Are
there any major purposes of schooling left out by Labaree? What do you make of
his conclusion (Is there any hope to push back against the predominant notion
of education as a private good?)?
We talked about "narrative creation" and Labaree briefly mentions the flattening of historical narratives of citizenship in reference to MLK holiday celebrations, which I think is the perfect example of how in an effort to appropriate the values of the struggles toward social justice, societal places a lot of value in divorcing or individuating the anti-justice/enemies/whatever you want to call what has to stand in for the reified inequalities that have had to be fought for throughout any social movements. So for example, with MLK in particular, this being the 45 anniversary of his death last month, there was a renewed call by several labor groups to remind the public that, while racism surely played a part in his death, Dr. King was in Memphis specifically in support of multi-racial sanitation worker strike, and that in the years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act, he was hugely influential as a Vietnam War critic. As well as the cultural forgetting that he was fighting against the inequalities espoused by the American system of government itself...not simply an enemy state or bad actors. So in just this example, there is a real need to tell not just uplifting stories of history or culture, but to also highlight the hard-fought values of justice-based equality, agency, access, etc that do allow for the ends of the democratic model.
To that end, I find it really interesting then, as a product of the social mobility purpose of education, how it lends itself to the language of democracy while much more so aligning itself with the realities of capitalism. Labaree mentions that this model of education has a necessarily stratified structure to it allowing for the end goals of personal credentials to have some real, tangible advantages over lesser or lower goals, but to also limit those opportunities as a an additionally necessary product of this structure.
So to my point that the result then is aligned with a capitalistic understanding of investment: hard work + opportunity + luck + privilege = results. Whereas the language that might describe this structure: merit, equal opportunity, equality and so forth, give off the impression of equality and justice, they hide the realities that those already starting in "rarefied" spaces that Labaree describes, have much greater access to further progress, but also, they have far fewer obstacles in between their initial starting place and their goals. This would not be as big of a problem if there weren't that limited space at the top. If there were some kind of idealized form of education, even one heavily influenced by economic pursuit, like a new allegory of the Cave in which those who awaken, struggle, and succeed all get their own, but unending, slice of pie....that would still reflect a form of justice, but rather, the close guardedness of the system, the structural inequalities at play in society, the stacked deck not just in favor of privilege but additionally against lack of privilege turn the idealistic narrative of "Horatio Alger" and garblegarble bootstraps into a much more nefarious situation as there's a whole host of cottage industries designed to monetize the process of this form of education....Kaplan, for profit college, College Board, tutoring, and student debt.
So is there any hope? Eeeeeeeeeeh, I don't know. Obviously there's a long slow battle to push back against the privatization of these various institutions and against the products (education, credentials)of this purpose. Often these kinds of changes work very much like a ratchet clamp or the plastic cuffs used at a protest....they get tighter, but they don't move backward. In class we talked about NJ and WI and how almost out of principle alone we saw the newly elected governors there trying to eradicate already hard-won benefits. I have to believe there's hope...the protests that are starting to come out of places like WI and Chicago and even across other industries definitely seem to represent pushback against these ideas....and the recent protests in Quebec and other places suggest there's a growing unrest. Perhaps that's one place to begin to talk about solutions.
We also mentioned the teaching of values. I think that when you can talk about the values of justice and equality and liberation (as opposed to simply liberty) you can do so without automatically hitting on ideology and reach students this way. I don't know if that counts as subversive..
Labaree mentioned three important aspects to schooling. He discussed how schools shape citizens and how schools prepare students for vocations and careers. Last he discussed how schools allow students to see their credentials as social capital to allow them to move up in society. However, he does not discuss how schools by representation introduce students to diversity, either through the teachers own diverse backgrounds or through the unique backgrounds and cultures of the students. Even though Labaree may cast this off as a social argument, it has political undertones. In some public schools, students interact with students from various cultures and ethnicities. These interactions encourage tolerance, self control, and equality. At the same time, the interactions can also encourage alienation, isolation, and discrimination. However, it prepares students for the differences that appear in the work world.
