Contingent Community College Faculty: A Temporary Cog. 68 ... his high school diploma, redirected away from college, and his life would have turned out ...... 49 Glenn Harlan Reynolds, The Higher Education Bubble (New York, 2012). ...... This study was based on original research conducted at a private academy in South.
What Is Education?
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What Is Education? On the Social Ecology of Teaching, Learning, & Schooling
J. M. Beach
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For my students in hope for better education, better schools, and a better world
© 2014 J. M. Beach
West by Southwest Press Austin, TX
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Table of Contents
1. Training Pigeons or Educating Persons?
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2. The False Promise of Educational Effectiveness Movement: The Politics of Effectiveness, Equality, and Excellence
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3. What Is the Real Value of Education? On the Limits of Human Capital Theory
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4. Which American Dream? Inequality & Education in the United States
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5. “Less than Legitimate”: The Limited Opportunity of the American Community College
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6. Contingent Community College Faculty: A Temporary Cog in the Academic Machine
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7. Children “Dying Inside”: Education Fever in South Korea
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8. Academic Capitalism & Educational Fraud in China
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9. Technology Isn’t Magic: The Lie of On-Line Education
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10. Serious Games: Higher Education & the Perils of Independent Thought
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11. Requiem for the “College Idea”: Andrew Delbanco’s Beleaguered Defense of Liberal Arts Education
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12. 21 Century Literacy
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13. The Social Ecology of Teaching & Learning
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14. What Is Education? Learning is Doing, Knowing is Being
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Acknowledgements About the Author
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We are drowning in information, while starving for wisdom. E. O. Wilson
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1 --Training Pigeons or Educating Persons?
Rich Roach is a school board member in Orange County Florida. In 2011, he decided to take his state's standardized test for 10th graders. He wanted to see why Florida's students were not making any progress. Roach had earned a bachelor’s and two master’s degrees. He had also worked as a professional educator and administrator for twenty five years. Surprisingly, he failed to pass test. The test consisted of 60 math questions and four reading sections. He didn't know the answers to any of the math questions, but was able to guess a few, and got 17 percent correct. He did better on the reading section, but he only managed to earn a 62 percent. According to the metrics of this test, he was clearly a failure. What does this mean? Had he been in the 10th grade, he would have been eventually denied his high school diploma, redirected away from college, and his life would have turned out very differently. Reflecting on his results, Roach explained, "A test that can determine a student’s future life chances should surely relate in some practical way to the requirements of life. I can’t see how that could possibly be true of the test I took...Instead of connecting what we learn in school with being successful in the real world, we are doing it in reverse. We are testing first and then kids go into the real world. Whether the information they have learned is 1 important or not becomes secondary.” This story highlights the major flaw of most systems of schooling around the world. We are stymied with outdated and invalid conceptions of learning and knowledge. Students are evaluated on their ability to be schooled, rather than educated. We are training pigeons, not educating persons. We force our children to follow rules and procedures, memorize abstract factoids, perform rituals, and conform to senseless traditions. Sociologists call this process socialization. Schools have become more like penal institutions than educational institutions. The end product of this social process is symbolic, rather than useful. 1 Valerie Strauss, "Revealed: School Board Member Who Took Standardized Test," The Answer Sheet, The Washington Post (Dec 6, 2011), Retrieved from www.washingtonpost.com
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Students earn a certificate or a degree, which represents a social milestone. You've been socialized! You've been schooled! However, this piece of paper rarely signifies any real learning or expertise. Most high school graduates have few skills, no theoretical understanding, and little personal development. Many college graduates lack proficiency in any real-world skill. Few students are prepared to survive, let alone thrive, in the cut-throat global economy, to say nothing of possessing the ability needed to be a contributing member of social and political institutions. Our schools are not educating human beings. Instead, they train stool pigeons. Since the 16th century the slang "pigeon" has been used to refer to a sucker or a gullible fool. The slang "stool" came from the word "stale," which meant a person who tricked another into a trap. Stool was also used to refer to a decoy bird. Hence the later term "stool pigeon": a snare to lure unsuspecting birds into the hunter's sights. We like to think that American schools are modern and enlightened, but they are not. When it comes to education, we are downright barbarous. Instead of educating our children, we cage them in penal institutions designed to dehumanize, turning young humans into pigeons. Most schools do not educate. They certify suckers, and these incapacitated fools readily pull new generations into the same trap. While some socialization is required for the maintenance and reproduction of society, there is a better way to prepare youth for civic and vocational responsibilities. The ancient Greeks called this practice paideia. The Germans call it Bildung. In English, we call it education. But the idea of education is poorly understood and rarely practiced. Currently, it is more philosophy than public policy. While every human being has a natural inclination and aptitude for it, this activity has rarely been successfully institutionalized. However, the ideal of education holds great promise. The purpose of education is to develop our humanity. This very old, but marginalized practice can be found within the philosophical traditions of most cultures. For the human species, education was not inevitable. It was invented by sages looking to transform human beings into something more than a mere talking animal. Education was designed to free humans from the chains of biological necessity and sheer survival. The concept of education was popularized in the modern world by a Swiss reformer and novelist, Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi (1746-1827), but his ideas went against the grain of the standard model of schooling as socialization. During the late 18th century, state sponsored public schooling was first becoming developed in Germany. The German state wanted schools to train pliable suckers who would be loyal to the government as taxpayers, citizens, and soldiers. Schools were autocratic bureaucracies based on tradition, rituals, and abstract facts. Students were socialized into way of life officially authorized by state, church, and cultural common sense. In Switzerland, Pestalozzi proclaimed a different view of schooling. He argued for a child-centered institution based on curiosity, experiential learning, and human development. Pestalozzi explained, "The aim of education is not to 10
turn out tailors, boot makers, tradesmen, or soldiers, but to turn out tailors, boot makers, tradesmen, and soldiers who are in the highest meaning of the 2 word, men." In short, Pestalozzi thought that schools should not authoritatively mold children into mindless automatons, but instead should creatively cultivate them as uniquely endowed human beings. I bet you'll never guess which idea revolutionized the world? Of course it was the German system of authoritarian socialization. This concept of schooling has now become universal. For over two centuries, pigeon factories have been sponsored by governments and religious organizations, manufacturing mindless suckers all over the world. What happened to Pestalozzi’s concept of education? He was not influential outside of Switzerland during his life; however, during the 19th and early 20th century, Pestalozzi's ideas had a dramatic impact on the "progressive" education reform movements in the western world, first in Germany, then in Europe, and later in the United States. Pestalozzi's concept of education had an especially dramatic impact on John Dewey, an American philosopher. Dewey became the first thinker to fully develop a complete philosophy of education th based on science and the political principle of democracy. During the 20 century, Dewey's ideas became the cornerstone of progressive education reform around the world. But sadly, Dewey’s ideas had only a marginal effect on public schooling. Even in the United States, Dewey’s ideas were preached more than there were practiced. But we shouldn’t count Dewey’s ideas out just yet. Like all ideals, as Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, education is a distant star pointing us in the direction of a better future. We might not ever arrive at that ideal destination, but at least in striving after the ideal, we might get further than we thought possible. To be human is a paradox. Like all biological beings, we are determined by the world into which we are born. But as humans we alone have a measure of freedom and will. We alone can create our own character and change our world. Education is the process through which these principles are practiced. We must learn to be human, both individually and socially. The purpose of this book is to enlighten and empower you with a broader understanding of the concept and practice of education. It is the most powerful technology we will ever have. The progressive ideal of education holds great promise. But we have to choose to be human. We also have to respect human diversity, both in terms of the developmental processes it takes to become human, and in terms of the diverse personal and social outcomes of educational development. Choosing to be human and respect human diversity is not easy, especially for a whole society. This book is a collection of essays about the promise of education and the perils of schooling. It is also a critical exploration of teaching, learning,
2 Qtd. in Charles L. Glenn, Contrasting Models of State and School: A Comparative Historical Study of Parental Choice and State Control (New York, 2011), 26.
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schooling, and the ends of education. It is based on a broad swatch of scientific literature and on my own experiences as a student and a teacher. Drawing on the practice theory of Pierre Bourdieu, my ideas of education are closely connected to my personal experiences as researcher, teacher, and student because each of these roles defines an important component of the complex 3 practice I call education. A teacher must first be a student and learn how to learn. Later, a teacher must continually strive to improve and connect the curriculum to meet the needs of each new student. A teacher must also be a researcher, for research informs both knowledge and practice. A researcher must, at heart, be a student, willing to fully learn from theory and experience. And a researcher inevitably becomes a teacher, sharing knowledge with other researchers, practitioners, and policy makers. These roles are inseparable or at least, for the true educator, they should be. This book grows out of my use of "action research" as an educator. This practice can be broadly defined as “any systematic inquiry conducted by teachers, administrators, counselors, or others with a vested interest in the teaching and learning process, for the purpose of gathering data about how their 4 particular schools operate, how they teach, and how students learn.” Many educators see action research as a practical form of knowledge creation that has direct applications for teaching and learning. Action research is an activist oriented intellectual inquiry, rather than simply an exercise in knowledge for knowledge's sake. Action research seeks to educate. It seeks to affect persons and change the world. I started my journey as an educator over two decades ago, working almost from the very beginning as a researcher, teacher, and student. Over the years, I've sought to change not only my own life, but also the lives of my students, and in a broader sense, I've tried to shape the world in which I live. I believe that education is a transformative activity because it changed me personally, and I've seen it change others as well. But we live in a world full of mindless pigeons, many of whom control our governments, our corporations, and our schools. At an early age, I understood the poverty of that cold prison we call "school". As I grew older, my personal education was completely divorced from my schooling. Teachers rarely, if ever, gave me an education. And later, once I became a teacher, I was often forced to "school" my students, rather than educate them – I still am continually forced to choose between these ends. For my entire life, I've been punished, sometimes severely, as a 3 See Pierre Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977) and The Logic of Practice (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1980). See also Pierre Bourdieu and Loic J. D. Wacguant, An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1992). 4 A. L. Nolen and J. Vander Putten, J. “Action Research in Education: Addressing Gaps in Ethical Principles and Practices,” Educational Researcher, 36, no. 7 (Oct 2007): 401-407; J. McNiff and J. Whitehead, Action Research: Principles and Practice, 2nd ed. (London, 2005).
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student for seeking an education, or as a teacher trying to educate my students. I've always longed for a better way to practice schooling. I've never seen a school that really educates students by enabling their human development. In fact, most schools seem to crush the creativity of the human spirit. Relatively few children seem to survive schooling with their natural curiosity and human promise intact. All of our schools are fundamentally broken, from pre-school up to the university. And not just in America, but all over the world. Most students needlessly suffer in schools because we cannot reconceive the process of education in broader, humanistic possibilities. As one South Korean child told me, students are "dying inside." I think this sentiment applies to most students around the world. The same can probably be said about most teachers who have to make tough choices between educating and schooling their students. Socialization suppresses and degrades our humanity, for students, teachers, administrators, and for our society at large. This is not new information, especially not to students. Pestalozzi th warned about broken schools in the 18 century, Dewey repeated the warning th in the 19 century, and many educators and researchers continue to sound this warning. Willard Waller was one of the first sociologists of education. He published one of the first direct case studies of a real school in action. In this book, published in 1932, Waller not only called schools broken, but went so far as to say that schools produced a “deadness of certain relationships” because of the “artificiality of the conventional order and the despotism that goes with it.” His study demonstrated how students rebelled against schooling, in subtle and shocking ways, because they had to protect their humanity – because “they 5 want to live.” Students continue to face the same, stark choice: schooling or life. st At the turn of the 21 century, with calls for more bureaucracy, standardization, and testing, there is no indication that things are getting any better. In fact, there is evidence to suggest that things are getting worse, at least for the majority of students who are subjected to systems of state schooling. Education remains mostly an ideal, a dream deferred. How long must we wait for real education? The fate of our species may depend on it.
