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ABSTRACT: POD subscribers Voge and Singham point out that far from
being in crises, some might regard the U.S. educational system as
being hugely successful in furthering the hidden agenda seen by
Bowles & Gintis (BG) as socializing students to "function well, and
without complaint, in the hierarchical structure of the modern
corporation." But among the counter balances to BG's hidden agenda
are: (a) CEO's of high-tech industries, who are looking for higher-
rather than lower-skill employees; (b) authors of the influential
"Gathering Storm" report, who are seeking "a comprehensive and
coordinated federal effort to bolster U.S. competitiveness in science
and technology," rather than the production of low-cost labor; and
(c) those concerned with life-threatening societal issues, who call
for higher-level learning by all students, rather than the continued
production of a science/math illiterate electorate. Perhaps the
"success" of the U.S. educational system in providing low-skill
workers may be more due to its failure to properly educate
economically disadvantaged students, as emphasized by Berliner and
Kozol, than to BG's hidden agenda.
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In response to my post "The U.S. Education Crisis: Manufactured or
Real?" [Hake (2007)], Nic Voge (2007) of the Berkeley Student
Learning Center <http://slc.berkeley.edu/general/index.htm> wrote
[bracketed by lines "VVVVVV. . . . ."]:
VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV
I am wondering if any of the sources you cite address the "crisis" in
American education not as a "failure" of the system but as "success"
or a predictable outcome of the system's design. Do any of these
authors interpret the data as indication of our system - by design or
not -- successfully preparing American workers for a de-skilled
service labor market and economy? Historically, the American
education system has served the function of meeting the labor needs
of the private and public sectors. Why should we assume that current
outcomes are any different? That is, why should we view the societal
outcomes of our education system as a failure and not as successfully
stratifying students and providing workers trained to fulfill the
distribution of available jobs?
VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV
To which Mano Singham (2007), director of the University Center for
Innovation in Teaching and Education
<http://www.case.edu/provost/UCITE/> and adjunct associate professor
of physics at Case Western Reserve University responded [my inserts
at ". . . . .[insert]. . . ."
SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
I actually argue this precise point in the last chapter of my own
book. . . . [Singham (2005)]. . . . . (sorry for the shameless plug!)
"The Achievement Gap in US Education", (2005) but a much more careful
and detailed analysis (although old) can be found in the book
"Schooling in Capitalist America" (1976) by two U Mass economists
Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis.
SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
I have discussed the work of Bowles and Gintis (1976, 1986, 2001) in
a post "Re: The Hidden Curriculum" [Hake (2004a)]. The abstract of
that post reads:
***********************************
ABSTRACT: That a "Hidden Curriculum," exits to socialize students to
(in the words of Bowles and Gintis) "function well, and without
complaint, in the hierarchical structure of the modern corporation,"
may not be ALL bad. Consider the professed objective of leading
institutions of higher education and industries in the State of
California. In a letter to the CA State Board of Education, Levinson
et al. (2004) decried "direct instruction," stating that "businesses
and industry seek from today's high school graduates a high capacity
for abstract, conceptual thinking, and the ability to apply that
capacity to complex real-world problems."
***********************************
Then too, the authors of the "Gathering Storm" report [COSEPUP
(2005)] are not seeking a larger supply of low-cost labor. Instead
they state: "In a world where advanced knowledge is widespread and
low-cost labor is readily available, U.S. advantages in the
marketplace and in science and technology have begun to erode. A
comprehensive and coordinated federal effort is urgently needed to
bolster U.S. competitiveness and pre-eminence in these areas."
And those who see a threat to life on planet Earth from the
science/math illiteracy of the general population call for more high-
not low-level learning of all students. James Duderstadt (2000, pp.
20-21) in "A University for the 21st Century" wrote:
DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD
"SPACESHIP EARTH: There is mounting evidence that the growing
population and invasive activities of humankind are now altering the
fragile balance of our planet. The concerns are both multiplying in
number and intensifying in severity: the destruction of forests,
wetlands and other natural habitats by human activities leading to
extinction of millions of biological species and the loss of
biodiversity; the buildup of greenhouse gases such a carbon dioxide
and their possible impact on global climates; the pollution of our
air, water, and land.
With the world population now at 6 billion, we are already consuming
40% of the world's photosynthetic energy production. Current
estimates place a stable world population at about 8 to 10 billion by
the late twenty-first century, assuming fertility rates continue to
drop over the next several decades. Yet even at this reduced rate of
population growth, we could eventually consume all of the planet's
resources, unless we take action. Because of this overload of the
world's resources, even today, over 1.2 billion of the world's
population live below the subsistence level, and 500 million below
the minimum caloric intake level necessary for life.