In terms of Labaree's conclusion, it falls back on the notion that democratic equality and social efficiency are enough, or at least strong enough to combat and fend off the influences of education as a private good. However, social mobility, and its connotations of social stratification and social inefficiency bring acts of disadvantage and inequality that ideals cannot fix. There needs to be a pragmatism and not just wishful thinking. The historian, Gavin Wright came to mind. He claims that one of the drivers of economic change in the southern black community after the civil rights movement was a greater representation of African Americans in the workplace.
To combat social mobility, students from underprivileged backgrounds should be educated immediately on its effects and how they should start to view their education. Representation brings power, confidence, and inspiration. Labaree misses this point because he focuses too much on the idealism of Jeffersonian democracy. However, during Jefferson's time, slaves were not included in this notion that everyone deserved a public education. In addition, as slavery turned into Jim Crow and the Black Codes along with brutal immigration policies, access to information, whether more education, better jobs, or social mobility became severely hindered.
In other words, if you consider social efficiency and democratic equality in this context, they both represent exclusionary spheres of influence that were not directed at everyone.
While Labree points out that schooling is valued for promoting democratic equality, social efficiency, and social mobility either separately on in some combination, he leaves out school's place in establishing social and behavioral norms for children as well as it's roll as a sort of day care for children until they are old enough to be on their own. One might argue that the concept of democratic equality encompasses imposing on children the behaviors and norms that society would expect from them. After all, to become a fully functioning citizen who can vote, collect and process information about political issues, and run for office requires knowing how to "act properly" to a degree. However, Labree makes it clear that by democratic equality he means making sure that children are instilled with a very narrow concept of "political competence" so that society perseveres into the next generation. Instilling behavioral norms in children goes far beyond that. In order to function properly in society, people need to know how to share, how to interact with people, and what society considers proper versus improper. This shapes children into knowledgeable adults that know, for example, they cannot steal from people as they learned early on that plagiarism and copying someone else's work is wrong. Now, one could argue that parents can teach their children these things, but learning to interact with authority figures encompasses only part of learning how to function in society. Interacting with large groups of peers with different beliefs and values requires a large group of dissimilar people, something school offers from an early age. Moreover, another problem with expecting parents to monitor the shaping of their children rests in the fact that for the majority of the work week they simply are not home to supervise their children. This becomes even more of a problem given the fact that there exists a growing normalcy of one parent homes or of both parents holding down jobs. As such, schools serve as day care centers for children until society decides they are old enough to reasonably take care of themselves. While this role would still occur regardless of which combination of the three values Labree discusses came to prominence, and thus he probably opted to leave it out, it is worth mentioning because it does have an impact on the average economic productivity of the household. Were public schooling to cease to exist families would have to sacrifice some of their economic potential to monitor their children, something which would greatly impact how people view schooling. As far as Labree's conclusion that education will invariably become a private good, I do not think the state of education will completely degrade to the point where society accepts its only purpose as a way to move up the social hierarchy. The sometimes frustrating thing about society is the way that popular opinions ebb and flow. While at one time an opinion about school might seem paramount, in a few decades that position could become all but forgotten in favor of a new one. Labree argues that the use of schooling as a mode of social mobility has always been present. However, the ultimate realization of that viewpoint would lead to its obsolescence. If grades and diplomas become nothing more than hyper inflated concepts, then they become as meaningless as the national currency in Zimbabwe. This would lead to them falling out of use in favor of a new type of societal currency, eventually leading to a reset in the way school works. It might swing to a completely vocation based institution where you decide what you want to be and become an apprentice in that field, it might become something else. However, since schools are required to free up parent's time so that they can work, schools will always need to exist. If their meritocracy becomes worthless, then society will find a new value for schools, resetting pendulum swing between democratic equilibrium, social mobility, and economic efficiency. - Sean McFadden
Other purposes for school Explicitly Moral: Children go to school to learn the virtues required to operate as healthy human beings (physical, mental, emotional, social). Religious: Children go to school so that they might learn the nature of the universe and the identity of the unifying force that is worthy of their worship. They are raised in the religious tradition because without it they face if not peril in this life, at least peril in the afterlife. Perpetuation of culture (not necessarily civic or political culture): School is a place to ensure that the culture of the community supporting the school is passed down in a systematic way to the next generation.