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Willard Waller. The Sociology of Teaching (New York, 1976), 445-446. 13
Chapter 2 --The False Promise of the Educational Effectiveness Movement: The Politics of Effectiveness, Equality, and Excellence
For the past two decades, everyone has complained about public schooling. Presidents and governors have used the bully pulpit to warn us about stupid kids, broken schools, and international economic competition. Various scholars, journalists, and educational commissions have studied our schools. But they all seem to focus on different problems and proscribe different remedies. Social scientists want “evidence based practice.” Politicians want "accountability measures." Parents want more "choice" and "responsive leadership." And what do students want, well, beside less homework? They want better teachers, real learning experiences, and relevant skills that will actually help them survive this cutthroat world. Who is winning the war of words? Well, everyone but the kids our schools supposedly serve. Scientists got their evidence and politicians got their accountability. Parents got a little more choice - and the grand illusion of responsive political and educational leadership. No Child Left Behind has become the symbol for the salvation of American schools: evidenced based accountability. Both Republicans and Democrats seem to believe that NCLB will fix our system of schools. It has become the basic model for the future of public schooling in America. The magic prescription of NCLB is also being applied to community colleges and universities too. All schools, from kindergarten to college, must now prove their worth. Schools must now continually meet various accountability measures to prove their effectiveness. Why? To make sure students are learning? Not really. Evidence based accountability programs are mostly a tired, old political game: who has the right to limited public resources and how do we apportion these limited resources? Accountability programs reward the best schools with the best teachers and the best students, which amounts to giving more resources to a small, privileged minority. These accountability programs also punish the worst schools with the worst teachers and the worse students (who are disproportionately mired in poverty and socially marginalized), which, of course, amounts to punishing the majority of schools serving the majority of students. Those schools with the most resources get even more resources, and those schools with the least resources get castigated or closed. What about the students? Students are forced to learn narrow, standardized curriculums and 14
they are subject to a larger barrage of standardized assessments. Learning is reduced to memorizing easily measured factoids and taking multiple choice tests. Troubled students are labeled with a learning disability or just pushed out of school entirely. Up until the 1970s, everyone assumed that public schools worked - or at least, that they worked well enough. Sure, there were a few lone voices, like libertarian economist Milton Friedman, who criticized public schools as an inefficient violation of parents’ freedom (and their tax dollars). In 1962, he 6 claimed that Americans were “getting so little per dollar spent” on education. What was his solution? Break up the government monopoly and privatize schooling. What about the fragmentation of civic society? What about racist segregation? What about equality of opportunity? Friedman thought all these social ills would magically fix themselves through the “invisible hand” of the capitalist market. He argued that education, especially higher education, was mostly a private good; thus, “Individuals should bear the costs of investment in 7 themselves and receive the rewards.” Many policy makers regard Friedman as a prophet. Since the 1980s, almost everyone now criticizes public schools as broken and ineffective, and almost everyone now sees schooling as a private good that deserves less or no public subsidy. Did something happen to our schools in the 1970s and 1980s to make them so terribly ineffective and expensive? The answer is yes. However, most people don’t understand why schools became so ineffective and expensive. Most people don’t know that America has been a highly unequal society for most of its history. Most children were denied quality schooling due to this nation’s history of economic inequality and racial segregation. In the 1970s, for the first time in American history, all American children were legally entitled to full access to public education, including access to college. For the first time, regardless of ethnicity or socio-economic background, all students were encouraged to go to school, all students were counted in official school reports, and all students’ academic achievement was measured by standardized assessments. For the first time, national data on public schools actually included a full sample of all students in the nation. For the first time, federal and state governments were required to pay for the education of all American children. And, for the first time, Americans realized that many students were inadequately prepared for primary schooling, college, or the labor market. Many students attended under-resourced, sub-standard schools, either because of living in racially segregated communities, living in economically depressed communities, or both. The academic achievement of discriminated or impoverished students obviously wasn’t very good. As nationalized standardized tests became more widely administered in the 1970s and 1980s, the academic achievement of all students was measured for the first time. The results shocked the nation. But while national attention focused on students’ lack of 6
Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom (Chicago, 2002), 94. Originally published 1962. 7 Ibid., 105. 15
academic achievement, very little attention was focused on the socio-economic background that produced such shocking results. Let’s briefly look at the state of California to see how bad things were. California was supposedly a non-segregated state, unburdened by the history of th slavery or Jim Crow segregation laws. During the 20 century, California was seen as a shining example of American opportunity and economic mobility. Most Californians lived in the San Francisco Bay area and the greater Los Angeles area. The rest lived in smaller rural, agricultural towns, like Fresno and Riverside. But although California did not have de jure racial segregation mandated by law, it still had crippling de facto segregation, which disenfranchised non-white minorities politically, economically, and educationally. th During most of the 20 century, the San Francisco Bay area was highly segregated by race. A black resident of San Francisco complained in 1927 that “residential segregation is as real in California as in Mississippi. A mob is unnecessary. All that’s needed is a neighbor[hood] meeting and agreement in 8 writing not to rent, lease, or sell to blacks, and the Courts will do the rest.” The East Bay area in particular had a large percentage of native-born, middle-class whites up until the 1940s and this community blended a white supremacist Americanism with a Protestant based progressive reformisms that reacted harshly to both the non-white populations of California, but also the corrupt machine politics of San Francisco. During the 1920s the Ku Klux Klan of the East Bay attracted several thousand members in their political and moral quest to “promote the welfare of the Caucasian race and to teach the doctrine of white supremacy,” to “promote and maintain the purity of white blood,” and the to 9 preserve the “one language; and one flag; AMERICANIZATION OF ALL!” This white supremacism marked the Bay Area well into the 1960s. In 1952 a black family had moved to an all-white neighborhood in San Francisco and they were welcomed by a one hundred fifty member crowd throwing rocks. Later they were subjected to multiple harassments including a cross-burning on 10 their lawn and in 1964 five shots from a rifle were fired into the house. In the 11 1950s private cemeteries in Oakland refused to burry African American bodies. Many local bars in the San Francisco area would not serve non-white minorities, and a state statute was passed in 1960 threatening revocation of operating 12 licenses if bars continued this discrimination. There were also numerous 13 reported instances of discrimination in the local labor market. The Chinese had always been discriminated against in San Francisco and for over a century the majority of the city’s Chinese population would be confined to a Ghetto in the north-east corner of the city. As late as 1975 more 8
Quoted in Davison M. Douglas, Jim Crow Moves North, 137. Quoted in Chris Rhomberg, No There There: Race, Class, and Political Community in Oakland (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2004), 59, 61. 10 Bettye Collier-Thomas and V. P. Franklin, My Soul Is A Witness: A Chronology of the Civil Rights Era, 1954 – 1965 (New York: Henry Holt, 1999), 206. 11 Collier-Thomas and Franklin, My Soul Is A Witness, 21. 12 Collier-Thomas and Franklin, My Soul Is A Witness, 119. 13 Collier-Thomas and Franklin, My Soul Is A Witness, 32, 68, 208, 219. 9
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than half the city of San Francisco’s Chinese population was still crowed into the ghetto of Chinatown, which was the second most densely populated are of the U.S. For many of the approximately 4,000 Chinese immigrants arriving each year 14 in the 1970s there was little work and few opportunities for a better life. The African American population in San Francisco grew during World War II because of increased economic opportunities in the military and the East Bay shipping industries, but as more African Americans arrived in the Bay area segregation became more rigidly enforced, and blacks were largely confined to ghettos in the industrial areas of Oakland. From 1940 to 1950 about 100,000 African Americans would migrate to the Bay area and the black population of Oakland would increase from 3 percent of the total population to 12 percent by 1950. In the 1960s Oakland was 34 percent African American, but West Oakland was 85 percent black and North Oakland was 60 percent black. Competition with white workers was intense, unions excluded non-whites, and blacks were the “’last hired, first fired’ segment of the industrial working class.” In many black Californian ghettos the unemployment rate was over double the national average. In 1966 West Oakland had a reported black unemployment rates at around 20 percent with the 14-19 age black population suffering from 41 percent unemployment. As the industrial base of the East Bay area steadily shrunk in the 1950s, African Americans became a ghettoized urban population left with mostly unskilled and low-wage employment opportunities when there 15 were any jobs to be found. Richmond turned into another black ghetto during the 1940s. Early in the decade there were less than 300 blacks in the city, but by 1950 there were over 13,300 making up 13.4 percent of the city’s population. In the 1960s African Americans made up 12 percent of the population in Western Contra Costa County, just north of Berkeley, and they were highly segregated in and around the Richmond area, with North Richmond being over 90 percent black. Compared to the wealthier, white Kensington Highlands area, North Richmond’s median family income was less than half, and the value of housing was about one third, with over 21 percent of the houses in a dilapidated condition. Almost 88 percent of the male North Richmond’s male work force was blue-collar, and the male unemployment rate was almost 28 percent. The unemployment rate 16 for white Kensington Highlands was 1.4 percent. A study was conducted through the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights in 1965 on the segregated schooling in Western Contra Costa County. This study 14
Kevin Starr, The Dream Endures: California Enters the 1940s (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 135-38; William Albert Allard, “Chinatown, the Gilded Ghetto,” The National Geographic,148, no. 5(Nov 1975): 626-643. 15 Daniel Crowe, Prophets of Rage: The Black Freedom Struggle in San Francisco, 19451969 (New York: Garland Publishing, 2000), 2, 17, 24-25, 56, 62, 152; Daryl E. Lembke, “Oakland Still an Ailing Community,” Los Angeles Times, 30 Jan. 1966, 1; Rhomberg, No There There, 82, 97, 121; Starr, California, 228, 234. 16 Crowe, Prophets of Rage, 29; Alan B. Wilson, The Consequences of Segregation: Academic Achievement in a Northern Community (Berkeley, CA: Glendessary Press, 1969), 2-3, 5. 17
looked at 17,000 students in 11 public junior and senior high schools in the area. The study found that most African Americans in the area attended de facto segregated elementary schools, mixed-race junior high schools, and majority white senior high schools. The segregated schools filled with economically underprivileged students clearly gave African Americans an unequal education as the average black student was 1.7 years behind white students by grade six. Those black students that were able to attend predominantly white elementary schools scored much better than students attending segregated schools, and when social-class was factored out of the equation than the achievement of white and black students was almost identical. African American students in segregated schools were also almost twice as likely to have police records as white students in integrated schools. The report concluded: “The unequal inheritance with which students enter school, which should become less salient as students’ progress through school if schools in fact ‘maximized individual potential,’ is in fact aggravated because of segregation.” African American children attending segregated elementary schools in economically depressed areas were placed at a great disadvantage when it came to academic achievement in junior and senior high school and, through less connection and encouragement from the school system in the teenage years, they were more prone to drop out of school and engage in 17 criminal activities. Riverside, California is another example. Riverside was a small farming community east of Los Angeles near the Southern Pacific railroad route and it remained a fairly small and homogeneous agricultural community up until the 1950s. An early historian wrote of Riverside in 1912, “No saloons, no slums, and plenty of genuine Christianity.” This is not to say there were no non-white minorities living in the city; in fact Chinese and Mexican Americans had lived in and near Riverside from the start, but these minorities remained very small until the 1950s. In 1955 a Riverside Press editorial pronounced the city a “clean, solid, progressive community,” of course this progressive community had been kept orderly and homogeneous with the help of the Ku Klux Klan and rigid social 18 segregation in public facilities, schools, housing, and the labor market. The school board had gerrymandered school zones up through the 1920s in order to keep white neighborhood schools segregated, and where Mexican American students did attend predominantly white schools, there was segregation of non-white populations in separate, special classes. The population of the city in 1960 was about 86 percent white, 8.5 percent Mexican American, and 4.7 percent black. Riverside was ranked by a UCLA research team in 1966 as the third most segregated city in California. In a survey of the
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Wilson, The Consequences of Segregation, 10, 25, 32-33, 37, 58, 65. See also: Crowe, Prophets of Rage, 72-79. 18 Irving G. Hendrick, The Development of a School Integration Plan in Riverside, California: A History and Perspective, University of California, Riverside State McAteer Project M7-14 (Riverside, CA: Riverside Unified School District, 1968), 21-33, 42-47; Starr, Inventing the Dream, 144-47. 18
Riverside community in 1968, University of California at Riverside professor Irving G. Hendrick pointed out that “Negroes and Mexican-Americans in Riverside occupied the lowest employment positions, had the lowest median incomes, and were lowest in the socio-economic index.” It wasn’t until 1965 that parents of non-white minority children petitioned the school district to desegregate Riverside schools. But Riverside officials responded very quickly to these demands. It took only seven weeks before the city became the first school system in the U.S. with a student population greater than 100,000 to create and implement an integration and racial balance plan, which it started in 1965. But three years after this plan had been initiated, not much concrete progress had been made in the schools for minority children. The larger issues of segregation were also ignored: labor market discrimination, unemployment, residential segregation, and discrimination in the sale and renting of housing. Even if nonwhite students managed to get an education in Riverside the possibilities of 19 decent employment and non-segregated housing were slim. Finally, Los Angeles offers a final example. Up through the 1940s Los Angeles was about 90 percent white, Anglo-Saxon Protestants from the Midwest. The popular media advertised Los Angeles as America writ at large: a mythologized landscape of endless “promise” and “a feeling that here all things 20 are possible.” But as more white Midwesterners and Southerners with white supremacist tendencies immigrated to the city along with a growing influx of African Americans and Mexican Americans, the possibility and promise of Los Angeles was systematically kept from non-white minorities in this “Jim Crow City 21 of Angeles.” Throughout the 1920s and 1930s non-white minorities were socially and economically segregated in urban ghettos with substandard housing, 22 low-wage employment, high unemployment, and high rates of poverty. In 1922 one columnist in the Santa Monica Weekly Interpreter told the local African American population, “Negroes, we don’t want you here; now and forever, this 23 is to be a white man’s town.” By 1965 around 40 percent of the 650,000 African Americans living in Los Angeles County were segregated in south central Los Angeles, mainly in Avalon, Watts, Willowbrook, Green Meadows, Exposition, and Central Los Angeles. Most of these areas were over 80 percent Black, and some areas like Watts and Avalon were over 90 percent Black. While the Latino population had historically been the most segregated minority population in Los Angeles, in the
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Hendrick, The Development of a School Integration Plan in Riverside, California, 1, 2133, 42-47, 82, 154, 184. 20 Robert De Roos, “Los Angles,” The National Geographic, 22, no. 4 (Oct 1962): 451-501. 21 Starr, California, 232. See also: Fogelson, The Fragmented Metropolis, 189, 191, 198; Starr, The Dream Endures, 178-79. 22 Fogelson, The Fragmented Metropolis, 198-199; Modell, The Economics and Politics of Racial Accommodation, 56-60; Romo, East Los Angeles, 168-169; Sanchez, Becoming Mexican American, 90-92; Starr, The Dream Endures, 171-73, 176-79; Weber, Dark Sweat, White Gold, 54-55. 23 Santa Monica Weekly Interpreter, April 26, 1922, cited in Fogelson, The Fragmented Metropolis, 200. 19
1960s this population became less segregated than blacks, as only about 20 percent of the Latinos in the city lived in the East Los Angeles and Boyle Heights barrios. While the metropolitan Los Angeles area had an average unemployment rate of 5.8 percent in 1960, South Los Angeles’s unemployment rate hovered around 11.3 percent with Watts all the way at 15.6 percent, and East Los Angeles was around 8.5 percent. In 1960 the Western states had a median family income of $6,882, while the median family income for South Los Angeles was $5,122 with Watts down at $3,879, and East Los Angeles at $5,513. And both communities suffered from high poverty rates, although some parts of the African American community had much higher poverty rates than those in the Mexican American barrio. In 1965 about 26.8 percent of South Los Angeles residents lived below the poverty line, compared to 23.6 percent of East Los Angeles residents, but Watts had 41.5 percent of its community living below the 24 poverty line and both Avalon and Central had over 31.5 percent in poverty. Many other ethnic minorities were similarly segregated and suffered from social 25 and economic exclusion. In 1962 a County Commission on Human Relations official for Los Angeles declared this city to be one of the most segregated communities in the 26 U.S. From the 1930s to the 1990s this city has seen no less than three major 27 race riots and two ethnic-cleansing round ups of non-white populations. When two African American school teachers tried to move into a white Los Angeles neighborhood in 1957 the locals tossed rocks through their windows and burned 28 a cross on their lawn (the police apparently did nothing to prevent the attacks). African Americans were denied the right to buy a house in Dominguez Hills and Torrance in 1962 and 1963. This led to a civil rights demonstration by CORE 29 activists and the arrests of 203 activists. There were also numerous reported instances of discrimination in employment. Many businesses would simply not 24
