“This article explores three alternative goals for American education that have been at the root of educational conflicts over the years: democratic equality (schools should focus on preparing citizens), social efficiency (they should focus on training workers), and social mobility (they should prepare individuals to compete for social positions). These goals represent, respectively, the educational perspective of the citizen, the taxpayer, and the consumer. Whereas the first two look on education as a public good, the third sees it as a private good. Historical conflict over these competing visions of education has resulted in a contradictory structure for the educational system that has sharply impaired its effectiveness. More important still has been the growing domination of the social mobility goal, which has reshaped education into a commodity for the purposes of social attainment and has elevated the pursuit of credentials over the acquisition of knowledge.”
David F. Labaree
I feel like in my education I have seen how all three of these goals have been woven together, and at this point, I’m not entirely sure where I stand on the issue. Coming into the article, I think I definitely see education as a public good that should equip students with the skills and knowledge to be contributing members of society. I guess to a certain extent I buy into the fact that education is designed to make my students competitive in the workplace….All of these have a very political/economic slant to them. I think I simply want to lead my students to be critical thinkers and effective communicators for the sake of their interpersonal and intrapersonal awareness and the success of their relationships–and then expect these skills to equip them to be good citizens and effective workers as a result of this.
“I argue that the central problems with American education are not pedagogical or organizational or social or cultural in nature but are fundamentally political. That is, the problem is not that we do not know how to make schools better but that we are fighting among ourselves about what goals schools should pursue. Goal setting is a political, and not a technical, problem. It is resolved through a process of making choices and not through a process of scientific investigation.”
I think I can buy this to a certain extent–but how do you make this choice in a democracy when there are SO MANY varied opinions. And I don’t think you can nix the value of investigation into such a problem all together; it’s necessary to a certain extent to help us make wise, research-based decisions; sometimes are values and interests are fundamentally flawed in that they are not the most effective or efficient. I think investigation is also necessary in order to ensure that whatever choice made is in the best interest of the majority (since you can’t make everyone happy). I guess voting allows for that as well…but I feel like voting can sometimes be flawed since so many of us (me included) vote from an uneducated–or uninformed–standpoint (shame on me!).
The terms of this choice arise from a fundamental source of strain at the core of any liberal democratic society, the tension between democratic politics (public rights) and capitalist markets (private rights), between majority control and individual liberty, between political equality and social inequality. In the American setting, the poles of this debate were defined during the country’s formative years by the political idealism of Thomas Jefferson and the economic realism of Alexander Hamilton. The essential problem posed by that tension is this: Unfettered economic freedom leads to a highly unequal distribution of wealth and power, which in turn undercuts the possibility for democratic control; but at the same time, restricting such economic freedom in the name of equality infringes on individual liberty, without which democracy can turn intoo the dictatorship of the majority.
This makes me wonder if it is possible to balance these two–the ideal of political equality and the reality of social inequality (UGH! I hate that–the reality of social inequality…). As a sidenote, reading this article is really making me miss studying public policy and affairs.
From the democratic equality approach to school, one argues that a democratic society cannot persist unless it prepares all of its young with equal care to take on the full responsibilities of citizenship in a competent manner…The social efficiency approach to schooling argues that our economic well-being depends on our ability to prepare the young to carry out useful economic roels with competence…The social mobility approach to schooling argues that education is a commodity, the only purpose of which is to provide individual students with a competitive advantage in the struggle for desirable social positions.
Democratic Equality
- Schools are an expression of democratic political ideals and as a mechanism for preparing children to play constructive roles ina democratic society.
- Three forms: citizenship training, equal treatment, and equal access
- Interesting quote: “That vast and overshadowing private fortunes are among the greatest dangers to which the happiness of the people in a republican be subjected…surely, nothing but Universal Education can counter-work this tendency to the domination of capital and servility of labor… acting as the balance wheel of the social machinery” (Horace Mann).
Social Efficiency
- Americans have “sought to make schools a mechanism for adapting students to the requirements of a hierarchical social structure and the demands of the occupational marketplace…bending them to the practical constraints that are embedded in the market-based structuration.”
