Writing 2 Labaree

Labaree

Labaree crystallizes the underlying theoretical purposes of schooling that serve as the foundations for common frustrations educators feel. I have begun feeling very troubled by the number of responsibilities placed on schools that often oppose each other. Labaree explains those responsibilities, or perceived purposes, in a way that explains a number of issues educators face daily. By reducing all the specific goals and purposes of school into three categories and providing a historical framework, Labaree shows how tension will exist forever in public education in this country.
I have experienced the growing dominance of the social mobility goal for education when I taught at Worthington Kilbourne. The environment there is one of intense competitiveness, excessive credentialing, and extreme parental involvement for the high achieving students. When I first entered education, I thought I would enjoy teaching the gifted students in this type of atmosphere because I felt their increased academic ability would act as a springboard, so we could really examine issues at a deeper level. I found that was not the case. Labaree’s explanation of the effects of the dominating social mobility view toward education offered a number of concerns I faced including the advanced students often bargaining for points, fighting with the teacher over grades (even A-), and complaining if asked to go above and beyond or stretch beyond what would be on the test.
(OK, Ann, I know what you are thinking…I have continually complained about my A- in School Law…Goes to show how much this focus in education can affect one’s self concept as intelligent and how paranoid a student can get about how each credential will affect his/her future!)
Another side effect of the social mobility goal is grade inflation. As learning becomes more about credentialing, the motivation becomes increasingly extrinsic. The traditional English classes I taught such as freshman and sophomore English often became tedious to plan because I had to build in enough points to make sure that students would not fail if they did not do well on a unit test or project. Parents were more concerned about the grades their children had than what they had mastered or contemplated through the process of learning material. Parents also felt welcome to challenge the teacher’s grading, the point values in assignments and other assessment procedures that might affect their child’s credentials. Although the college level tends to evaluate students on fewer assessments that count for large chunks of their final grades, high school classes are expected to reward students for practicing concepts in homework assignments, labs and other activities meant to prepare them for the assessments.
Although I am drawn to the social mobility goal in some ways because I am a product of it myself, I am saddened to see its dominance has actually dumbed down education. Parents who believe in this individualistic view of education push their children hard and do teach the value of having an education, but they teach that the value is being able to be competitive at the next level. They often become so future focused they forget to let their children learn and enjoy the moment of learning. Once I started teaching, I realized the subjective nature of grades, the irrelevance of grades to learning, and the frustration of constantly dealing with them. I tried to make my classroom one where students enjoyed the process and learned to find the intrinsic value of education.
My journalism classes provided the kind of structure that fulfilled the social efficiency and democratic equality goals, to which I think that subject lends itself anyhow. Everyone could achieve and climb the ladder of the “company.” Anyone could work hard and become an editor. Everyone had a voice, and everyone had the chance to explore issues of interest in a variety of styles, such as editorials, hard news, or feature stories. Because students were interested in their topics, knew their work could educate the other students, and had the power to change actions, they worked hard and produced great work. Many of the advanced students pushed themselves a little harder as well, and many students who never considered journalism found themselves drawn to the power having a voice can give.
On the flip side, when I taught etymology, a course advertised as a great way to improve SAT scores, students memorized roots and affixes like little robots so they could score well on the language part of the test, and I am sure they promptly forgot most of it after the test. I forgot a lot of it after teaching it because the format of the class did not allow for much discussion, processing, or thought. Drill and practice. The many proponents of education that are pushing for standardized testing and curriculum that is a mile wide and an inch deep are going to find the same result. Cram for the test and forget it. I was a straight A student most of my life and I cannot remember much of what I learned.
Credentialing, however, is not all bad, and what I do like about Labaree’s analysis is his repeated claim that one goal of education is not better than another. He doesn’t vilify any of the perspectives, but rather, he claims they need to exist in a balance, which is a paradox in itself because what will satisfy one goal can actually negatively affect another. I found myself thinking a lot of the at risk students while reading this piece. As educational theorists discuss the functions of education, they often forget to acknowledge that the middle class values and cultures most public schooling teaches either directly or via the hidden curriculum are not the values and cultures the other classes and cultures may want or value.
Our country has become so keyed into the idea of success as a good paying job that yields money and things, we have forgotten that some people do not need these things to be happy, and don’t we have the inalienable right to pursue happiness. Not everyone is driven to have a 60 hour a week job or a high stress, high responsibility career that has high costs for family life and sometimes mental and physical health. I remember feeling very depressed after college. I was a product of the social mobility school of thought and I believed that if you do well in school, you will reap rewards. I remember being very depressed for career waitresses and factory workers and other blue collar people. I couldn’t understand how they could be happy when they had so clearly failed in the rat race of credentialing. Despite my good grades, I couldn’t do much with my English degree other than sales, so I sold a variety of tech products including the technology that is today OnStar and automatic greasing systems for off-road construction equipment and trucks. I made a lot of money. My friends were jealous of the items I could buy. But I wasn’t happy; I felt like a total failure. I had credentials and I wasn’t happy, so what was wrong with me?
Labaree mentions that the social mobility model of education leads students to a point where they have to face the reality that our market does not contain an unlimited number of jobs for graduates of prized degrees. Often times I think we do a disservice to people who would be just as happy in life working a blue collar job, because we set them up to think that education is the way out of that type of work, as if there is something wrong with getting one’s hands dirty or working physically demanding jobs. In essence, we demonstrate through our schools that blue collar jobs are for failures. Because our schools are competitive and about high stakes testing, credentialing, and bell curves on norm referenced tests, we send a message that only those who can get those credentials are winners.
As this perspective of education dominates over the others, school actually becomes a very socially and emotionally destructive place for many students. When schools keep a balance and also teach democracy and cooperation, they can show students their voices count and they can build social capital, a main ingredient of a participative democracy. If people feel their voices are irrelevant, or if they feel like they are failures who do not deserve a seat at the table, they will not participate in politics, even at the most local level where they may know quite a bit about what they want from their representatives. Ultimately their voice gets lost and is replaced with a middle class suburbanite who crowns him/herself guardian, and who determines what “those people” need to get out of their poor, miserable lives. “Those people” can refer to minorities, immigrants, poor people, or any other oppressed group. “Those people” need a vehicle to teach them to have a voice because the self-appointed voices often times have no clue what “those people” want because they have never been part of their culture and traditions.
The domination of the social mobility model of education is going to reach its limit, hopefully soon. If it is allowed to swallow the other aims of education, we will find ourselves in a totally privatized educational system that will be rigidly stratified along financial lines. I am optimistic, however, that Americans will not let this happen. No matter how much we may be moving in the wrong direction at the moment, our democracy is strong enough that it will right itself. Reformers will fight for the other goals of education. They will find ways to enlist business and interest groups and other politically powerful entities to fight for the social efficiency and democratic equality models. They will fight to restore balance because there is no winner or loser in regard to the three main goals of education. We are all losers if we don’t find a way to make the goals coexist in some type of impossible harmony.