Division of Fair Employment Practices, Negroes and Mexican Americans in South and East Los Angeles (San Francisco, CA: Department of Industrial Relations, 1966), 10, 17, 20-23, 29, 32; Ian F. Haney Lopez, Racism on Trial: The Chicano Fight for Justice (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2003), ch 3. In 1949 Mexican Americans were more segregated as about 75 percent of this minority population was mostly confined to three of Los Angeles’ twenty-nine census tracts. Romo, East Los Angeles, 169. 25 U. S. Commission on Civil Rights, A Generation Deprived: Los Angeles School Desegregation (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, May 1977), 2-4. 26 Collier-Thomas and Franklin, My Soul Is A Witness, 170; Peter B. Levy, ed., Let Freedom Ring: A Documentary History of the Modern Civil Rights Movement (New York: Praeger, 1992), 258. 27 The major riots include: The Zoot Suit Riots of 1943, the Watts Riot of 1965, and the Los Angeles riots of 1992. The major ethnic deportations include: the repatriation of Mexican Americans in the 1930s and the Japanese incarceration in prison camps during the 1940s. For the riots see: Mauricio Mazon, The Zoot-Suit Riots: The Psychology of Symbolic Annihilation (Austin, TX: University of Texas, 1984); Romo, East Los Angeles, 166-68; Starr, The Dream Endures, 172-73; Starr, California, 232-34, 308-10. 28 Collier-Thomas and Franklin, My Soul Is A Witness, 67; Davison M. Douglas, Jim Crow Moves North, 267. 29 Doug Mauldin, “Summer Strife in Torrance: City Beset With Woes,” Los Angeles Times, 1 Sept. 1963, CS1. 20
hire blacks, including taxi companies, hotels, department stores, fire 30 departments, and The Los Angeles Times. Historian Robert M. Fogelson argued that in Los Angeles “De facto if 31 not de jure segregation pervaded the school system” up through the 1930s. While de jure segregation in public schools had been largely discontinued by the late 1940s with the ruling in Mendez v. Westminster, a high degree of residential segregation in the Los Angeles area still left a de facto segregated school system administered by a white officials. This situation of segregated schooling would have included the area junior colleges which were located in segregated school 32 districts. One white principal of a mostly Mexican American school in the San Fernando Valley exclaimed to a social worker, “Why teach them to read and 33 write and spell? Why worry about it?...They’ll only pick beets anyway.” After being sued by the ACLA in 1963, the Los Angeles City Unified School District was declared illegally segregated by the court system in 1970 in Crawford v. Board of Education of the City of Los Angeles. The ruling was upheld on appeal to the California Supreme Court in 1976. Mexican American and African American students were concentrated in majority-minority schools due to a history of de facto residential segregation in Los Angeles County and de jure educational segregation due to racist assignment policies in place up until 1963. Up until the 1970s many schools in Los Angeles were either 90 percent white or 90 percent minority schools: 42 percent of all elementary schools, 35 percent of all junior high schools, and 45 percent of all high schools had minority enrollments above 80 percent. 26 percent of elementary schools, 23 percent of all junior high schools, and 29 percent of all high schools had minority enrollments above 98 percent. These majority-minority schools were not providing an equal and adequate education. Mexican Americans were almost four years behind the educational attainment of white students and Black students were almost two years behind. The achievement gap had closed somewhat by 1970, but both minority groups still trailed their white counterparts. Many majority-minority high schools suffered from drop-out rates 34 between 47 and 53 percent. 30
Collier-Thomas and Franklin, My Soul Is A Witness, 32, 47. Fogelson, The Fragmented Metropolis, 201; U. S. Commission on Civil Rights, A Generation Deprived, 6-7. 32 U. S. Commission on Civil Rights, Hearings before the United States Commission on Civil Rights: Hearings Held in Los Angeles and San Francisco (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1960), 78-80. 33 Cited in Starr, The Dream Endures, 172. Even college educated non-whites, like the Japanese, in Los Angeles during the 1930s and 40s were subjected to low-paid work in a highly segregated labor market. See: Modell, The Economics and Politics of Racial Accommodation, 128-33. 34 Carlos Manuel Haro, Mexicano/Chicano Concerns and School Desegregation in Los Angeles, Chicano Studies Center, University of California, Los Angeles (Los Angeles, CA: Author, 1977), 1-7, 18-19, 77, 80; U. S. Commission on Civil Rights, A Generation Deprived, 7-15; U. S. Commission on Civil Rights, Desegregation of the Nation’s Public Schools: A Status Report (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, Feb 1979), 50-51. 31
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From 1954 through the 1970s, there were a string of civil rights judicial rulings, amendments to the Constitution, and legislative initiatives to promote a broader equality for all American citizens regardless of race, gender, and later, disability. More students than ever before were enrolled in public schools. Their academic progress was also monitored more closely than ever before. More students were making it to high school, graduating with a diploma, and entering college, albeit many of these students were being directed to low-cost and ineffective community colleges, rather than universities. In the early 1970s, for the first time in American history, all students had full access to K-12 public schooling and subsidized college. As luck would have, this decade was also marked by a severe global recession, the worst since the Great Depression of the 1930s. This is when the “effectiveness” of public schools supposedly broke down. Most scholars trace the origins of the educational effectiveness movement to the 1970s and early 1980s when a series of international market crises constrained U.S. federal and state expenditures on education. However, other scholars, mostly historians, trace this movement much farther back. The idea of measuring educational effectiveness was developed during the th “progressive” era of social, political, and educational reform in the late 19 and th early 20 centuries. Before accountability became a policy buzzword in the 1970s, many progressive school reformers had utilized the new logic of “scientific management” at the turn of the twentieth century, calling for “efficiency” and “standardization” in schooling and learning. Thus, to truly understand the purposes and possibilities of the educational efficiency movement at the beginning of the 21st century, one must first explore the long history of this political agenda, which has always been focused on social control and economics rather than education. Policy prescriptions of "performance based standards" and "institutional accountability" are political goals, largely based on economic necessity. They are not educational imperatives. Education policy has never been a technical endeavor of apolitical social engineering. In two landmark studies of schooling in the United States, W. Norton Grubb and Marvin Lazerson have demonstrated that “formal evaluation methods are not necessarily 35 neutral.” All policy initiatives and performance measurements should be analyzed and critiqued as mediums of particular political parties advancing partisan values and interests. While many educational policy makers focus on important issues, ask important questions, and suggest important policy prescriptions, there is a marked tendency towards short-sightedness and faddist ideas. There is also a tendency for powerful social groups to force their educational prescriptions on the whole community. In the United States, policy prescriptions mirror the ideological priorities of larger political debates over the role of government in providing
35 Grubb and Lazerson, Broken Promises, 99, 57; Grubb and Lazerson, The Education Gospel (Cambridge, MA, 2007). See also Callahan, Education and the Cult of Efficiency.
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social services. For the last forty years, the focus has been on the privatization of education as an individual service, rather than a public good. This particular conception of education is relatively recent. How do we know if is the best conceptual lens to understand and evaluate educational institutions? In order to answer this question, the educational policy community needs to take a longer and more complex view of the practice of education and the institutionalization of schooling. These phenomena must be understood within a historical context comprised of political battles between diverse groups of people with conflicting values and disproportionate social, economic, and political resources. The history of educational policy in the United States has been a string of edicts dictated by socio-political elites who wanted to control the lives of the economically underprivileged and politically marginalized working masses, the majority of Americans. When evaluating educational institutions there is a tendency to emphasize certain student outcomes that are politically fashionable, while ignoring other outcomes that are politically inconvenient, embarrassing, or threatening to the status quo. Deciding the value of student outcomes is a political decision privileging certain normative values at the expense of others. Outcomes are often selected without proper consideration of the alternatives. Also, the decision makers usually ignore the educational and ethical implications of different types of outcomes markers. The most ethically profound objectives, like equity, are the hardest to objectively measure, and therefore, the most likely to be ignored for more observable variables, like test scores. Also missing is a broader analytic framework to determine how institutional effectiveness measures, like standardized testing or student learning outcomes, actually affect the lives of students, their learning, and their long term social and economic development. Often accountability recommendations are based on the crassest forms of political compromise, scientific reductionism, and faith in simple, technocratic solutions. Empirical minutiae are swapped for substantial outcomes, and education in its broader sense is sacrificed for ritualistic schooling. And looming ignored below the surface of all reformist policies is the old liberal assumption that all valued ends are compatible. But what if they are not? What if increased efficiency means decreased equality? What if increased access to education means a relative decrease in institutional efficiency? Does anyone dare ask these types of questions or logically consider their implications? Are we willing to sacrifice equal opportunity to all levels of schooling so that test scores can rise, or vice versa? When it comes to education, so many think we can have our cake and eat it too. Study of the politics of educational reform over the last century seems to reinforce some basic principles. The first is that no one can articulate, let alone measure, all the important parts of a complex human endeavor like education. This does not mean that the task is impossible, just fraught with difficulty. The human endeavor of education is not easy to understand or practice, so it should be come as no surprise that it is incredibly difficult to 23
measure its ends. Just as the Nobel laureates Joseph Stiglitz and Amartya Sen and a host of other economists have begun to rethink the validity of the taken for granted economic marker of GDP, so professional educators and the public at large need to deliberate on the ends of higher education and how they should be more accurately measured. Second, once worthy educational ends are identified, institutional administrators and instructors need to tailor educational assessment to specific learning goals for specific students in specific educational contexts designed to produce specific ends. Chris Anson makes this point very clearly, “The most meaningful assessments provide formative information to those closest to the learners whose abilities are being assessed, in the context of their own 36 curriculum and educational outcomes.” Institutional accountability measures should grow out of the practice of teachers and curriculum makers, not dictated to them. Finally, institutional administrators and policy makers need to understand the complexity of educational reform in terms of the fallibility of all human actions and the messy nature democratic processes. David Tyack and Larry Cuban are two of the most important historians of education in the United States. In a landmark book on school reform their basic conclusion was: “Better schooling will result in the future – as it has in the past and does now – chiefly from the steady, reflective efforts of the practitioners who work in schools and from the contributions of the parents and citizens who support (while they 37 criticize) public education.” In more recent studies, Diane Ravitch and Linda Darling-Hammond have supported this general claim. They have also emphasized the foundational role that professional educators play in facilitating 38 the messy, democratic phenomenon we call public education. However, over the past century, practitioners, parents, and citizens at large are rarely allowed to contribute to framing the ends or means of education. The current standards based accountability reforms have been no different. These new accountability systems have been championed by high profile political actors and forced on school districts by ignorant and inexperienced neophytes, like Michelle Rhee, the controversial Chancellor of the Washington D.C. public school system. Although Rhee's dictatorial administration enacted the supposedly magic cure of accountability reform, her policies failed to do much, if anything, to actually improve the learning of students or their prospects for a better life. What are the possible ends of education? What ends are most 36
Chris M. Anson, “Closed Systems and Standardized Writing Tests,” In Assessment Symposium, College Composition and Communication 60, no. 1 (2008): 122; Grubb and Lazerson, The Education Gospel, 102. 37 Tyack and Larry Cuban, Tinkering Toward Utopia, 135. 38 Linda Darling-Hammond, The Flat World and Education: How America's Commitment to Equity Will Determine Our Future (New York, 2010); Diane Ravitch, The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice are Undermining Education (New York, 2010); Diane Ravitch, "How, and How Not, to Improve the Schools," The New York Review of Books (March 22 2012), 17-19. 24
important? What resources are available? And who should be accountable to whom? The political ideal of democracy in public education still eludes us as a nation because government and professional elites tend to dictate policy without broader debate. But there is another political principle that is even more important than fostering broader democratic debate. We must recognize the stark reality of value pluralism. Conflict and trade-offs are inevitable. Not all social and political ends are equal, achievable, or compatible. As Isaiah Berlin remarked, “not all good things are compatible, still less all the ideals of mankind…conflicts of values may be an intrinsic, irremovable element in human 39 life.” Sometimes hard compromises need to be made in order to choose one laudable end over another. Politicians and policy makers rarely acknowledge this bitter truth. Everyone wants to have their cake and eat it too. Educational institutions should be effective at what they do, but education is more of an art than a science, more of an affective experience than an effective enterprise, and its highest goal should be the internal transformation of human beings, not the external measurement of particular behavior. As one scholar recently explained, education is a "human improvement" profession, which is very unique type of work and not easily 40 quantified. There are many practical policy recommendations that scholars and practitioners have identified over the years, which can help improve institutional practice and increase measures of student success. I do not want to summarize these promising practices here because most experienced educators already know what needs to be done. The real difficulty is not identifying promising practices. The real difficulty is finding competent leadership. We need to secure the economic and institutional resources needed to sustain educational success for all learners, while also weighing in the balance the inevitable conflict between efficiency and equality. To meet this challenge of leadership, the American public needs to take education more seriously and make it a political priority. While this entails investing more financial resources in educational institutions, the solution involves more than simply money. It involves more democratic deliberation over the ethical parameters of what educational effectiveness should mean and who should have the power to enact promising educational practices and on what terms. This deliberation must include practitioners, students, and the larger community, not just policy makers. The ultimate effectiveness of any institution of education is enabled or constrained by the social, economic, and political context in which it operates. Policy makers would be better advised to focus on perfecting the process of institutional change, rather than chasing unattainable 41 measures of perfectibility. But before any serious discuss of school reform can take place, 39
Isaiah Berlin, “Two Concepts of Liberty,” 238. David K. Cohen, Teaching and Its Predicaments (Cambridge, MA, 2011). Richard J. Bernstein, “Democratic Hope,” The Hedgehog Review 10, no. 1 (2008): 36-50; Biesta, “What ‘What Works’ Won’t Work;” Amy Gutmann, Democratic Education (Princeton, 1987).
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educational professionals must first address the Trojan horse in our midst. The current accountability movement is not really about the perfection of education. It is not about education at all. Aaron Wildavasky was one of the first great scholars of policy analysis. He warned in 1979 that the growing accountability movement in education was the result of economic crises and political posturing. The democratizing of education over the late 19th and 20th centuries has come at great cost, while the public purse has become constrained by successive economic crises. Wildavasky perceptively asked, “Is education being made into, or accepting the role of, the fall guy?” Wildavasky, of course, knew the answer. Educators had been waving th flags since the turn of the 20 century when business oriented managers began taking over American schools and displacing educational ends for political power and economic efficiency. In 1912 a perceptive New York teacher argued, “We have yielded to the arrogance of big business men and have accepted their criteria of efficiency at their own valuation, without question. We have consented to measure the results of educational efforts in terms of price and product – the terms that prevail in the factory and the department store.” Instead of blindly adopting efficiency metrics from the business world and smashing them down upon the complex ecology of educational institutions, educators and administrators at all levels must step up and ask, “Efficiency for 42 whom and for what?" and "Who will coordinate whom toward what ends?” We also need to realize, as Diane Ravitch has recently pointed out, that efficiency metrics roughly approximate the value of education because they cannot "capture the most important dimensions of education, for which we do 43 not have measures." We need a much larger debate on the institutional ends and means of the education. We need a broad discussion about what we value most as a society. We also need to debate how institutions of education can help develop successive generations of human beings who will go on to respect and foster those values. There are many worthy values at play: the most important seem to be effectiveness, equality, and excellence. What if we have to choose? Who makes the choice?
