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Why Have American Public School Become an Arm of the Economy
Larry Cuban

Preparing all Students for College and High-paying Jobs Narrows Mission of Civic Engagement

The end of the 19th and the end 20th century saw business-led coalitions form political alliances with public officials, union leaders, educators and community activists to see public schools prepare students for skilled jobs. These alliances resulted in curricula that displaced Civics (the stuff of public concern), supported the goals of the business community (the stuff of private concern) at the taxpayer’s expense. The resulting policy ignored a long history of public schools transforming students into civic-minded, socially responsible independent thinkers. In both instances, the fear of foreign competition led to reformers pushing for workforce training in public schools. Further, pressure was applied to see schools modeled after the corporation and marketplace. However, this led to little change in classroom practice. As such, even though the ‘bottom line’ had for a time been better teaching and learning, market-inspired reformers found new hope in test scores. The author uses vocational education in the 19th century and standards-driven testing and accountability of the 20th century to unpack his argument.

Late 19th-Early 20th

Vocational education: He explains that prior to WWI, an alliance formed to bring about new, non-traditional forms of teaching such as student made projects and curricula that included industrial-arts. Ultimately this led to progressive practices in public schools in an effort to end the industrial-skills deficit among American students. The idea was to see the State assume the burden for training workers that would in turn generate private profit and maintain corporate advantages. Additionally, admiration for the efficiency of the business model saw school boards become less political in nature and more businesslike.

1980s-2000

Once again concerns over foreign competition caused an inward look for reasons relating to the poorly performing economy. It was not long before employers blamed public schools for poorly prepared high-school graduates, low test scores, urban school violence, and the flight of white middle-class families to the suburbs. They sought to establish a link between low worker productivity and poor test scores.

A corporate formula for success was established as the result of assuming that bureaucracy undermined teaching. It included beliefs that better management, higher standards and competition would improve teaching and learning. Furthermore, it was thought that test scores were a good measure of teaching and that higher test scores meant better workplace performance.

Issues this model would have difficulty addressing included the fact that the policy was being made in public sessions by lay people, for professionals to implement , and for civic purposes other than profit-taking.

Both major political parties supported a market-based prescription and this has led to private companies now running many public (charter) schools. In effect, corporate style market competition, choice and accountability have become the de facto national policy.

“Missing from this inventory of business influences [including commercialization] is teaching and learning.” Teacher-centered practices at the high-school level persist. In fact, teaching to the test has worked against progressive teaching practices. Student-centred approaches have shrivelled under pressure for test scores and the corporate model is to blame.

“as actual choice of school was broadened, the type of schooling was narrowed”

How has this happened? Why are schools frozen in traditional forms?

1. Business has only limited influence over the political area that educational decisions take place. School boards walk a political tightrope between their views and being responsive to shifts in public opinion.
2. Age graded schools which have been taken for granted since their inception, place a pressure to cover content in a traditional manner. A ‘good’ school is the one that can produce higher test scores, and these rely on traditional teaching methods.

Of note: all along most parents and tax-payers were in agreement with the corporate model and so there was little pressure from anywhere to change these practices.

Ultimately, the author wants us to remember that an appreciation of the importance of productive labour as a goal “and the policies that flow from it are no more, no less, than a value; policies that have made schools an arm of the economy twice have hade little evidence to justify the position other than that particular interest groups fought for the value.” So we can chose to once again change policies to reflect new (or return to old) values.

He adds that turning academics in to virtual vocational subjects (to meet the new needs of the economy) has distorted the historical goals that have driven public schools in the past. The original goal of taxpayer supported public schools was democratic equality. It was to build citizens that could take on the responsibilities of civic affairs and be well equipped to make judgement decisions relating to the public good.

The social-efficiency goal of the 19th century reproduced social stratification and vocational education. The social-mobility goal of the early 20th century turned education into a private rather than public good. The questions now will concern the effects of the new version of social-efficiency goal, the type of citizens that will come out of it and whether or not a democracy that provides tax-supported education will be satisfied with the results.