What can be done against the ideas of education as a private good? First, a summary. Both of the other main purposes for school can be tapped to provide strength in the fight against the hegemony of private good schooling. The ideas of building good citizens and effectively preparing workers for their economic future (that is for use by business) still have a powerful draw in political discourse. Because people are familiar with these ideas and because education thinkers have a long history with the implications and implementations, strong arguments can be made against deepening privatization. The most potent of these arguments might center on the damage done by the dominance of the social mobility purpose. Second, a few thoughts. I have some difficulty pinpointing Labaree's tone in this final section. Though he seems to find comfort in the system's tendency towards balance (or at least swinging back and forth), something in this conclusion smacks of exasperation when I read it. Perhaps it is because Labaree presents his views as novel, but also isolated. He is crying out to a public too caught up in their blind combat over the nitty-gritty of education politics to ever step back and consider the deeper forces at work. This is perhaps why I find the conclusion haunting. His conclusion is not that the system will naturally correct itself, but that through the conscious use of the moderating power of democratic equality and social efficiency the advance of social mobility might be reversed. This would be a positive outlook except that he voices little hope that others have noticed these same issues or that his voice will be heard. And from where I stand, national discussions about education have definitely passed his revelations by.
For starters, I think there are a lot more than three “major” purposes for schooling, but because the article seems to focus on the purposes typically seen as influencing policy in the United States, I will try to focus my own argument on the ideas that I see as being influential to this. Perhaps this is my own bias, but in more recent years especially, the concept of “social justice” (which has already been mentioned in both of our classes this summer) has entered into the discussion. I believe that this is significantly different enough from “focus[ing] on preparing citizens” (democratic equality) or “preparing individuals to compete for social positions” (social mobility) (pg. 39) to deserve its own “category”. My issue with “democratic equality” may mostly be the language Labaree uses to define it, but the idea of preparing citizens concentrates on the needs of greater society and this fails to encompass the needs and quality of life of an individual. Additionally, the concept of simply preparing students to “compete for social positions” within the established system that privileges white, heterosexual men, born into wealthy families seems like a far cry from any genuine social justice, though I recognize that it is often touted as such. I do agree with Labaree that as capitalist agendas continue to significantly influence all policy, education policy included, class and education have become more and more intrinsically linked. However, my belief that there is hope to resist this trend has been a huge influence in my personal choices to become a secondary educator. I very consciously made the decision to teach in an urban setting BECAUSE I understand that the current American education system is swayed to advantage wealth in a number of ways. Though Richmond’s schools have less revenue than Ellicot City, Maryland, the standards value the knowledge base of wealthy white children over that of urban “minorities,” and our country’s educational expectations put much higher levels of pressure on working class families than stay at home moms who can afford tutors, I do believe that enough quality teachers who are willing to be open minded and innovative and who have quality training can eventually begin to improve the education our students are getting. On a personal level this does apply to my choice to teach in an urban school, but on the flip side, educators in wealthy schools can reassess the subjective value of the standards they are asked to teach and begin incorporating a different kind of critical thinking into their classes, one that fosters compassion, awareness, and even activism. -Lindsay Salyards
I think that Labree leaves out the desire of the students. Each student has certain goals and aspirations that they want to achieve, but those students end up forgetting those goals and conforming to Labree's three main purposes of education. The students are working towards being successful member of society by competing for grades and admission into prestigious programs through Social mobility but are driven by the conformity placed upon them through Labree's example of social efficiency. I agree with Labree's three main pricinples of education but that there are other attributiing factors that are set aside for sociey. These factors contribute to social mobility, driving education as a private good from social standards and the need for a competitive edge. I do not believe that there is hope to push back the notion of education as a private good, because of the constant battle that each of the principles are waging against the other. This causes a rift throughout the education community and does not lend towards a unified or common goal resulting in a potential divide of educational goals.