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Callahan, Education and the Cult of Efficiency, 121; Aaron Wildavasky, Speaking Truth to Power: The Art of Craft of Policy Analysis (Boston, 1979), 131, 148, 309. 43 Diane Ravitch, The Death and Life of the Great American School System, 166. 26
Chapter 3 --What Is the Real Value of Education? On the Limits of Human Capital Theory
th
Prior to the 20 century, education was centered on moral and civic inculcation with a specific focus on training elites for socio-political leadership. th These traditional purposes were gradually replaced during the 20 century with a new end: training all Americans for work. This trend has been labeled the vocationalization of American education. This educational trend is a bi-product of the broader shift of western society away from traditional social and religious values towards economics as the sole arbiter of value. We now live in a market society. All forms of education, but especially higher education, are now largely a training apparatus for the nation’s capitalist economy. The labor market arbitrates the form and content of both mid- to low-skilled occupations and high-skilled professions. Americans view education, particularly postsecondary education and its system of credentials, as an economic “ladder of opportunity” that will yield financial returns and upward social mobility. Thomas Frank sardonically notes, "Universities exist in order to man the gates of social class, and we pay our princely tuition rates to obtain just one thing: the degree, the golden ticket, the 44 capital-C Credential." In the United States, education has been reduced to "an 45 adjunct" to the labor market and larger capitalist economy. It seems the "imperial domain" of economics has become the only arbiter of value. Human society has become completely commodified: a big market of private goods 46 where anything can be bought and sold. While human capital theory has allowed economists, capitalists, and government officials to enhance the perceived value of human labor, this economic paradigm has some hidden costs. It has created a problematic faith in 47 what Grubb and Lazerson call the “education gospel." This secular mantra is an unqualified belief in the monetary value of all education. Supposedly, higher levels of education bring higher levels of economic earnings for all workers, 44
Thomas Frank, "A Matter of Degrees," Harper's Magazine (Aug 2012), 4. John Gray, False Dawn: The Delusions of Global Capitalism (New York, 1998), 12. Michael J. Sandel, What Money Can't Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets (New York, 2012). 47 Grubb & Lazerson, The Education Gospel. 45 46
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everywhere, always. This belief is false. While completing a bachelor’s degree in the United States has marked economic benefits, these benefits are always averaged sums. Thus, these averages mask real inequalities of earnings based on race, class, gender, and regional geography. The United States continues to be a socially stratified society where different groups of people are unequally rewarded for similar work or credentials. Because human capital theory cannot adequately account for these lingering social inequalities, some have called it not only “overly 48 simplistic,” but also “naïve.” It is also important to note that increased levels of educational attainment in the U.S. over the past quarter century have also been accompanied by increased levels of economic and social inequality. Nowhere is this issue more concretely demonstrated than in the estimated economic returns to sub-baccalaureate education, especially in community colleges. Not all degrees or academic institutions are equal, and neither is the comparative quality of training. While increased levels of students are enrolling in higher education, very few of these students will ever attain anything more than a couple years of college. Most college students do not complete a degree. But there is increased pressure to go to college with the naive that even a little "higher education" will somehow help increase one's chances in the labor market. Given that many students have to take out thousands of dollars in students loans, this is a potentially ruinous situation, for both individuals and the 49 nation at large. Some have even called it the next financial bubble. While, increased levels of education have been an economic boon, this basic trend must be qualified. From the mid-nineteenth until the twenty-first century, the net national product of the United States has grown on average by 3.4 percent per year. Some contributing factors include the development of natural resources, the growing investment of capital, and the development of various new technologies. While these factors have all been significant, another major factor contributing to twentieth century economic growth has been human labor. Economists estimate that between 41-49 percent of the growth of the net national product from 1840 to 1990 was due to the development of 50 human labor supplies and laborer skills. th But we must also remember that for much of the 19 century, a significant portion of the labor force was enslaved or in a state of debt peonage. Labor markets institutionally discriminated against laborers in forms of “wage discrimination” based on race, ethnicity, and gender, and also based on race51 and gender-segmented occupations. In 1860 black slaves constituted about 21 48
Grubb & Lazerson, The Education Gospel, 164. Glenn Harlan Reynolds, The Higher Education Bubble (New York, 2012). 50 Jeremy Atack and Peter Passell, A New Economic View of American History, 2nd ed. (New York, 1994), 19. 51 Claudia Goldin, Understanding the Gender Gap: An Economic History of American Women (Oxford, 1990); Roger L. Ransom and Richard Sutch, One Kind of Freedom: The Economic Consequences of Emancipation, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, UK, 2001), 165; David R. Roediger, The Wages of Whiteness, rev ed. (London, 2003). 49
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percent of the labor force, and most of these enslaved when they were officially “freed” still continued to be economically enslaved by debt peonage in the agricultural economy of the South. In fact, both white and non-white agricultural workers in the South were not “free” because their cash crops were 52 determined by the wealthy merchants in charge of regional markets. Much the same could be said about agricultural and industrial laborers in the North and 53 West. Women were also active yet invisible participants in labor force for centuries in the “hidden market” of the home, but this contribution to the net 54 national product has long been neglected by male economists. Despite being overtly discriminatory, labor markets were also regionally “segregated,” which 55 limited the mobility of laborers to find less discriminatory markets. Despite the foundational economic value of labor, laborers were largely (but never completely) neglected by economists and politicians for centuries, as they were often classified as mere “commodities” to be bought and sold by capitalists in labor markets. When employed, a laborer became another form of “raw material” to be “controlled” by managers. However, skilled workers were able to retain some control over their labor and working conditions due to their relative scarcity in some labor markets and to the 56 collective power of guilds and craft unions. But in the United States, the full economic value of labor was not th realized by economists and politicians until the early to mid-20 century, with the widespread development of three important social institutions: labor unions, secondary and post-secondary public schooling, and formal legal equality. Labor unions allowed for a growing body of legal rights for laborers, better working conditions, and some measure of free time to develop non-occupational 57 pursuits, like education. The development of free public secondary schooling and growing access to post-secondary schooling allowed unskilled and skilled laborers alike to increasingly send their children to school and learn skills that would increase their value as laborers, although the opportunity costs of schooling were still prohibitive to many because of the dependence of families 58 on adolescent labor. And finally, the development of formal legal equality for all American citizens allowed non-white and immigrant laborers to more freely unionize, educate themselves and their children, and negotiate their labor in less discriminatory labor markets – although formal legal equality has not translated 52
Atack & Passell, A New Economic View of American History, 522, 533; Ransom and Sutch, One Kind of Freedom, 165. Atack & Passell, A New Economic View of American History, 539; Richard Edwards, Contested Terrain: The Transformation of the Workplace in the Twentieth Century (New York, 1979); Nell Irvin Painter, Standing at Armageddon. 54 Jeanne Boydston, Home & Work: Housework, Wages, and the Ideology of Labor in the Early Republic (Oxford, 1990); Goldin, Understanding the Gender Gap. 55 Atack & Passell, A New Economic View of American History, 529, 543. 56 Edwards, Contested Terrain, 26, 31; Kliebard, Schooled to Work, 52. 57 Dawley, Struggles for Justice; Edwards, Contested Terrain; Nelson Lichtenstein, State of the Union: A Century of American Labor (Princeton, 2002). 58 Claudia Golden and Lawrence F. Katz, The Race Between Education and Technology (Cambridge, MA, 2009). 53
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into full social or economic equality for many Americans. It was in 1960 that Theodore W. Schultz, then the president of the American Economic Association, broke with classical economic theory and repositioned the laborer as the foundational element of modern economies and economic growth. Schultz argued that laborers in the United States were becoming more educated, and thus, more valuable. He claimed that human skills and knowledge were a “form of capital”: human capital. He went on to say, “The productive capacity of human beings in now vastly larger than all other forms of wealth taken together.” He tried to position his theory away from classical accounts of laborers as “something akin to property,” and he explained that human capital was actually a form of human freedom and choice, which helped both the welfare of the individual and also the economic welfare of society. He argued that racial discrimination interfered with economic development and, thereby, was nationally self-defeating policy (he did not mention gender discrimination). He even went so far as to claim that “laborers have become capitalist” because their knowledge and skills now have 59 quantifiable “economic value,” which is greater than nonhuman capital. By the 1970s the idea of education as a form of human capital investment had taken hold and was fast becoming the reigning theoretical paradigm for justifying the social and economic value of education, especially higher education. In 1976 Kern Alexander explained how the idea of human capital represented an advancement of Western society. Human “resources” were now understood to be “the true basis for the wealth of nations.” But with this new economic celebration of labor came an economically re-conceptualized notion of education, which Alexander defined as: anything which (a) increases production through income in the capacity of the labor force, (b) increases efficiency by reducing unnecessary costs, thereby reserving resources for the enhancement of human productivity …and (c) increases the social consciousness of the community so that living conditions are enhanced.60
The problem with this new instrumentalist conception of education was that it seemed to reduce a complex human activity to a mere productivity equation, whereby, increased “capacity” and “efficiency” lead to increased “production” and an “enhanced” society. Alexander admitted that many educators, not to mention laborers, would find this definition unappealing or insulting. Human 61 beings did not always educate themselves to “maximize income.” And, lest people forget about the historical institutionalization of labor markets in the United States, Alexander also pointed out that education did not 59
Theodore W. Schultz, “Investment in Human Capital,” The American Economic Review 51, no. 1 (1961): 2-5, 11. 60 Kern Alexander, “The Value of an Education” (1976), ASHE Reader on Finance in Higher Education, D. W. Breneman, L. L. Leslie, and R. E. Anderson, eds. (Needham Heights, 1996), 85-86, 88, 89. 61 Ibid. 30
simply translate into increased income, nor were the benefits of human capital equally distributed to all types of laborers in all labor markets. Alexander explained, “The economic value of education is distorted by factors such as intelligence, parent’s education, race, sex, urban versus rural, north versus 62 south, health, education quality, and others too numerous to explore.” So while the paradigm of human capital did bring increased respect for laborers, it reduced the value of education to a simple economic investment, and it masked the larger social segmentation, segregation, and discrimination that still resided 63 in labor markets. While some economists have used human capital theory expansively to theoretically and empirically explore how increased education and economic development bring increased freedom and socio-political development, many economists use this theory rather narrowly to empirically explain the correlation between education and increased economic production capacity. David Breneman, like many economists of higher education, routinely refers to the “outputs” of higher education in terms of “individual rates of return,” and less frequently, if at all, economists might talk about the “social rate of return,” but this expansive conception is very hard to quantify. Thus, when it comes to the ultimate value of higher education, invariably scholars, policy makers, and politicians defer to the reigning paradigm of human capital theory. But in doing so, they reduce education to an individualistic economic investment in training for the labor market. There has been much economic study of the private returns to “investment” in a baccalaureate degree. Michael B. Paulsen summarized much of this literature. He demonstrated that the long-term earnings differential between high school educated worker and college educated workers (baccalaureate degree holders) has been substantial and has also been increasing since the 1980s. Paulsen also reported that the average private rate of return for a baccalaureate degree was somewhere between 9 percent and 15 percent. Grubb and Lazerson estimate the average rate of return in 1980 to be 16.5 percent. The average private rates of return, however, substantially vary due to a host of personal factors, like academic ability, socioeconomic status, family background, quality of schooling, gender, and race/ethnicity. Grubb has also documented that private rates of return vary depending on the professional area of the degree. Degrees from fields like business, allied health, and technical/engineering have shown strong economic returns, while fields like 64 agriculture and education have shown marginal economic returns. Various groups of workers still face discrimination in the labor market 62
Ibid. Ibid.; Michael B. Paulsen, “The Economics of Human Capital and Investment in Higher Education,” The Finance of Higher Education, 60,74. 64 W. Norton Grubb, “The Economic Returns to Baccalaureate Degrees: New Evidence from the Class of 1972,” The Review of Higher Education 15, no 2 (1992): 213-231; Grubb, Learning and Earning in the Middle; Grubb & Lazerson, The Education Gospel, 160; Paulsen, “The Economics of Human Capital and Investment in Higher Education,” 65, 7476. 63
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as well, which causes “inequalities in the marginal benefits accruing to individuals who invest in higher education.” There is also some evidence that what economists assume to be the value of higher education is in fact mostly the skills, abilities, and/or social privileges of talented (and largely white, male) individuals. The public and private benefits of schooling reflect the continuing inequality in American society and the labor market: In 2000 the average earnings of a Black male with a professional degree was more than $8,000 less than a white male with a bachelor’s degree, and a Latina woman with a doctorate degree earned only $3,000 more than a white male with a high school diploma. The modest returns for a sub-baccalaureate degree also call into question the whole notion of whether obtaining only “some college” is worth 65 the capital expense and forgone wages. Plus, when looking at the larger social landscape in a supposedly democratic country, education is not solving the deep set economic and political 66 inequalities in our society - it is making them worse! As more and more Americans have obtained some form of higher education credential over the past quarter century, social inequality has increased, not decreased. Social mobility for many lower class Americans has become harder to attain, not easier. Paradoxically, education is now a cause of inequality, as college educated 67 Americans are turning into a new elite. Peter Drucker identified this trend back in 1994 when he described a new elite class of "knowledge workers," with higher education credentials and specialized technological skills. He warned that this elite might foment a “new class conflict” in America, which was a call to arms for the average American to work harder and get more college degrees, all the while ignoring the effects of race, class, and gender on access to and success in 68 college, let alone in the rewards in the labor market. But more is at stake than uneven rates of human capital formation and inequitable returns to human capital investment. There is something deeply disturbing with the reduction of human beings to mere economic entities and education to mere economic investment in vocational training for the 69 marketplace. Adam Smith, the godfather of modern free market capitalism, expressed his deep misgivings about the influence the capitalist marketplace 65
Breneman, “The Outputs of Higher Education,” 8; Dale and Krueger, Estimating the Payoff to Attending a More Selective College, 30; Dey and Hill, Behind the Pay Gap; Grubb, “The Economic Returns to Baccalaureate Degrees;” Grubb & Lazerson, The Education Gospel, 158; Mishel, Bernstein and Allegretto, The State of Working America 2006/2007; Paulsen, “The Economics of Human Capital and Investment in Higher Education,” 76; Rosenbaum, Beyond College for All, 68-81. 66 Linda Darling-Hammond, The Flat World and Education: How America's Commitment to Equity Will Determine Our Future (New York, 2010); Arum and Roksa, Academically Adrift, 53. 67 "Inequality: Unbottled Gini," The Economist (Jan 22, 2011), 71-72; "The Rise and Rise of the Cognitive Elite," in The Few: A Special Report on Global Leaders, The Economist (Jan 22, 2011), 7. 68 Peter F. Drucker, “The Age of Social Transformation,” The Atlantic (Nov 1994), 7, 10. 69 Michael J. Sandel, What Money Can't Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets (New York, 2012). 32
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would have on education. Smith warned, "The minds of men are contracted and rendered incapable of elevation, education is despised or at least 71 neglected." And yet despite many warnings since Smith, the reductive vision of economics has for over a century come to define the normative rhetoric of most policy makers and many professional academics. The very notion of education has been re-institutionalized as vocationalism, nothing more and nothing less. As David F. Labaree argues, education has been reduced to a private good. Schools do not educate, they "sell credentials to consumers:" Schools exist "largely as a mechanism for providing individuals with a cultural commodity that will give them a competitive advantage in the pursuit of social position. In short, 72 education becomes little but a vast public subsidy for private ambition." st In the 21 century, how does one even make the case for broader human or educational values beyond the economic? We lack both the language and the vision for such a task. A widespread intellectual movement of "economic imperialism" has distorted both our moral vocabulary and our moral 73 imagination. I agree with the stark judgment of John Gray, "This continuing 74 default of understanding warrants pessimism about the future." The profound absence of a broader vision for education in current policy discourse must be addressed by scholars and the public at large before any meaningful reform of schools can take place. By and large Americans have surrendered education to government bureaucrats, businessmen, economists, and intellectual technocrats. Educational institutions suffer around the world because we cannot conceive the process of education outside of narrowly defined economic terms. Prognostications on the future of the American schooling must be put aside until we can come to a broader understanding of what education actually means for us as individuals, as a society, and as a species. We must address education beyond the narrow confines of schooling for a capitalist economy, which while important, it is not the only end of education. We need to understand the concept of education in relation to the constraints of the human condition and the possibilities inherent within us as human beings. Before being trained for a job, students should first be taught how to understand and cultivate their humanity so that they can participate as responsible citizens of a globalizing 75 world.