It could well be that coming to grips with the impact of our species
on our planet, learning to live in a sustainable fashion on spaceship
earth, will become the greatest challenge of our generation. This
will be particularly difficult for a society that has difficulty
looking more than a generation ahead, encumbered by a political
process that generally functions on an election-by-election basis, as
the current debate over global change makes all too apparent.
UNIVERSITIES MUST TAKE THE LEAD IN DEVELOPING KNOWLEDGE AND EDUCATING
THE WORLD'S CITIZENS TO ALLOW US TO LIVE UPON OUR PLANET WHILE
PROTECTING IT." [My CAPS.]
DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD
But to return to Voge's question:
"I am wondering if any of the sources you cite address the 'crisis'
in American education not as a 'failure' of the system but as
'success' or a predictable outcome of the system's design. Do any of
these authors interpret the data as indication of our system - by
design or not -- successfully preparing American workers for a
de-skilled service labor market and economy?"
As far as I know, none of the 16 sources I cited in "The U.S.
Education Crisis: Manufactured or Real?" Hake (2007) - see that post
for references to Ansary (2007), Berliner & Biddle (1996), Bracy
(2003), Bransford et al. (2000), Brown & Brown (2007), COSEPUP
(2005), Donovan & Bransford (2005), EdWeek (2007), Hake (2000),
Holton (1986), NCOE (1983), Peterson (2003), Schmidt et al. (2001),
Steadman (1996), Valverde et al. (2002), and Wittmann (2007) make a
point of interpreting educational data as indicating the *success* of
the educational system in "preparing American workers for a
de-skilled service labor market and economy."
But the "success" of the U.S. educational system is preparing
students for low-skill jobs may be due more to its failure to
properly educate economically deprived children than an effort to
socialize students to "function well, and without complaint, in the
hierarchical structure of the modern corporation." David Berliner
(2005) in "Our Impoverished View of Educational Reform" wrote [my
insert at ". . . .[insert]. . . ."]:
BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB
This analysis is about the role of poverty in school reform. Data
from a number of sources are used to make five points:
1. Poverty in the US is greater and of longer duration than in other
rich nations. . . .[ UNICEF (2007), McHugh (2007)]. . . .
2. Poverty, particularly among urban minorities, is associated with
academic performance that is well below international means on a
number of different international assessments. Scores of poor
students are also considerably below the scores achieved by white
middle class American students.
3. Poverty restricts the expression of genetic talent at the lower
end of the socioeconomic scale. Among the lowest social classes
environmental factors, particularly family and neighborhood
influences, not genetics, is strongly associated with academic
performance. Among middle class students it is genetic factors, not
family and neighborhood factors, that most influences academic
performance.
4. Compared to middle-class children, severe medical problems affect
impoverished youth. This limits their school achievement as well as
their life chances. Data on the negative effect of impoverished
neighborhoods on the youth who reside there is also presented.
5. Small reductions in family poverty lead to increases in positive
school behavior and better academic performance. It is argued that
poverty places severe limits on what can be accomplished through
school reform efforts, particularly those associated with the federal
No Child Left Behind law. THE DATA PRESENTED IN THIS STUDY SUGGEST
THAT THE MOST POWERFUL POLICY FOR IMPROVING OUR NATIONS' SCHOOL
ACHIEVEMENT IS A REDUCTION IN FAMILY AND YOUTH POVERTY. [My CAPS.]
BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB
The case for the "savage inequalities" in American education has been
powerfully made by Jonathan Kozol (1992, 2006).
"Human history becomes more and more a race between education and
catastrophe."
H. G. Wells (1920)
REFERENCES
Berliner, D. 2001. "Our Schools vs. Theirs: Averages That Hide the
True Extremes (America's Public Schools got a mediocre report after
the results of a major international test were released last month.
But critics were misreading those scores, the author argues."
Washington Post, 28 January, online at
<http://courses.ed.asu.edu/berliner/readings/timssroped.html>.
Berliner, D.C. 2005. "Our Impoverished View of Educational Reform"
Teachers College Record, August 02, freely online only to subscribers
at <http://www.tcrecord.org/Content.asp?ContentID=12106>, but the
abstract is free to all.
Bowles, S. & H.M. Gintis. 1976. "Schooling in Capitalist America:
Educational Reform and the Contradictions of Economic Life." Basic
Books, hardcover. Published as a paperback in 1990. Bowles
<http://www-unix.oit.umass.edu/~bowles/> and Gintis
<http://www-unix.oit.umass.edu/~gintis/> are both on the economics
faculty of the University Massachusetts (Amherst) and have ties to
the Univ. of Siena and the Santa Fe Institute
<http://www.santafe.edu/>. See also Bowles & Gintis (1986, 2001).
Bowles, S. & H. Gintis. 1986. "Democracy and Capitalism: Property,
Community, and the Contradictions of Modern Social Thought." Basic
Books.