In his paper, Lebaree presents three competing aims for education in America (democratic equality, social efficiency, and social mobility), that, under his construct, may be sufficiently all-encompassing. That is not to say that his discussion addressed some of the other purposes for schooling. As a case in point, we can look at his three primary purposes: 1) to prepare us to be citizens; 2) to prepare us to be workers; 3) to help us to get ahead. His discussion on developing citizens included citizenship training, providing equal treatment, and providing equal access. Certainly, one of the aims of the educational system is to teach socially acceptable norms and behaviors (that may or may not) be taught in the home. It definitely could be posited that this aim ultimately supports the aim of making us better citizens (as it leads to following laws, proper interaction with our fellow human beings, and the like). It could even be seen as helping the aim of preparing us to be workers. More recently, the topic of social justice and education's role has in it has emerged as a hot topic. This is another area that potentially could fall under democratic equality or even social efficiency. For example,if one of the aims of education is to increase the educational level of students in a historically disadvantaged area that suffers from high levels of poor achievement, that that actually aligns with parts of social efficiency because you are taking a segment of the population and increasing its productivity. Of course, it could potentially be under the umbrella of democratic equality, specifically the push for equal access. In any case, Labarre didn't specifically address these other purposes, so it is unknown whether including them under his broad three categories would be in meeting with his intent.
Labarre's conclusions about the tension between the three competing aims and how the individual, market-driven, social mobility aim, with its focus on credentialing, has become dominant in today's educational environment is unfortunately an accurate assessment. I believe that this mentality has become so entrenched in American culture, that it would be very difficult to change. Such a dramatic change might only be possible following a significant even for the country (or a Sputnik moment, to use that expression). President Bush had that opportunity after 9/11 and could have taken steps to move the country in a different direction, but didn't (well, at least not in the educational arena. Ok, he did with NCLB, but that's not the change in direction needed). But there is also hope for change at the grassroots level. Class-by-class, school-by-school, district-by-district, passionate and committed educators and administrators can make a difference by making changes and actively communicating those changes with their communities as well.
I agree with Lebaree's three aims of education (democratic equality, social efficiency, and social mobility). In his conclusion he speaks about the contradiction of educational institutions. Lebaree talks about how it is frequently counterproductive. I tend to agree with Lebaree on this point. Especially when he speaks about the focus of our education institutions on educating people for work which undermines conceptions on learning. Lebaree goes on saying that we then devote most efforts to providing general education leaving most unprepared. For example, instead of sending kids to school and encouraging them to learn as much as possible, we send them to learn a small portion in order to prepare them for what they may be most likely to use in the American workforce. I feel that this model is what has made us fall behind in some, if not all, areas in education in the World. He ends the contradiction with a very good point, in my opinion, pushing harder for one goal undermines another and all of this pushing and pulling on educational institution leaves it in a no-win situation.
I do not think Labaree left any major purposes of schooling out. I agree with his presentation of the three goals. I say this because as reading I was able to reflect upon my own matriculation through Baltimore City public schools. First being the goal of democratic equality where Labaree describes that schools have been made to allow equal access he says, “Equal access has come to mean that every American should have an equal opportunity to acquire an education at any educational level (Labaree 46)” In elementary school I did have an equal opportunity to acquire education, but going to school in Baltimore County first (preK through 1st grade) I did not have the same opportunities as I had going to school in Baltimore City (2nd through 12th grade). I see where the attempt was made by the government/society to grant me this equal opportunity, but it was not actually equal all across the board. Secondly, the goal of social efficiency in Baltimore City was very prominent when selecting a high school to attend. We were to choose what high school we wanted to attend based upon what trades were offered at the school, but yet we were limited by the goal of social mobility because certain schools with certain trades were not always the best performing schools. That’s how I ended up at high school that was known for Engineering and Science. I didn’t want to go to a lower performing school. I can really connect with Labaree’s position on the three goals. I think that it would take an immense amount of time to push back against the predomination notion of education as a private good. In my own experiences through a public school system I can see where the attempt is trying to be made, but even at our earliest age we are trained to think as school being a private good simply when we ask “what do you want to be when you grow up.” Any answer other than doctor, lawyer, or president is in some form frowned upon.
