>the ability of a diploma to buy a good job declines</li> <li>credentialism undermines learning, promotes spending time and money for little economic benefit</li> <li>carries out in a manner that is individually rational and collectively irrational</li> </ul> </li> <li> <p>Possibility</p> <ul> <li>biggest problem in society nowadays is not that these three major ideals exist and are in conflict, but the thread of social mobility overshadowing the other two =&#62; education as private good</li> <li>need to draw on core goal of education &#8211; to provide everyone with the capacities required for full political participation and working abilities</li> </ul> </li> </ul> </li> </ul> <p>And that&#8217;s the summary of a 45 page article!</p> <p>I look forward to writing an essay based on this, in 2 weeks time.</p>