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John Gray insightfully explored this point: "Caricatured by twentieth-century ideologues as a market missionary, Smith was in fact an early theorist of the cultural contradictions of capitalism (86)." Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia (New York, 2007). 71 Adam Smith, Lectures on Jurisprudence (Indianapolis, 1982), 541. 72 David F. Labaree, How to Succeed in School Without Really Learning (New Haven, 1997), 2, 258; Thomas Frank, "A Matter of Degrees," Harper's Magazine (Aug 2012), 4. 73 John Gray, Enlightenment's Wake (New York, 2009), 153. 74 John Gray, False Dawn: The Delusions of Global Capitalism (New York, 1998), 234. 75 Martha C. Nussbaum, Cultivating Humanity: A Classical Defense of Reform in Liberal Education (Cambridge, MA, 1997), 14. 33
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Chapter 4 --Which American Dream? Inequality & Education in the United States
While it is important to understand the theoretical concept of education and constraints of human knowledge, it is also imperative that students and teachers understand how educational practices are mediated by specific social and political contexts and institutions. The most important institutional context is of course the "school," which most do not realize as a historically contingent phenomenon. Schooling as it is practiced today did not just fall out of the sky ready-made as an inevitable way to socialize the young. It was made my particular people in particular social and political contexts for particular and conflicting reasons. In order to understand the possibilities of education in America, we must first understand the socio-political institutions of our particular nation. We need to know how social, economic, and political processes have historically shaped and constrained the creation and institutionalization of individual schools and larger school systems. We also need to know how schooling profoundly affects students psychologically and socially, both positively and negatively. The schools that we are subjected to by law mediate our learning processes and educational experiences. How we are exposed to institutionalized learning in schools largely shapes how we respond to learning experiences later in our lives. We should not take our institutions for granted, nor assume that they are doing what we would want them to do. I would argue that our schools have been ineffectively trapped by the larger contradictions of this nation since its inception. The United States of America have always had a hierarchical and inequitable social structure, which was a legacy of European aristocratic traditions. This structure has constrained our system of schools by reinforcing, and sometimes exacerbating, the larger social inequalities that have been present since this nation was founded. I think these social inequalities often, but not always, poison the natural human inclination to learn. They also hamper the ability of many Americans to creatively experience life, and condemn many Americans to a life of mindless drudgery and relative measures of poverty. In order to enable real educational experiences for all children in America, our institutions of schooling must be better understood and so that they can be transformed. But in order for real 35
school reform to take place, Americans must first confront the contraction at the heart of our society and political system - a contradiction that has been built into our system of schooling and pervades our very conception of education. America is both an aristocratic and democratic society, and it is torn between the competing ideals of conservative meritocracy and radical equality. What has been called the American Revolution was more of a 76 bourgeois rebellion led by competing groups of American gentry. A landed upper class, which was enfranchised predominately due to royal charters, slave labor and/or indentured servitude, formed a coalition with a sizable property holding meritocratic middle class. This coalition combined into a new American aristocracy and together they skillfully spun an obfuscated rhetoric of unification 77 against a common enemy, England. The revolutionary doctrine of liberty articulated by the Founding Fathers was contradictory from the start. It incorporated some fragments of a radical political discourse (Tom Paine and Thomas Jefferson), but it primarily stressed a more conservative preoccupation with authority, property, and asymmetric power structures based on wealth, sex, and race (Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay, John Adams, George Washington and also, paradoxically, Jefferson). Pronouncing “We the people,” rebel elites hoped to rhetorically create a “united” community of diverse Americans with diverse interests. These elites were able to manufacture some semblance of a common cause, which they used to martial a motley group of colonists in order to fight the British and Native Americans (who more often than not sided with the British because only the British offered freedom and political autonomy to the native 78 peoples). However, this common cause did not prove very durable once the war was won. As Joseph J. Ellis noted, this diverse group of colonists agreed to a “common cause” in order to get rid of the British, but then “discovered in the aftermath of their triumph that they had fundamentally different and politically incompatible notions” on which to found a new country. These “politically incompatible notions,” the combination of radical liberalism and aristocratic conservatism, cemented a “contradiction” in the very fabric of the emerging nation. This contradiction, Joseph J. Ellis writes, “was not resolved so much as built into the fabric of our national identity...the United States is founded on a 79 contradiction.”
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Gordon Wood, The Radicalism of the American Revolution (New York, 1991), 4-6, 173, 196. 77 Robert E. Shalhope, The Roots of Democracy: American Thought and Culture, 1760-1800 (Lanham, MD, 2004), 4, 10, 30-31. 78 Hamilton, Alexander, James Madison, and John Jay, The Federalist, in The Federalist: The Famous Papers on the Principles of American Government (New York, 1961), 94. Edmund S. Morgan, Inventing the People: The Rise of Popular Sovereignty in England and America (New York, 1988). On the contested nature of this rhetorical battle see David Waldstreicher, In the Midst of Perpetual Fetes: The Making of American Nationalism, 1776-1820 (Chapel Hill, NC, 1997), 53-54. 79 Ellis, Founding Brothers, 10, 13, 16; Shalhope, The Roots of Democracy: American 36
This contradiction between radical liberalism and aristocratic conservatism has surfaced time and again in social and political crises since this country was founded. A close look as the historical record reveals that "conflict produced 'the nation,'" as competing political factions continually fought over 80 the symbolic constitution of America. However, the dominant political discourse has always mythologized an anti-partisan nationalism that treats this 81 longstanding conflict with "avoidance and silence" Acknowledging the contradiction at the heart of our political would destroy the myth of America as a land of liberty and justice for all. Acknowledging the real structural inequalities that have persisted since the founding of our nation would upset the long held balance of power, which has always favored the propertied, politically powerful, and ethnically privileged ruling classes. Historian Francis Jennings described the socio-political landscape before the Revolutionary War as composed of a “multiplicity of variously 82 oppressed and exploited peoples who preyed upon each other.” After the war a fractious debate ensued over a new national Constitution, largely conducted by a land-owning elite (the main beneficiaries of the war of independence). This political document would define the parameters of civil society and set up a framework of government that was meant to bring order to the diverse interests of the various "united" states and the diverse constituents therein. Only after vigorous dispute did the Constitution also enshrine a list of immutable civil rights meant to protect the basic liberties of all citizens (of course they would have to be recognized as such by the proper authorities). Despite a popular rhetoric of freedom and equality in the Declaration of Independence, Historian Howard Zinn described the Constitution as a document working to “maintain” the privileges of certain groups while “giving just enough rights and liberties to enough of the people to ensure popular 83 support.” This is because, despite the lofty rhetoric of the Declaration, most people in the 18th century firmly believed that "All men were created 84 unequal." Thus, the Constitution deliberately left out four major second-class segments of American society: slaves, indentured servants, women, and men without property. There was also a fifth class of people not mentioned, Native Americans, who as persecuted minority were largely ignored by the country’s founding documents, which enabled centuries of violence and exploitation
Thought and Culture, 147. 80 Waldstreicher, In the Midst of Perpetual Fetes, 6-9, 53-54. 81 Joseph J. Ellis, Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation (New York, 2002), 10, 15-16, 241. For a contemporary example of such avoidance wrapped in nationalist mythology see Arthur M. Schlesinger, The Disuniting of America: Reflections on a Multicultural Society, rev. ed. (New York, 1998). For a historian's response to Schlesinger see Waldstreicher, In the Midst of Perpetual Fetes, 352. 82 Francis Jennings, "The Indians' Revolution," qtd. in. Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States 1492 – Present, 20th ed. (New York, 1999), 88. 83 Zinn, A People’s History of the United States, 91, 97; Morgan, Inventing the People, 60, 148. 84 My emphasis. Wood, The Radicalism of the American Revolution, 32. 37
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sanctioned by the legal system. Fear of these exploited classes, and the corresponding need for the elite to maintain control over the country, was important policy issue surrounding the adoption of the Constitution. Colonial elites, which later included most American politicians, had always been quite critical and fearful of 86 87 the "grazing multitude" of "Idiots," by which they meant "the common Herd 88 of Mankind," those "hackneyed rascals" that Jefferson claimed "must never be 89 considered when we calculate the national character." This disdain and fear is quite clear in The Federalist, a collection of policy papers representing the aristocratic conservatism of many founding 90 statesmen. Nowhere is this more apparent than in paper #10 written by James Madison. Madison proposed that the advantage of a strong federal government would be its ability to “break and control the violence of faction.” Madison believed that public policy was too often decided not by the “rules of justice” (i.e. legal status quo defending traditional rights) and the “rights of the minor party” (i.e. white male aristocracy), but instead were decided by the “superior force” of the “interested” and “overbearing majority” (i.e. un-propertied mob of the exploited underclass). Widespread structural inequality in Europe and the American colonies had instilled in the aristocracy a fear of the people. Madison's elite had a “distrust of public engagements” and an “alarm for private rights” because any rebalancing of power would naturally take from the privileged few and redistribute it to the wanting many. Madison went on to label the “overbearing majority” of common un-propertied men a “faction” (non-persons such as women and slaves didn't even cross his mind). Madison defined a faction as “a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.” Of course he primarily concerned with the fact that “the most common and durable sources of factions has been the various and unequal distribution of property.” Thus, Madison thought the primary job of the new federal government should be to protect the various “interests” of the minority propertied classes, while simultaneously limiting the “interests” of the exploited un-propertied and ethnically stigmatized classes of the majority, which of course included by default several additional under91 classes of non-persons, like women, slaves and Native Americans. 85
Eric Foner, The Story of American Freedom (New York, 1998); Cal Jillson, Pursuing the American Dream (Lawrence, 2004); Zinn, A People’s History of the United States. George Washington, qtd. in Wood, The Radicalism of the American Revolution, 27. 87 Landon Carter, qtd. in Wood, The Radicalism of the American Revolution, 27. 88 John Adams, qtd. in Wood, The Radicalism of the American Revolution, 27. 89 Thomas Jefferson, qtd. in Wood, The Radicalism of the American Revolution, 27. 90 Waldstreicher, In the Midst of Perpetual Fetes, 67. 91 The editor of this issue of The Federalist brings in a contrasting view to Madison’s use of the word "faction." Edmund Burke used the term “party” in Thoughts on the Present Discontents (1770), but Burke defined "party" in more neutral terms as "a body of men 86
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In short, the new national constitution would institutionalize an unequal balance of power, whereby, the interests of the American gentry (genteel, propertied, white, European males) were prioritized and protected 92 over the interests of everyone else. The very words "public" and "people" embodied the hierarchical values of aristocratic English culture, which was carried on in the new American republic by a gentry class enamored with their 93 own "natural superiority," the basis for a new meritocracy. When John Randolph defined the "public" in 1774, he meant "only the rational part of it," not the majority of "ignorant vulgar" people who were by nature "unable to 94 manage the reins of government." In the late 1790s Noah Webster had created the official definition of "people" in his new American dictionary: "The vulgar; the mass of illiterate persons. The communality, as distinct from men of 95 rank." As historian Edmund S. Morgan has pointed out, "The fiction of popular sovereignty...sustained the government of the many by the few, even while it 96 elevated and glorified the many." Of course working against the emphatic conservative preoccupations of the founding fathers was a competing ideological vision held by the majority of Americans, which infused the periphery of power politics with an airy dream of republicanism, civil rights, and political equality. The fiction of popular sovereignty was used by the elite to limit political participation, but it was also used by the people to petition the elite for more freedom, political rights, and access to property. Most Americans, rich and poor, hoped that somehow this new nation would be different than class-bound Europe and Asia, but how different was always in dispute. Yet almost everyone could agree on at least one 97 thing: the absence of monarchy and inherited aristocracy. The ideals of republicanism were embodied in the brash statements of revolutionaries, like Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine. Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence is perhaps the most endearing locus of the enduring hope of republicanism - a 98 hope that has often been called the American Dream. united, for promoting by their joint endeavors the national interest, upon some particular principle in which they are all agreed" (33). Under Burke’s definition, the un-propertied majority need not be a negative, self-serving and destructive group of individuals out for their own good at the expense of a nation. One must be reminded, however, that Burke was not one to support democratic causes and thus this contrast should be contextually qualified by his intended usage, although it does give modern readers a glimpse of how Madison could have conceptualized his term if he had not been bent on disparaging a truly democratic government. 92 Wood, The Radicalism of the American Revolution, 229; Foner, The Story of American Freedom; Jillson, Pursuing the American Dream; Zinn, A People’s History of the United States. 93 Shalhope, The Roots of Democracy: American Thought and Culture, 1, 4-5, 45, 117; Waldstreicher, In the Midst of Perpetual Fetes, 67; Morgan, Inventing the People, 60, 148, 153, 169, 173. 94 Qtd. in Shalhope, The Roots of Democracy: American Thought and Culture, 5. 95 Qtd. in Shalhope, Ibid., 117. 96 Morgan, Inventing the People, 173. 97 Shalhope, The Roots of Democracy: American Thought and Culture, 46, 50-51. 98 Here I speak of "our Declaration" as revised by later Americans, including Abraham 39
When it was written in 1776, the Declaration gave voice to a new vision. It made many heretofore unrealizable radical republican principles a sacred political mission. This document inspired what one historian called the 99 "greatest utopian movement in American history." It was a utopian movement, it must be pointed out, that after over two hundred years is still active and gaining momentum. According to Jefferson the new country would create a democracy and thereby promote inalienable civil rights for all citizens, such as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (and property); government ruled by consent of the governed; laws protecting public goods; and principles of 100 freedom, equality and justice. Historian Joseph J. Ellis went so far as to argue that the American dream was in essence “the Jeffersonian dream writ large.” But as Ellis’ analysis makes clear, this was not unqualified praise. Jefferson was a “disappointed idealist” and his soaring political vision was always “magisterial in conception, 101 admirable in intention, unworkable in practice.” Jefferson’s vision was a radical American Dream that has been largely a myth for most Americans, even today. His proposition that a democratic republic should work towards promoting liberty and preventing tyranny were admirable principles, but for almost two hundred years they were selectively applied to mostly free white 102 males. The reality of the emerging American republic never fit well with Jefferson’s democratic ideals, but even the idealistic roots of his vision was ambiguous and ambivalent, creating fatal political flaws. His notions of agrarian democracy, republicanism, and liberty were based on the southern plantocracy's exploitation of slave labor and indentured servitude. Jefferson's vision of an enlightened citizenry only included propertied, white males. He even used his slaves to build what he hoped would become an Enlightenment citadel of timeless truth, the University of Virginia (for whites only until the early 1970s). Historian Robert E. Shalhope explored this contradiction at length in his book on 18th century American thought. Shalhope explained how "enthusiasm for freedom, equality, and liberty could coexist with a contempt for 103 the poor and was by no means incompatible with proposals to enslave them." Lincoln, rather than the historical document, or the "Declaration of Jefferson," as Garry Wills has distinguished. See Garry Wills, Inventing America: Jefferson's Declaration of Independence (New York, 1978), xviii-xxi, xxiv. I disagree with Wills over his assertion that Jefferson never intended the Declaration to be a "spiritual covenant" (p. xxiv), as I think Jefferson purposefully embodied this document with the all the sacred lawfulness of a political constitution and social institution, which would thereby serve to inspire and constrain future generations. 99 Wood, The Radicalism of the American Revolution, 229. On the continued power of this myth see p. 231. 100 Wills, Inventing America: Jefferson's Declaration of Independence. 101 Joseph J. Ellis, American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson (New York, 1996),59, 287, 280. 102 Foner, The Story of American Freedom; Jillson, Pursuing the American Dream; Zinn, A People’s History of the United States. 103 Shalhope, The Roots of Democracy: American Thought and Culture, 135. 40