We talked about "narrative creation" and Labaree briefly mentions the flattening of historical narratives of citizenship in reference to MLK holiday celebrations, which I think is the perfect example of how in an effort to appropriate the values of the struggles toward social justice, societal places a lot of value in divorcing or individuating the anti-justice/enemies/whatever you want to call what has to stand in for the reified inequalities that have had to be fought for throughout any social movements. So for example, with MLK in particular, this being the 45 anniversary of his death last month, there was a renewed call by several labor groups to remind the public that, while racism surely played a part in his death, Dr. King was in Memphis specifically in support of multi-racial sanitation worker strike, and that in the years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act, he was hugely influential as a Vietnam War critic. As well as the cultural forgetting that he was fighting against the inequalities espoused by the American system of government itself...not simply an enemy state or bad actors. So in just this example, there is a real need to tell not just uplifting stories of history or culture, but to also highlight the hard-fought values of justice-based equality, agency, access, etc that do allow for the ends of the democratic model.
ReplyDeleteTo that end, I find it really interesting then, as a product of the social mobility purpose of education, how it lends itself to the language of democracy while much more so aligning itself with the realities of capitalism. Labaree mentions that this model of education has a necessarily stratified structure to it allowing for the end goals of personal credentials to have some real, tangible advantages over lesser or lower goals, but to also limit those opportunities as a an additionally necessary product of this structure.
So to my point that the result then is aligned with a capitalistic understanding of investment: hard work + opportunity + luck + privilege = results. Whereas the language that might describe this structure: merit, equal opportunity, equality and so forth, give off the impression of equality and justice, they hide the realities that those already starting in "rarefied" spaces that Labaree describes, have much greater access to further progress, but also, they have far fewer obstacles in between their initial starting place and their goals. This would not be as big of a problem if there weren't that limited space at the top. If there were some kind of idealized form of education, even one heavily influenced by economic pursuit, like a new allegory of the Cave in which those who awaken, struggle, and succeed all get their own, but unending, slice of pie....that would still reflect a form of justice, but rather, the close guardedness of the system, the structural inequalities at play in society, the stacked deck not just in favor of privilege but additionally against lack of privilege turn the idealistic narrative of "Horatio Alger" and garblegarble bootstraps into a much more nefarious situation as there's a whole host of cottage industries designed to monetize the process of this form of education....Kaplan, for profit college, College Board, tutoring, and student debt.
So is there any hope? Eeeeeeeeeeh, I don't know. Obviously there's a long slow battle to push back against the privatization of these various institutions and against the products (education, credentials)of this purpose. Often these kinds of changes work very much like a ratchet clamp or the plastic cuffs used at a protest....they get tighter, but they don't move backward. In class we talked about NJ and WI and how almost out of principle alone we saw the newly elected governors there trying to eradicate already hard-won benefits. I have to believe there's hope...the protests that are starting to come out of places like WI and Chicago and even across other industries definitely seem to represent pushback against these ideas....and the recent protests in Quebec and other places suggest there's a growing unrest. Perhaps that's one place to begin to talk about solutions.
DeleteWe also mentioned the teaching of values. I think that when you can talk about the values of justice and equality and liberation (as opposed to simply liberty) you can do so without automatically hitting on ideology and reach students this way. I don't know if that counts as subversive..
Labaree mentioned three important aspects to schooling. He discussed how schools shape citizens and how schools prepare students for vocations and careers. Last he discussed how schools allow students to see their credentials as social capital to allow them to move up in society. However, he does not discuss how schools by representation introduce students to diversity, either through the teachers own diverse backgrounds or through the unique backgrounds and cultures of the students. Even though Labaree may cast this off as a social argument, it has political undertones. In some public schools, students interact with students from various cultures and ethnicities. These interactions encourage tolerance, self control, and equality. At the same time, the interactions can also encourage alienation, isolation, and discrimination. However, it prepares students for the differences that appear in the work world.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of Labaree's conclusion, it falls back on the notion that democratic equality and social efficiency are enough, or at least strong enough to combat and fend off the influences of education as a private good. However, social mobility, and its connotations of social stratification and social inefficiency bring acts of disadvantage and inequality that ideals cannot fix. There needs to be a pragmatism and not just wishful thinking.