- Logically this makes senses; school should supply society with well-equipped workers to increase productivity and therefore economic efficiency. This appears to have immediate benefits for all citizens.
- However, “the idea that schools should be making works more than making republicans has undermined the ability of schools to act as a mechanism for promoting equality of access and equality of treatment” (49).
- This leads to sorting and greater stratification.
Social Mobility
- Asserts that schools should provide students with the educational credentials they need in order get ahead in this structure or to maintain their current positions–thus recognizing and promoting social inequality.
- Views school as a private good; leads to demand for graded hierarchy and a structure that offers qualitative differences between institutions at each educational level.
- “The social mobility goal, therefore, by portraying education as a consumer commodity, produces different kinds of effects on education depending on the social class of the consumers in a given educational setting, since the social position of these consumers affects their perception of their own educational needs”–thus undermining the democratic push for equality in education.
- Education as a form of exchange value–diminishing intrinsic motivation for learning
- “There is a wealth of evidence to the contrary, suggesting that, from the moment educational credentials came to be a primary mechanism for allocating people to jobs, the exchange value of these credentials began to seperate from the learning that went into acquiring them.” WHAT A PITY!!!! No wonder learning has lost its value…
- “Consider the effects of all this on education. When they see education through the lens of social mobility, students at all levels quickly come to the conclusion that what matters most is not the knowledge they learn in school but the credentials they acquire there” (55-56). Thus, to be successful, they must learn how to play the game—and those who do, who come in with the necessary resources, will be more likely to succeed—promoting an educational form of Darwin’s survival of the fittest as well as mediocrity in learning.
In my experience, how has the social mobility goal affected my learning and/or teaching?
As I read through David Labaree’s article, “American Struggle Over Educational Goals”—particularly the section on social mobility, I was reminded of a memory from the fall of my senior year during English class. I recall having a counselor come in to talk that day about the benefits of going to college. She passed out a handout with statistics discussing different income levels based on the amount of education received. The whole purpose of the discussion was to encourage all of us to go to college—since it would allow us to make more money eventually. Looking back on this moment, I can see that my school was very much aware of the impact of the social mobility goal, and was making it somewhat transparent to the students by sharing these statistics.
As I look back on this moment as well as the rest of my education, I can certainly see how my education has been shaped by the social mobility goal. Since Kindergarten, I recall being tracked in my classes—from being put into a lower reading group in first grade because I was behind and fighting to be put in the Algebra group in eighth grade to being encouraged to be in the gifted program in elementary school and taking college-prep courses in high school. Certainly these experiences reflect the affect of social efficiency goal on education; however, what makes me think of these incidents in terms of social mobility is the awareness I had since elementary school that the paths I chose in education would dictate where I could go to college, what career I would pursue, and what my income would eventually be.
According to Labaree, the social mobility goal almost seems to make education into a game where “students at all levels quickly come to the conclusion that what matters most is not the knowledge they learn in school but the credentials they acquire there” (55-56). Thus, to be successful, they must learn how to play the game—and those who do, who come in with the necessary resources, will be more likely to succeed—promoting an educational form of Darwin’s survival of the fittest. Likewise the meritocratic principle underlying the social mobility goal places “students into groups based on similarity of socio-cognitive development and educational preparation, exposed them to the same course of instruction, and then rated them on the basis of their individual performance” (57). Based on this, it is no wonder that standardized tests as a measurement of school and student success has taken such precedence in current educational policy. Such tests all consumers to rate schools based on their success on the tests as well as to compare students.
This allows me to better understand the changing role of standardized tests that I have observed in my transition from student to teacher, particularly as I consider the use of the ACT. In my internship as well as my recent job as a test-prep tutor for a private company, I have found it interesting to see how much emphasis is on the ACT—a dynamic that I don’t recall from my high school career less than a decade ago. What I have noticed is the increased emphasis on ACT success and the degree of anxiety many of my students face when they don’t receive the score they wanted. I have had several conversations with my tutoring students and students at my placement concerning the pressure they feel with regard to the ACT—arguing that their success on the ACT dictates which college, what career they can pursue and ultimately their overall economic success. This rationale demonstrates to me that my students directly feel the effects of the social mobility goal on their individual educational experiences.