Thus, Jefferson’s vision of republican democracy also contained contradictory notions of conservative aristocracy, which he embodied in his own life as an aristocratic slaveholder. Paradoxically, Jefferson articulated a conservative counter-ideal to his radical notions in the Declaration of Independence. This counter-ideal could be labeled the conservative American Dream. It was an ideal that was widely used by the ruling American gentry, especially the slaveholding plantocracy, to argue against expansive notions of democracy, freedom, and revolution articulated in the Declaration. The conservative American Dream of aristocratic power and privilege drew on European traditions of feudalism and ethno-centrism. These traditions "sustained a carefully ordered hierarchical world" based on a "pyramidal structure," with the divinely sanctioned king on top and the lowly working 104 classes, slaves, and non-persons at the bottom. While most of the founding fathers wanted to leave behind monarchy and feudalism, they also wanted to institute a “selective” and “hierarchical” socio-political system that would protect the power and property of the few, while allowing for some freedom and social mobility amongst the many. Unlike a rigid class system of inherited privilege, and unlike a complete equalitarian democracy, the founding fathers wanted a hierarchical meritocracy where, in Jefferson’s words, the “best geniuses" could "be raked from the 105 106 rubbish.” What some at the time called an "aristocracy of talent." This conservative American Dream was based on older aristocratic principles, such as authority, order, inequitable property distribution, submissive masses, and a 107 ruling elite. The myth perpetuated by the conservative American Dream was a land of limited opportunity ripe for the talented few who could seize that opportunity to join the privileged elite, while the masses of impoverished “rubbish” lived roughly exploited in the shadow of Providence. Many exemplary lives were held up during the early republic in order to reinforce this aristocratically infused myth of meritocracy. The life of Benjamin Franklin, who in many ways was a radical democratic figure, came to serve as one of the most powerful examples of the conservative American Dream – in large part due to the tireless self-promotion of Franklin himself. Benjamin Franklin’s life was a great success story of rags to riches. His achievements were praised as the result of his personal morality. Franklin claimed a strict adherence to the Puritan work ethic: temperance, self-reliance, frugality, and self-education. In his Autobiography, Franklin proudly declared his belief in divine “Providence,” which rewarded “Industrious” men with “Wealth and Distinction” and conversely punished the slothful masses with poverty. Franklin’s exemplary life of “Progress” was due to his individual “Virtue” and his tireless drive for selfeducation and promotion. Franklin’s Autobiography preached the virtuous duty 104
Ibid., 1. Maxine Greene, The Dialectic of Freedom (New York, 1988), 28-29. Morgan, Inventing the People, 249. 107 Wood, The Radicalism of the American Revolution, 124, see part I. 105 106
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of every individual to work hard and to help himself succeed, which would thereby lead to the general prosperity of society and the good of all via a 108 benevolent metaphysical force akin to Adam Smith’s "invisible hand." The conservative notion of the American Dream of meritocracy praised self-reliance, hard work, frugality, dutiful industry, success, and prosperity, but of course it did not allow for the disabling constraints of classist, sexist, and racist hierarchies that permanently kept the majority of Americans stuck in the rubbish of second class citizenship, or as non-persons. This ideology also ignored the most important factor of social mobility in the early republic, patronage 109 politics, which continued to be a powerful lever of upward mobility into the 20th century. As historian Gordon Wood has noted, "For most men seeking to move up through this personally organized hierarchy, ambition and ability were usually not enough. They also needed the patronage or "friendship" of someone 110 who had power and influence." Benjamin Franklin conveniently left out of his propaganda that the "most important" factor of his rise to fame and fortune was 111 "his ability to attract the attention of an influential patron." But despite the insincerity of this ideology, by the nineteenth century the conservative ideal of meritocracy would displace Jefferson’s more radical American Dream of freedom and equality for all. Hierarchy and meritocracy would become the official ideology of the new nation, and the prime directive of the emerging public system of common schools. On the surface, meritocracy held a distinct democratic advance over European traditions of aristocratic blood and inherited wealth, but in practice meritocracy was merely an ideological cover for various institutionalized inequalities based on race, class, culture, and gender. As David Waldstreicher pointed out, "For every Franklin there were probably many rogues like Stephen Burroughs and outright failures like William Moraley," not to mention the teeming abject classes of non-persons, like women, slaves, and native 112 Americans. The conservative American Dream of meritocracy has been falsely praised as an empowering ideology because most Americans could not freely compete for, let alone realize, the elusive promise of prosperity. This 108
Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography in Autobiography and Other Writings (Oxford, 1998), 81-81, 88. On the Puritan work ethic see R. H. Tawney, Religion and the Rise of Capitalism. (Glouchester, MA, 1962). On the "invisible hand" of the market see Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations (Oxford, 2008). Despite his conservative undertones and his unfounded faith in the "rough equality" of market societies (37), Smith argued for some measure of social equality: "Servants, Labourers and workmen of different kinds, make up the far greater part of every great political society. But what improves the circumstances of the greater part can never be regarded as an inconveniency to the whole. No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable. It is but equity, besides, that they who feed, cloath and lodge the whole body of the people, should have such a share of the produce of their own labour as to be themselves tolerably well fed, cloathed and lodged" (78-79). 109 Wood, The Radicalism of the American Revolution, 77. 110 Ibid., 75. 111 Ibid., 76. 112 Waldstreicher, In the Midst of Perpetual Fetes, 78. 42
conservative vision ended up not so much raising the few “best geniuses,” but of blaming and condemning those who were structurally stuck in the “rubbish.” The conservative American Dream sanctioned the hierarchical structure of American society and justified the inequitable class system predicated on exploitative relations of power. The emerging system of public common schools and colleges in the 19th century were praised as engines of meritocracy, a mythic reputation that is still fixed in the American consciousness. The idea of public schooling as the training ground for responsible democratic citizenry was a cornerstone of late 18th century republican rhetoric, but up through the early 19th century the 113 official policy on schooling "remained haphazard and elitist." No one really 114 wanted to pay taxes to educate someone else's children, especially the poor. And it almost goes without saying that significant classes of non-persons (slaves, women, Native Americans, some immigrants, certain types of poor) were not even considered capable of schooling. Once public schools were created, they promoted some social mobility and equality, but they also reinforced the hierarchical constitution of American society. Both Benjamin Rush and Noah Webster were quite clear that republican education should be focused on "respect for authority and deference to 115 superiors." Rush declared, "In the education of youth, let the authority of our masters be as absolute as possible" so that the populace would accept "the 116 subordination of laws." Webster agreed, "The master should be in absolute command...a strict discipline in both [school and family] is the best foundation of 117 good order in political society." Horace Mann initiated the common school movement in the early 19th century out of the belief that schools and churches should be “institutions designed to produce a homogeneous moral and civic order and a providential 118 prosperity.” Reformers like Mann preached the virtues of Americanism, 119 patriotism, godliness, prosperity, social unity, and capitalism. The Common School was touted as an institution serving the public interest, but it was above all else a pan-Protestant religious revival and missionary enterprise that clearly benefited propertied elites who wanted to indoctrinate and acculturate the lower classes and new immigrant populations into a stratified American 120 society. The conservative, evangelical and nativist reformer Horace Mann 113
Shalhope, The Roots of Democracy: American Thought and Culture, 114-115.. Ibid., 115. Ibid., 116. 116 Qtd in Shalhope, Ibid., 116. 117 Qtd in Shalhope, Ibid., 116. 118 Horace Mann, qtd. in Tyack & Hansot, Managers of Virtue, 19. One Common School proponent in Kansas wrote: “Americanism is Protestantism…Protestantism is Life, is Light, is Civilization, is the spirit of the age. Education with all its adjuncts, is Protestantism. If fact, Protestantism is education itself” (76). 119 Ibid., 21-28. 120 A Republican candidate for governor in 1891 declared, “the public school is needed to Americanize our youth. It is the great digestive apparatus by which the many nationalities in our state will become assimilated” (Ibid., 81). 114 115
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preached a pacifying platform of political “neutrality” and “civic morality.” 122 The Common School was envisioned as a “thousand-eyed police” that would watch, instruct, and sometimes punish the unruly masses. This institution was designed to administer order on behalf of ruling political elites and middle class evangelicals who saw themselves as the custodians of the emerging industrial economy. While many northern and western states paid some homage to the radical American Dream, and promoted to a certain extent the ideal of meritocracy, the American south explicitly sanctioned stark political inequalities and blatant social control. The mostly private system of schooling was a jaundiced institution that enforced an inequitable and oppressive status quo. Southern elites framed the value schooling with a rhetoric of southern exceptionalism, pan-Protestantism, and racialized Americanism. Unlike the north, the southern states had an extremely rigid caste 123 system based on a feudal hierarchy of race, gender, and class. For the first half of the 19th century schooling was available for only a small minority of wealthy, white elites. David Tyack and Elisabeth Hansot have documented how southern elites saw public schooling as a “threat to the social order” because a common school movement had the potential to upset the ritualized oppression of both “poor and powerless” whites and the special “class of noncitizens,” the black slaves. The small degree of schooling that went on in the South was purely for the benefit of white elites so as to breed a genteel cadre of aristocratic privilege to perpetuate the cruel and unjust Southern caste system and to 124 manage the cultivation of vast plantations. Over the course of the nineteenth century, the common school movement spread across the county and preached the virtues of the conservative American Dream of meritocracy: limited social mobility, individual responsibility, hard work, and protestant morality. Many saw American schools as a progressive turn from the aristocratic institutions of Europe, which they were. But below the progressive surface lurked a deeply rooted structural inequality that allowed only a minority of mostly white men (and eventually white women) to better themselves through education. The American economic system firmly concentrated the wealth of the nation in the hands of a small ruling elite, mostly concentrated in the north-east. Over the course of the nineteenth century, wealth became more concentrated 125 and the gap between rich and poor increased dramatically. American schools 121
Ibid., 61. William J. Reese, “Public School and the Elusive Search for the Common Good” in Reconstructing the Common Good in Education: Coping with Intractable American Dilemmas, ed. by Larry Cuban & Dorothy Shipps (Stanford, 2000), 23. 123 George M. Fredrickson, White Supremacy: A Comparative Study in American and South African History (Oxford, 1981); Nancy MacLean, Behind the Mask of Chivalry: The Making of the Second Ku Klux Klan (Oxford, 1994); James D. Anderson, The Education of Blacks in the South, 1860-1935 (Chapel Hill, 1988). 124 Tyack & Hansot, Managers of Virtue, 85. 125 Kevin Phillips, Wealth and Democracy: A Political History of the American Rich (New 122
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became a battleground of competing interests, especially as larger amounts of immigrants came to this country seeking a path to security and prosperity for their children. Women, immigrants, working classes, and racialized minorities increasingly fought over access to schools, which were seen as the main opportunity for social mobility. But simple access to schools was not enough to succeed in America because not all students had the prerequisite skills to succeed. Many schools also tracked students to limit their educational opportunities, and even when students gained some type of diploma or degree, the labor market remained rigidly stratified by class, race, and gender. In light of the structural inequality of American society, the common schools were not really designed as democratic instruments for the good of all. In fact, the emerging system of schools seemed very much at the service of Madison’s elite cadre of wealthy men. This powerful group sought to check the unruly “factions” of the working class, immigrants, and racialized minorities. Given widespread structural inequality of American society, the common school rhetoric of progressive optimism obfuscated the deeper inequitable constraints of a hierarchical society. Take for example the insight of William T. Harris (1835-1909), a teacher and later superintendent of schools in St. Louis, and one of the leading voices of progressive educational reform in his generation. Harris echoed Jefferson's principle of allowing the exceptional to rise from the rubbish, while also noting the ability of schools to pacify the un-lucky and protect a hierarchical society: Education protects one class against another by giving an opportunity to the children of all classes free competition in the struggle to become intelligent and virtuous. An aristocracy built on the accident of birth, wealth, or position cannot resist the counterinfluence of a system of free schools wherein all are given the same chances.126
Harris admitted that there were classes in American society and that not all “classes” had equal access to education, which he was trying to remedy. Most lower class and ethnic minorities had to struggle for inclusion, often getting substandard and segregated schools. And when diverse socio-economic and ethnic classes did mix within public schools, there was often little “free competition” where institutional racism, concentrated social capital, and stark economic inequality pervaded not only the social ecology of the school, but also the surrounding hierarchical society. The inequitable structure of the nineteenth century economy in the United States benefited wealthy industrial and plantation elites, as well as an
York, 2002); Nell Irvin Painter, Standing at Armageddon: The United States, 1877 – 1919 (New York, 1987). 126 William T. Harris qtd. in Reese, “Public School and the Elusive Search for the Common Good,” 30. 45
emerging middle-class. The American economic system exploited slaves, indentured servants, women, and, after the Antebellum period, an impoverished and racialized industrial working class – not to mention the displacement of Native Americans and Spanish/Mexican Americans because of the growing usurpation of western lands. Working classes and immigrant populations labored under horrible conditions in order to produce huge pools of capital that expanded the borders of this country, yet the vast national enterprise of “manifest destiny” and prosperity was realized by relatively few. The conservative American dream preached the virtues of competition and individual struggle, but it ignored the structural framework that gave certain individuals, via their race, gender, and class, extreme advantages, while it placed insurmountable obstacles in the path of many exploited groups of people, like the abject oppression of African Americans slaves and the extermination of Native American “savages.” Yet despite the hollow morality and hypocritical principles of the conservative American Dream, it remained a strong ideal in the minds of late 19th century educational leaders and progressive reformers who instituted a centrally administered and federally funded system of education that remains in place to this day. These progressive reformers started by creating public elementary schools and colleges, and later developed more specific forms of schooling, like the research university, the high school, the middle school, and the junior college. Institutions of higher education in America grew out of the older European tradition of catholic seminaries and liberal arts colleges, and they still reflect and perpetuate traditional elitist notions that are at odds with the democratic principles this country supposedly upholds. The main purpose of Medieval and Early Modern institutions of higher education was the training clergy who would spread the Word of God and Christian discipline. These institutions also trained a literate bureaucracy of lawyers who would become the 127 political functionaries of ecclesiastical and monarchical courts. The first college in the Americas was called Harvard, after a wealthy benefactor, and it was built in the small town of Cambridge in the Massachusetts colony. Harvard College carried forward the older European educational traditions into the new 128 world. By the time the United States of America became an independent country there were nine religious colleges, which were privately run, but 129 subsidized with public funds. In relation to the broader ideological current of 130 a protestant-republican-Americanism, colonial colleges began to differ from 127 Norman F. Cantor, The Civilization of the Middle Ages (New York, 1993), 439-442; Lucas, American Higher Education (New York, 1994); Diarmaid MacCulloch, The Reformation (New York, 2003), 583-88; John R. Thelin, A History of American Higher Education (Baltimore, 2004). 128 MacCulloch, The Reformation, 536-37, 664. 129 Daniel Walker Howe, What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 18151848(Oxford, 2007), 457. 130 Lawrence A. Cremin, American Education: The National Experience, 1783-1876 (New York, 1980).