The historian, Gavin Wright came to mind. He claims that one of the drivers of economic change in the southern black community after the civil rights movement was a greater representation of African Americans in the workplace.
To combat social mobility, students from underprivileged backgrounds should be educated immediately on its effects and how they should start to view their education. Representation brings power, confidence, and inspiration. Labaree misses this point because he focuses too much on the idealism of Jeffersonian democracy. However, during Jefferson's time, slaves were not included in this notion that everyone deserved a public education. In addition, as slavery turned into Jim Crow and the Black Codes along with brutal immigration policies, access to information, whether more education, better jobs, or social mobility became severely hindered.
In other words, if you consider social efficiency and democratic equality in this context, they both represent exclusionary spheres of influence that were not directed at everyone.
While Labree points out that schooling is valued for promoting democratic equality, social efficiency, and social mobility either separately on in some combination, he leaves out school's place in establishing social and behavioral norms for children as well as it's roll as a sort of day care for children until they are old enough to be on their own.
ReplyDeleteOne might argue that the concept of democratic equality encompasses imposing on children the behaviors and norms that society would expect from them. After all, to become a fully functioning citizen who can vote, collect and process information about political issues, and run for office requires knowing how to "act properly" to a degree. However, Labree makes it clear that by democratic equality he means making sure that children are instilled with a very narrow concept of "political competence" so that society perseveres into the next generation. Instilling behavioral norms in children goes far beyond that. In order to function properly in society, people need to know how to share, how to interact with people, and what society considers proper versus improper. This shapes children into knowledgeable adults that know, for example, they cannot steal from people as they learned early on that plagiarism and copying someone else's work is wrong. Now, one could argue that parents can teach their children these things, but learning to interact with authority figures encompasses only part of learning how to function in society. Interacting with large groups of peers with different beliefs and values requires a large group of dissimilar people, something school offers from an early age.
Moreover, another problem with expecting parents to monitor the shaping of their children rests in the fact that for the majority of the work week they simply are not home to supervise their children. This becomes even more of a problem given the fact that there exists a growing normalcy of one parent homes or of both parents holding down jobs. As such, schools serve as day care centers for children until society decides they are old enough to reasonably take care of themselves. While this role would still occur regardless of which combination of the three values Labree discusses came to prominence, and thus he probably opted to leave it out, it is worth mentioning because it does have an impact on the average economic productivity of the household. Were public schooling to cease to exist families would have to sacrifice some of their economic potential to monitor their children, something which would greatly impact how people view schooling.
As far as Labree's conclusion that education will invariably become a private good, I do not think the state of education will completely degrade to the point where society accepts its only purpose as a way to move up the social hierarchy. The sometimes frustrating thing about society is the way that popular opinions ebb and flow. While at one time an opinion about school might seem paramount, in a few decades that position could become all but forgotten in favor of a new one. Labree argues that the use of schooling as a mode of social mobility has always been present. However, the ultimate realization of that viewpoint would lead to its obsolescence. If grades and diplomas become nothing more than hyper inflated concepts, then they become as meaningless as the national currency in Zimbabwe. This would lead to them falling out of use in favor of a new type of societal currency, eventually leading to a reset in the way school works. It might swing to a completely vocation based institution where you decide what you want to be and become an apprentice in that field, it might become something else. However, since schools are required to free up parent's time so that they can work, schools will always need to exist. If their meritocracy becomes worthless, then society will find a new value for schools, resetting pendulum swing between democratic equilibrium, social mobility, and economic efficiency.
- Sean McFadden
Other purposes for school
ReplyDeleteExplicitly Moral: Children go to school to learn the virtues required to operate as healthy human beings (physical, mental, emotional, social).
Religious: Children go to school so that they might learn the nature of the universe and the identity of the unifying force that is worthy of their worship. They are raised in the religious tradition because without it they face if not peril in this life, at least peril in the afterlife.
Perpetuation of culture (not necessarily civic or political culture): School is a place to ensure that the culture of the community supporting the school is passed down in a systematic way to the next generation.