COSEPUP. 2005. COmmittee on Science, Engineering, and PUblic Policy,
"Rising Above the Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing America
for a Brighter Future," National Academies Press; online at
<http://books.nap.edu/catalog/11463.html >.
Hake, R.R. 2004a. "Re: The Hidden Curriculum," online at
<http://listserv.nd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0411&L=pod&P=R13190>. Post
of 25 Nov 2004 15:28:04-0800 to AERA-C, AERA-G, AERA-H, AERA-J,
AERA-K, AERA-L, AP-Physics, ASSESS, EvalTalk, Math-Learn, Physhare,
PhysLrnR, & POD. See also Hake (2004b, 2005).
Duderstadt, J.J. 2000. "A University for the 21st Century" (Univ. of
Michigan Press); for a description see
<http://www.press.umich.edu:80/titleDetailDesc.do?id=16836>. See also
Duderstadt (2001). For more on this theme see Hake (2000).
Hake, R.R. 2000. "The General Population's Ignorance of Science
Related Societal Issues: A Challenge for the University," AAPT
Announcer 30(2): 105; online at
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake/GuelphSocietyG.pdf> (2.1MB).
Based on an earlier libretto with the leitmotiv: "The road to U.S.
science literacy begins with effective university science courses for
pre-college teachers." The opera dramatizes the fact that the failure
of universities throughout the universe to properly educate
pre-college teachers is responsible for our failure to observe any
signs of either terrestrial or extraterrestrial intelligence.
Hake, R.R. 2004a. "Re: The Hidden Curriculum," online at
<http://listserv.nd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0411&L=pod&P=R13190>. Post
of 25 Nov 2004 15:28:04-0800 to AERA-C, AERA-G, AERA-H, AERA-J,
AERA-K, AERA-L, AP-Physics, ASSESS, EvalTalk, Math-Learn, Physhare,
PhysLrnR, & POD. See also Hake (2004b, 2005).
Hake, R.R. 2005. "Will the No Child Left Behind Act Promote Direct
Instruction of Science?" Am. Phys. Soc. 50: 851 (2005); APS March
Meeting, Los Angles, CA. 21-25 March; online at
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake/WillNCLBPromoteDSI-3.pdf> (256
kB).
Hake, R.R. 2007a. "The U.S. Education Crisis: Manufactured or Real?" online at
<http://listserv.nd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0703&L=pod&F=&S=&P=16796>.
Post of 22 March to AERA-A,B,C,J,K,L; AP-Physics, ARN-L; ASSESS;
Chemed-L; EdResMeth; EvalTalk, Phys-L; Physhare; PhysLrnR;
PsychTeacher (rejected :-(); TeachingEdPsych; & TIPS. See also the
clarifying post Hake (2007b).
Hake, R.R. 2007b "Re: The U.S. Education Crisis: Manufactured or
Real?," online at
<http://listserv.nd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0703&L=pod&O=D&P=18542>.
Post of 25 Mar 2007 12:33:10-0700 to AERA-C, AERA-L, ARN-L,
EdResMeth, EvalTalk, Math-Teach, PhysLrnR, POD, and TIPS.
Kozol, J. 1992. "Savage Inequalities: Children in America's Schools."
Harper Collins. Amazon.com information at <http://tinyurl.com/yu7jvc>.
Kozol, J. 2006. "The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of
Apartheid Schooling in America," Three Rivers Press, Amazon.com
information at <http://tinyurl.com/ywgcat>.
Levinson, A.D. , Genentech CEO, along with leaders of Intel, Bechtel,
Pixar, Lucasfilm, Adobe Systems and higher education, including the
Presidents of the University of California (UC), Stanford, and the
California Institute of Technology, and all 10 UC Chancellors. 2004.
Letter of 5 March to Reed Hastings of the Board of Education. Online
at the George Lucas Educational Foundation <http://www.glef.org/> as
a 112 kB pdf
<http://www.glef.org/pdfs/Letter_from_GLEF_board.pdf>.
McHugh, D. 2007. "UNICEF: U.S., Britain rank last in child welfare in
industrialized world," San Diego Union Tribune, online at
<http://tinyurl.com/2sbb6e>.
Singham, M. 2005. "The Achievement Gap in U.S. Education: Canaries in
the Mine." Rowman & Littlefield Education. Amazon.com information at
<http://tinyurl.com/2suh9e>. Rowman & Littlefield information at
<http://tinyurl.com/2pvyzn>.
UNICEF. 2007. Innocenti Report Card 7: "Child Poverty in
Perspective: An overview of child well being in rich countries, "
online at <http://www.unicef.org/media/files/ChildPovertyReport.pdf>
(1.5 MB). See also McHugh (2007),
Wells, H.G. 1920. "The Outline of History." For Amazon.com
information on a two volume set published in 1974 by Scholarly Press
see <http://tinyurl.com/yjs83d>.