What can be done against the ideas of education as a private good?
First, a summary. Both of the other main purposes for school can be tapped to provide strength in the fight against the hegemony of private good schooling. The ideas of building good citizens and effectively preparing workers for their economic future (that is for use by business) still have a powerful draw in political discourse. Because people are familiar with these ideas and because education thinkers have a long history with the implications and implementations, strong arguments can be made against deepening privatization. The most potent of these arguments might center on the damage done by the dominance of the social mobility purpose.
Second, a few thoughts. I have some difficulty pinpointing Labaree's tone in this final section. Though he seems to find comfort in the system's tendency towards balance (or at least swinging back and forth), something in this conclusion smacks of exasperation when I read it. Perhaps it is because Labaree presents his views as novel, but also isolated. He is crying out to a public too caught up in their blind combat over the nitty-gritty of education politics to ever step back and consider the deeper forces at work. This is perhaps why I find the conclusion haunting. His conclusion is not that the system will naturally correct itself, but that through the conscious use of the moderating power of democratic equality and social efficiency the advance of social mobility might be reversed. This would be a positive outlook except that he voices little hope that others have noticed these same issues or that his voice will be heard. And from where I stand, national discussions about education have definitely passed his revelations by.
For starters, I think there are a lot more than three “major” purposes for schooling, but because the article seems to focus on the purposes typically seen as influencing policy in the United States, I will try to focus my own argument on the ideas that I see as being influential to this. Perhaps this is my own bias, but in more recent years especially, the concept of “social justice” (which has already been mentioned in both of our classes this summer) has entered into the discussion. I believe that this is significantly different enough from “focus[ing] on preparing citizens” (democratic equality) or “preparing individuals to compete for social positions” (social mobility) (pg. 39) to deserve its own “category”. My issue with “democratic equality” may mostly be the language Labaree uses to define it, but the idea of preparing citizens concentrates on the needs of greater society and this fails to encompass the needs and quality of life of an individual. Additionally, the concept of simply preparing students to “compete for social positions” within the established system that privileges white, heterosexual men, born into wealthy families seems like a far cry from any genuine social justice, though I recognize that it is often touted as such.
ReplyDeleteI do agree with Labaree that as capitalist agendas continue to significantly influence all policy, education policy included, class and education have become more and more intrinsically linked. However, my belief that there is hope to resist this trend has been a huge influence in my personal choices to become a secondary educator. I very consciously made the decision to teach in an urban setting BECAUSE I understand that the current American education system is swayed to advantage wealth in a number of ways. Though Richmond’s schools have less revenue than Ellicot City, Maryland, the standards value the knowledge base of wealthy white children over that of urban “minorities,” and our country’s educational expectations put much higher levels of pressure on working class families than stay at home moms who can afford tutors, I do believe that enough quality teachers who are willing to be open minded and innovative and who have quality training can eventually begin to improve the education our students are getting. On a personal level this does apply to my choice to teach in an urban school, but on the flip side, educators in wealthy schools can reassess the subjective value of the standards they are asked to teach and begin incorporating a different kind of critical thinking into their classes, one that fosters compassion, awareness, and even activism.
-Lindsay Salyards
I think that Labree leaves out the desire of the students. Each student has certain goals and aspirations that they want to achieve, but those students end up forgetting those goals and conforming to Labree's three main purposes of education. The students are working towards being successful member of society by competing for grades and admission into prestigious programs through Social mobility but are driven by the conformity placed upon them through Labree's example of social efficiency.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Labree's three main pricinples of education but that there are other attributiing factors that are set aside for sociey. These factors contribute to social mobility, driving education as a private good from social standards and the need for a competitive edge. I do not believe that there is hope to push back the notion of education as a private good, because of the constant battle that each of the principles are waging against the other. This causes a rift throughout the education community and does not lend towards a unified or common goal resulting in a potential divide of educational goals.
In his paper, Lebaree presents three competing aims for education in America (democratic equality, social efficiency, and social mobility), that, under his construct, may be sufficiently all-encompassing. That is not to say that his discussion addressed some of the other purposes for schooling. As a case in point, we can look at his three primary purposes: 1) to prepare us to be citizens; 2) to prepare us to be workers; 3) to help us to get ahead. His discussion on developing citizens included citizenship training, providing equal treatment, and providing equal access. Certainly, one of the aims of the educational system is to teach socially acceptable norms and behaviors (that may or may not) be taught in the home. It definitely could be posited that this aim ultimately supports the aim of making us better citizens (as it leads to following laws, proper interaction with our fellow human beings, and the like). It could even be seen as helping the aim of preparing us to be workers. More recently, the topic of social justice and education's role has in it has emerged as a hot topic. This is another area that potentially could fall under democratic equality or even social efficiency. For example,if one of the aims of education is to increase the educational level of students in a historically disadvantaged area that suffers from high levels of poor achievement, that that actually aligns with parts of social efficiency because you are taking a segment of the population and increasing its productivity. Of course, it could potentially be under the umbrella of democratic equality, specifically the push for equal access. In any case, Labarre didn't specifically address these other purposes, so it is unknown whether including them under his broad three categories would be in meeting with his intent.
ReplyDeleteLabarre's conclusions about the tension between the three competing aims and how the individual, market-driven, social mobility aim, with its focus on credentialing, has become dominant in today's educational environment is unfortunately an accurate assessment. I believe that this mentality has become so entrenched in American culture, that it would be very difficult to change. Such a dramatic change might only be possible following a significant even for the country (or a Sputnik moment, to use that expression). President Bush had that opportunity after 9/11 and could have taken steps to move the country in a different direction, but didn't (well, at least not in the educational arena. Ok, he did with NCLB, but that's not the change in direction needed). But there is also hope for change at the grassroots level. Class-by-class, school-by-school, district-by-district, passionate and committed educators and administrators can make a difference by making changes and actively communicating those changes with their communities as well.
Karl Ottmar
I agree with Lebaree's three aims of education (democratic equality, social efficiency, and social mobility). In his conclusion he speaks about the contradiction of educational institutions. Lebaree talks about how it is frequently counterproductive. I tend to agree with Lebaree on this point. Especially when he speaks about the focus of our education institutions on educating people for work which undermines conceptions on learning. Lebaree goes on saying that we then devote most efforts to providing general education leaving most unprepared. For example, instead of sending kids to school and encouraging them to learn as much as possible, we send them to learn a small portion in order to prepare them for what they may be most likely to use in the American workforce. I feel that this model is what has made us fall behind in some, if not all, areas in education in the World. He ends the contradiction with a very good point, in my opinion, pushing harder for one goal undermines another and all of this pushing and pulling on educational institution leaves it in a no-win situation.
ReplyDelete-Kyle Kimbrell
I do not think Labaree left any major purposes of schooling out. I agree with his presentation of the three goals. I say this because as reading I was able to reflect upon my own matriculation through Baltimore City public schools. First being the goal of democratic equality where Labaree describes that schools have been made to allow equal access he says, “Equal access has come to mean that every American should have an equal opportunity to acquire an education at any educational level (Labaree 46)” In elementary school I did have an equal opportunity to acquire education, but going to school in Baltimore County first (preK through 1st grade) I did not have the same opportunities as I had going to school in Baltimore City (2nd through 12th grade). I see where the attempt was made by the government/society to grant me this equal opportunity, but it was not actually equal all across the board. Secondly, the goal of social efficiency in Baltimore City was very prominent when selecting a high school to attend. We were to choose what high school we wanted to attend based upon what trades were offered at the school, but yet we were limited by the goal of social mobility because certain schools with certain trades were not always the best performing schools. That’s how I ended up at high school that was known for Engineering and Science. I didn’t want to go to a lower performing school. I can really connect with Labaree’s position on the three goals.
ReplyDeleteI think that it would take an immense amount of time to push back against the predomination notion of education as a private good. In my own experiences through a public school system I can see where the attempt is trying to be made, but even at our earliest age we are trained to think as school being a private good simply when we ask “what do you want to be when you grow up.” Any answer other than doctor, lawyer, or president is in some form frowned upon.