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earlier European models of higher education by developing a more practical orientation, which went beyond the mere training of courtesans and clergy. American colleges became institutions not only for the transmission of elite cultural mores and the consecration of clergy, but also for the training of political leaders and doctors – preparing what Jefferson once called an “aristocracy of 131 talent.” Thus, the college in the young republic of the United States intertwined aristocratic culture with a particular American brand of noblesse 132 oblige. As a bastion of privileged elites, American institutions of higher th education up until the middle of the 19 century were intensely local, highly religious, and discriminatory. By 1848 there were 113 small colleges, mostly founded by various Protestant denominations, especially Presbyterians, Methodists, and Baptists. Only 16 colleges were state funded public 133 institutions. These colleges enrolled a small population of Protestant, 134 wealthy, white, young men, although four colleges did enroll women before 135 mid-century. Most American colleges were located in the East and Mid-West th until the late 19 century, and the Northeastern establishment remained the center of the American intellectual world until at least the mid twentieth century. Eastern colleges were formative in the socialization of wealthy American gentry - those who would become the center of the Eastern political, economic, and educational establishment. This liberally educated gentry class actively excluded many groups from full participation in the social, political, 136 economic, and educational opportunities that America had to offer. th While there was much support in the early 19 century for RepublicanProtestant, open access, publicly funded “common” primary schools in the East 137 th and Midwest, it was not until the late 19 century that somewhat egalitarian public institutions of both secondary and post-secondary education began to flourish. Public colleges and universities did not become permanently secure until the second Morrill Land Act of 1890, which institutionalized steady state th funds for higher education. By the late 19 century, practically oriented and publicly open state systems of public higher education began to emerge in places like Wisconsin and California, and similarly oriented private universities also emerged, like the University of Chicago and Johns Hopkins University. These institutions refashioned a more democratically oriented, 131 Thelin, A History of American Higher Education, 52; Howe, What Hath God Wrought, 462. 132 Ibid., 26; Lucas, American Higher Education, 104 133 Howe, What Hath God Wrought, 459, 462. 134 Cremin, American Education, 400-409; Thelin, A History of American Higher Education, 107. 135 Howe, What Hath God Wrought, 460-61. 136 Alan Dawley, Struggles for Justice: Social Responsibility and the Liberal State (Cambridge, MA, 1991); Richard Hofstadter, The Age of Reform (New York, 1955), 135148; David Tyack and Elisabeth Hansot, Managers of Virtue: Public School Leadership in America, 1820 – 1980 (New York, 1982); James Weinstein, The Corporate Ideal in the Liberal State, 1900 – 1918 (Boston, 1968). 137 Cremin, American Education; Tyack and Hansot, Managers of Virtue.
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“progressive,” noblesse oblige ideology. They broadened their student base to include a larger swath of ambitious middle class Americans, especially white Protestant women. These institutions also began to develop, according to the educational leaders of the time, a new national-oriented Americanism, rationalized professional standards, and depoliticized civil service training. American colleges developed a Protestant infused mission focused on efficiently 138 engineering social problems in the name of a unified public good. th As this institutional transformation was proceeding in the late 19 century, a demographic transformation was also developing. Slowly, very slowly, more and more Americans were able to gain upward social mobility, political representation, and economic stability (mostly because of various radical social movements and protests), and thereby, more American young adults gained access to elementary schools, high schools and also higher education. However, it would take over a century for the divergent, and sometimes conflicting, 139 “progressive” socio-political reform projects to open American society and its systems of education to a majority of citizens. Only 5 percent of the 19 to 22 year old population was enrolled in an institution of higher education in 1910. A more diverse array of white, middle class, Protestant men were the first to break into exclusive American colleges after the Civil War (excluding the few Roman Catholic colleges that exclusively served catholic men, a largely Irish population). White, middle class Protestant women took advantage of co-educational public institutions and by 1880 women 140 constituted about one-third of all American college students. By the turn of th the 20 century other white ethnic/religious groups, like reformist Protestant sects, Jews, and Catholics, were allowed greater access to mainstream institutions of higher education, but there were often implicit, if not explicit, discriminatory quotas that limited particular ethnic and religious groups to a certain percentage of the total student population. Only belatedly in the second th half of the 20 century did the most disadvantaged Americans gain access to some form of higher education: non-white ethnic and racialized minorities, the 141 working class and poor, and the physically and learning disabled. The so called “Progressive” reform movements in the late 19th and early twentieth century sought to reengineer and rationalize the various institutions of American education. Many progressives focused on technocratic managerial reforms, which stressed a vision of the American school that
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Dawley, Struggles for Justice; Lucas, American Higher Education, 149, 175; Michael McGerr, A Fierce Discontent: The Rise and Fall of the Progressive Movement in America, 1870 – 1920 (Oxford, 2003); Thelin, A History of American Higher Education, 135-40, 14650; Laurence R. Veysey, The Emergence of the American University (Chicago, 1965). 139 John D. Buenker, John C. Burnham, and Robert M. Crunden, Progressivism (Cambridge, MA, 1977); Dawley, Struggles for Justice. 140 Howe, What Hath God Wrought, 464. 141 Walter Crosby Eells, Why Junior College Terminal Education? (Washington D.C., 1941), 48; Daniel Golden, The Price of Admission (New York, 2007); Jerome Karabel, The Chosen (New York, 2005); Dan A. Oren, Joining the Club (New Haven, 1986); Thelin, A History of American Higher Education, 169, 171. 48
mirrored the new industrial management, i.e. using a newly developed “science" of education to create and manage an educational "machine." Progressives saw schools as cultural factories. They used an atomized approach to teachers, curriculum and students to promote standardized administrative and learning procedures, whereby, both students and staff had rigidly proscribed roles to 142 play. Progressives also developed a "science" of education and called for a technocratic elite of educational professionals – the “educational trust” – who would push for a more centralized, bureaucratic approach to schooling via state and federal governments. They sought to expand federal funding and oversight via an expanded Department of Education, which was created in 1867. Progressives also expanded state departments of education so as to create a unified state school systems with standardized curricula, which would teach 143 older forms of moral edification and nationalistic indoctrination combined with new forms of technical/vocational training. This educational trust saw itself managing the school system towards noble ends; however, these progressives were far from the radical ideal found in the Declaration of Independence. These educational experts used a language of technical expertise and business efficiency to engineer what they called the “depoliticizing” of education. In essence this very political program of "depoliticization" sought to remove the administration and oversight of schooling from its heretofore localized context so as to place it within a more 144 structured, hierarchical order based on an elitist, technocratic rationality. David Tyack and Elisabeth Hansot succinctly described this new progressive ideology as “experts would run everything to everyone’s benefit:” The goal of such structural changes in urban school governance was to turn controversial political issues – formerly decided by large numbers of elected representatives on ward and central committees – into matters for administrative discretion to be decided by experts claiming objectivity. This was, of course, not depoliticization at all; it was another form of politics, one in which authority rested not on representativeness or participation but on expertise.145
The professionalizing and depoliticizing of education represented a deeper collusion of Progressive administrators with the established economic interests, whereby older forms of American democracy based on republican virtues were 146 replaced by forms of corporate managerialism and technocratic expertise. The conservative American Dream was altered to fit the early twentieth century 142
Tyack & Hansot, Managers of Virtue, 98, 97, 95. In 1909, Ellwood P. Cubberley of Stanford University and a member of the “educational trust” proudly said, “each year the child is coming to belong more to the state, and less and less to the parent” (Ibid., 103). 144 Herbert Marcuse, One Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society (Boston, 1964). 145 Tyack & Hansot, Managers of Virtue, 107-08. 146 The top 1 percent of the U.S. population earned 33.9% of all personal income, while the bottom 20% earned only 8.3% (Ibid., 109) 143
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industrial workplace and developing consumer society. Schooling became more and more focused on the vocational training of the individual for industrial society and in this context, as Maxine Greene argued, the “dream of wealth and 147 upward mobility” had become “the American dream.” In response to these changes in American society and schooling, there arose a group of democratic progressives who were inspired by the radical American Dream of freedom, equality and democracy for all Americans. These reformers sought to challenge the injustice of American society and the newly instituted bureaucratic system of schooling. These democratic progressives wanted to re-envision and re-structure the educational system. They wanted to encourage more open and critical forms of democratic participation, which would thereby help initiate larger socio-political reforms that would promote a more democratic society where all people would be free and equal to pursue success. These democratic progressives included educators like Ella Flagg Young and Margaret Haley, social reformers like Jane Adams and Helen Keller, and the philosopher John Dewey. Dewey had an expansive notion of democracy, which he offered up as an ideal, by which he meant a “possible” end that could be realized only through 148 the “hard stuff of the world of physical and social experience." Dewey believed that democracy should to be actualized primarily as a means and not an end. It was a principle that should be lived and practiced through daily experience, thereby expanding the capabilities of individuals which would lead to new equitable patterns of human relationships and mutually beneficial cooperative action. Increased individual freedom and new human relationships would then create the conditions to help initiate larger democratic social and 149 political change that would open up American society to all citizens. As a philosopher, Dewey saw his grand philosophical and political project in practical terms as first an educational project: "if philosophy is ever to 150 be an experimental science, the construction of a school is its starting point." For Dewey, knowledge was an extension of action: we learn through doing; knowledge should always be pragmatically related to the particular needs of any given socio-historical context. In essence, Dewey argued, all theoretical and cultural constructs, like knowledge, belief, and common-sense, should be practical means of promoting personal agency, which in turn was the foundation for Dewey’s conception of democracy as a free association of motivated agents working together in common cause for mutual benefit. However, as Dewey grew older and the technocratic elite further stratified the corporate governance of education, he began to lose faith that 151 “schools can be the main agency” of progressive socio-political change. He
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Greene, The Dialectic of Freedom, 41. John Dewey, A Common Faith (New Haven, CT, 1962), 23, 48-49. 149 David Fott, John Dewey: America’s Philosopher of Democracy (Lanham, MD, 1998). 150 Louis Menand, The Metaphysical Club (New York, 2001), 320. 151 Aaron Schutz, “John Dewey’s Conundrum: Can Democratic Schools Empower?” Teachers College Record 103 (April 2001), 7-8. 148
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increasingly realized that his ideal vision did not readily fit within American schools or the surrounding American society as they actually existed nestled 152 within the “prevailing structures of power.” As later educators would explore more fully, within the prevailing ecology of social, economic, and political inequality, schools would be “extremely difficult to transform into agencies of 153 democratic reform.” But part of the problem also lay in Dewey’s failure to address sociopolitical divisions of power based on class, race, and sex. He tended to simplify or ignore these central structures of social inequality, choosing instead to theorize more generally his expansive notions of democracy, individual agency, cooperation, and collective action. He failed to theorize, as Maxine Greene and others have pointed out, how matters of human agency, education, and sociopolitical change are also matters of “power” as they involve contested notions of 154 “public space” and conflicting notions of the public good. It took several major ruptures in the very fabric of American society in th the latter half of the 20 century to awaken a large segment of the American people to realize the unfilled promise of the radical American dream found in the Declaration of Independence. Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act in 1965, and the larger Great Society programs, were all progressive legislative initiatives built out of the ferment of grassroots protest and these legal enactments worked toward addressing fundamental inequalities based on race and class (and somewhat on gender). However, the legacy of these governmental programs in terms of addressing inequality and equal access to opportunity via education has been mixed, and inequality has been growing in the U.S. during the latter half of 155 the 20th into the 21st century. Rising inequality has been partly due the widespread and well organized conservative reaction to progressive reforms since the 1950s, which led to a neo-conservative "revolution" over the past three decades, which resulted in a drastic reduction in personal and corporate tax rates and increased 156 privatization of the economy (among other things). Rising inequality is also 152
Ibid. Ibid. 154 Greene, The Dialectic of Freedom. Educational theorists like Aaron Schutz worry that even Greene’s philosophy does not acknowledge “extensively enough” the “affects of power and oppression” on an individual’s ability to participate in even the smallest of communities” (Ibid., 14). 155 Lawrence R. Jacobs and Theda Skocpol, eds., Inequality and American Democracy (New York, 2005); Phillips, Wealth and Democracy; "Regional Inequality: Internal Affairs," The Economist (March 12 2011) 83-84. John Gray, False Dawn: The Delusions of Global Capitalism (New York, 1998), 106, 114-116. 156 On the conservative revolution in the U.S. see Steve Fraser and Gary Gerstle, The Rise and Fall of the New Deal Order, 1930 - 1980 (New Haven, 1989); George H. Nash, The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America since 1945 (Wilmington, DE, 2006); Rick Perlstein, Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America (New York, 2008); Sean Wientz, The Age of Reagan: A History, 1974 - 2008 (New York, 2008); Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson, Off Center: The Republican Revolution and the Erosion of 153
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due to the increased economic value of college credentials, and the loss of good paying low- and mid-level jobs in various sectors of the economy, as many jobs 157 have gone abroad because of a globalized labor market. The Princeton st Economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman has called 21 century America a “new Gilded Age” and has stated outright that “the reality of increasing inequality is not in doubt.” Krugman went on to say that “inequality in the United States has arguably reached levels where it is 158 counterproductive.” The Gini coefficient, the most reliable measure of 159 inequality, went up from 0.34 in the early 1980s to 0.38 in the 2000s. The United States is second only to Britain in terms of the highest ratios of inequality between the richest and poorest regions of the country (China ranks third), and this ratio has grown almost 20 percent from 1990 to 160 2009. In 1976 the richest 1 percent earned 9 percent of all pre-tax income, in 1987 it grew to 12.3 percent, and by 2007 it had become a whopping 23.5 percent. From 1976 to 2007 the earnings of the richest 0.1 percent of Americans rose from 3 to 12 percent of all pre-tax income. Over that same time period the bottom 50 percent of all Americans saw their pre-tax income fall from 15.6 161 percent of the total to 12.2 percent. There is also ample evidence to suggest that schooling in American exacerbates socio-economic inequality rather than 162 ameliorating it. We seem to be living in a "plutonomy" where "economic 163 growth is powered by and largely consumed by the wealthy few." At the start of the 21st century, the United States of America is at a stark crossroad. The economic and political inequality of the past 30 years has only accelerated due to the Great Recession of 2007-2009 and the primary mechanism for upward social mobility, public schooling, has stalled. An important scholarly study of schooling in America found that our institutions of education were not ameliorating deep rooted inequalities, and that “contention over the goals of the American dream” where becoming exacerbated:
American Democracy (New Haven, 2006); Paul Pierson and Theda Skocpol, eds., The Transformation of American Politics: Activist Government and the Rise of Conservatism (New Haven, 2007); John Gray, Beyond the New Right: Markets, Government, and the Common Environment (New York, 1993). 157 Gray, False Dawn: The Delusions of Global Capitalism, 106, 114-116. 158 Paul Krugman, “For Richer: How the Permissive Capitalism of the Boom Destroyed American Equality,” The New York Times Magazine (Oct 20 2002), 62-67, 76-77, 141-142. 159 "Inequality: Unbottled Gini," The Economist (Jan 22, 2011), 71-72. 160 "Regional Inequality: Internal Affairs," The Economist (March 12 2011) 83-84. 161 "The Rise and Rise of the Cognitive Elite," in The Few: A Special Report on Global Leaders, The Economist (Jan 22, 2011), 7; Anthony B. Atkinson, Thomas Piketty, and Emmanuel Saez, "Top Incomes in the Long Run of History," Journal of Economic Literature 49, no. 1 (March 2011): 3-71. 162 Linda Darling-Hammond, The Flat World and Education: How America's Commitment to Equity Will Determine Our Future (New York, 2010); Arum and Roksa, Academically Adrift, 53; "The Rise and Rise of the Cognitive Elite," Ibid. 163 Don Peck, "Can the Middle Class be Saved?" The Atlantic (Sept 2011), 62. This article was based on his book Pinched: How the Great Recession has Narrowed Our Futures & What We Can Do About It (New York, 2011). 52
Sustained and serious disagreements over education policy can never be completely resolved because they spring from a fundamental paradox at the heart of the American dream. Most Americans believe that everyone has the right to pursue success but that only some deserve to win, based on their talent, effort, or ambition. The American dream is egalitarian at the starting point in the “race of life,” but not at the end. That is not the paradox; it is simply an ideological choice. The paradox stems from the fact that the success of one generation depends at least partly on the success of their parents or guardians. People who succeed get to keep the fruits of their labor and use them as they see fit; if they buy a home in a place where the schools are better, or use their superior resources to make the schools in their neighborhood better, their children will have a head start and other children will fall behind through no fault of their own. The paradox lies in the fact that schools are supposed to equalize opportunities across generations and to create democratic citizens out of each generation, but people naturally wish to give their own children an advantage in attaining wealth or power, and some can do it. When they do, everyone does not start equally, politically or economically. This circle cannot be squared.164
This study concluded by stating that "the ennobling vision" of the radical American Dream is rarely achieved by the majority of Americans, thus, without larger social, economic and political reforms, “the ideology of the American 165 dream will be just a cover for systematic injustice.” Thus, current calls for school reform that focus solely on student test scores and blaming teachers miss the crux of the widespread failure of education in the United States: social and political inequality. The United States remains one of the most unequal affluent societies in the world and this social, economic, and political inequality has a 166 strong correlation with student achievement in schools. In 2011 the radical American Dream of equality and justice for all remains as elusive as ever. Almost half of all Americans are living in poverty or 167 low-income households. Professor of Education Ellen Brantlinger recently asked, “Will we continue to allow traditional elites...to control important 168 discourse and decisions, or will we take our democratic traditions seriously?” This question has been asked since our country’s foundation, but if anything the
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Jennifer L. Hochschild and Nathan Scovronick. The American Dream and the Public Schools (Oxford, 2003), 2. 165 Ibid., 201. 166 Dennis J. Condron, "Egalitarianism and Educational Excellence: Compatible Goals for Affluent Societies?" Educational Researcher 40, no. 2 (March 2011): 47-55; DarlingHammond, The Flat World and Education; Diane Ravitch, The Death and Life of the Great American School System. 167 Hope Yen, "Census Shows More than 1 in 2 People are Poor or Low Income," Associated Press (Dec 15 2011). 168 Ellen Brantlinger, “Poverty, Class, and Disability: A Historical, Social, and Political Perspective.” Focus on Exceptional Children 33 (March 2001): 1-19. 53
American people at the dawn of the 21st century seem further away than ever from realizing this ideal. How long can the radical American Dream be deferred? Martin Luther King Jr. forcefully argued that “progress never roles in on wheels 169 of inevitability.” The moral-philosopher Albert Camus reasoned that justice comes only through the “perpetual struggle” of committed human beings who 170 daily practiced the ends they preached. Both King and Camus stated as a matter of fact that in an unjust society there is no neutral position: You are either living to support democracy and freedom for all, or you are supporting systems of inequality and injustice through ignorance and apathy. Dare more Americans take responsibility for their country, their communities, their schools, their families, and their own lives? As an ideal, the radical American Dream is but a guiding beacon of possibility. It has yet to be realized because the concerted action of a large coalition of Americans has yet to build a foundation for that vision. A century of piecemeal liberal reform driven and prodded by large scale grassroots initiative has given this country great hope and expanded the frontiers of democracy beyond the narrow interest of the founding fathers. However, these reforms have been rolled back by over 30 years of conservative political victories. More must be done to counter the sharp rise in inequality due to the relatively successful conservative counter-revolution in both its classically 171 conservative and neoliberal forms. We also must be aware, as political scientist Rogers M. Smith has pointed out, that "scholarship and popular discourse" about our country "as a basically liberal democratic society are 172 misleading" because this discourse "serve[s] the interests of governing elites." Thus, those who actually work to bring about real democratic change must work against not only the illiberal forces of conservatism, but also the complacent liberals who comfortably talk about democracy while doing nothing to further the cause. Democracy can be a complicated notion to understand because this word is often used in two different ways. Democracy can be used to describe an actual form of government that certain nations practice. Democracy can also be used to express an ideal form of government that may or may not have ever been practiced by an existing nation. Both the idea and the practice of democracy are very, very old, about twenty-five hundred years. The first democratic nation that scholars have documented was ancient Greece, which formed around 500 B.C.E. Another ancient democracy was republican Rome, a colony of Greece, formed several hundred years later. The word “democracy” comes from the Greek word demokratia, which combines the words demos 169
Martin Luther King, Jr., Why We Can’t Wait (New York, 1963). Albert Camus, The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt, trans. by Anthony Bower (New York, 1956). 171 Wientz, The Age of Reagan; Hacker and Pierson, Off Center; Pierson and Skocpol, eds., The Transformation of American Politics. 172 Rogers M. Smith, "Still Blowing in the Wind: The American Quest for a Democratic, Scientific Political Science," American Academic Culture in Transformation, Thomas Bender and Carl E. Schorske, eds. (Princeton, 1997), 295. 170
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(people) with kratos (to rule). Thus, democracy meant ruling or governing by the people. The word “republican” comes from the Latin word respublicus, which combines the words res (thing or affair) and publicus (public or the people). Thus, republican meant “the thing that belonged to the people.” But these early democracies never included all the people as citizens who lived within the nation. In both Greek and Roman societies there were different classes of people, and not everyone was considered worthy of freedom or participating in government. Both societies held slaves, who were considered non-persons, and women, children, and foreigners were also considered nonpersons who did not have the full rights of citizenship and could not participate in government. Rome also distinguished between rich and poor. The small, ruling class of rich people were called patricians and the majority of poor people were called plebs. It took a long time for plebs to gain full citizenship in ancient Rome, and even once they did, very few were able to realize and practice full 173 political rights, like participating in government. There have been a few other historical examples of democratic governments after ancient Greece and Rome, but the most influential example would become The United States of America. But like its predecessors, America was also divided by various classes and types of people, and not everyone could be a full citizen with political rights and the responsibility to participate in government. When the nation was founded after the Revolutionary War in the late 1780s, citizenship was restricted to white males, but not all white males, because most states had property requirements for a white man to gain full legal rights and be able to vote and participate in government. Women, children, and non-white people, like Blacks and Native Americans, were not allowed to be citizens. The political scientist Robert A. Dahl has argued that democracies need to have inclusive citizenship, freedom, and equality in voting and participation in government if they are to be truly called a democracy. Using Dahl's definition, The United States of America did not become a democracy until after 1965. When the Civil Rights Acts were passed in the late 1960s, almost every person in 174 America had full civil rights explicitly protected by law (except homosexuals). This was the first time in the history of the United States that almost all people were politically equal. The ideal form of democracy was famously expressed by Thomas Jefferson in The Declaration of Independence, where he stated that a democracy was a form of government made by free people to protect their freedom and lives. The free people living under a democratic government were expected to participate in that government by making their ideas and needs known, and also to make sure that the government did not do anything to endanger the people’s 173
Robert A. Dahl, On Democracy (New Haven, 2000), 2-3, 11-13, 26. Dahl, On Democracy, 38, 85; Eric Foner, The Story of American Freedom (New York, 1998); Cal Jillson, Pursuing the American Dream: Opportunity and Exclusion over Four Centuries (Lawrence, KA, 2004); Sean Wilentz, The Rise of American Democracy (New York, 2005). 174
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rights. If the government was not working well or if it started to infringe on the people’s rights, then the people had the right to change the government or make a new one that would work better. At the heart of any ideal democracy are two fundamental principles: political equality and an educated citizenry. First, political equality means that every member of the society, all the people, should have full rights and should be able to freely and equally participate in the government and society at large. And further, in order for people to be able to build a fair democratic government and make good political and social decisions, they need to be educated. However, education for democracy means more than just memorizing facts and learning an occupation. Education for democracy means learning how to understand yourself and the world you live in, to grow as a human being, to be able to communicate with your fellow citizens, and to have the thinking and social skills necessary to participate in your society and government. Both democracy and education, according to the philosopher John Dewey, were ways of living. The purpose of living an educated and democratic way of life was to realize one’s true humanity and to be able to use one’s individuality to change 175 the world and make it a better place. The nation called The United States of America has developed over several centuries and is still in flux today. The American people have almost all been immigrants coming to North America, both freely and as slaves, from diverse parts of the globe. Here they have mingled together, often violently, not only with themselves, but also the native inhabitants. From the start, notions of an “American” nation and an “American” people were contested ideological battlegrounds by which diverse participants verbally, symbolically, and physically fought over the defining contours of a nation. The idea of America and Americanism remains to this day an unsettled and contested ideological terrain – the contours of which remain divisive and 176 ever changing. As the historian David Waldstreicher pointed out, the history of our country "shows us that America's common political culture consists of a series of contests for power and domination, contests over the meaning [of 177 America]...and who counted as truly 'American.'" James A. Banks has argued that a major problem facing modern, multicultural nations is “how to recognize 175
Robert A. Dahl, On Political Equality, 8-9; John Dewey, Democracy and Education, 6, 89, 99; Amy Gutmann, Democratic Education; Robert B. Westbrook, John Dewey and American Democracy, 150-194. 176 Specifically I am referring the debates over the “culture war” of the last three decades, which reflect a heated disagreement over the very notions of American national and cultural identity. A very short list of this debate might include the following: Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind; Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Disuniting of America: Reflections on a Multicultural Society; James Davison Hunter, Cultural Wars: The Struggle to Define America; Todd Gitlin, The Twilight of Common Dreams: Why American is Wracked by Culture Wars; Michael Lind, The Next American Nation: The New Nationalism and the Fourth American Revolution; Lawrence W. Levine, The Opening of the American Mind: Canons, Culture, and History; Michael Kazin and Joseph A. McCartin, eds., Americanism: New Perspectives on the History of an Ideal. 177 Waldstreicher, In the Midst of Perpetual Fetes, 352. 56
and legitimize difference and yet construct an overarching national identity that incorporates the voices, experiences, and hopes of the diverse groups that 178 compose it.” One solution to this problem has been offered by Gerald Graff who has argued that educators should show students that “culture itself is a debate” and, thereby, “teach the conflicts” that define our American culture both past and present: “Acknowledging that culture is a debate rather than a monologue does not prevent us from energetically fighting for the truth of our own convictions. On the contrary, when truth is disputed, we can seek it only by entering the 179 debate.” However, this method is not without controversy because engaging 180 in controversial issues is difficult, and yet there is no other way to affirm and practice a robust democracy in the classroom that will prepare students to become actively engaged and responsible democratic citizens. The historical record makes it very clear that America has rarely been either a democracy or an equal society, and if America is ever to become a fully functioning democracy then more and more Americans need to learn how to participate effectively in their culture and political processes. Many Americans have challenged the elitist, antidemocratic, and exclusive pronouncements of political and social leaders all the way from the birth of this nation. And yet courageous and inspiring individuals have not always been able to change their world in the ways that they would have liked. American democracy is an unfinished project that still requires knowledgeable, courageous, committed, and daring individuals who will work on furthering the ideals of equality, freedom, and justice for all people – not just a privileged few. But the political knowledge and engagement of Americans has been stagnant if not decreasing over the past 50 years. According to one report, recent college graduates have about the same political knowledge as the high school graduates of the 1940s. The notion of using college as an opportunity to teach students how to be more knowledgeable and engaged citizens is an 181 opportunity that has been “wasted” for the past half century. Because many young people don’t care about their public responsibilities as democratic citizens, economic inequality and social injustice in America have been steadily 182 growing over the last quarter century. One of the great challenges of 178
James A. Banks, “Diversity, Group Identity, and Citizenship Education in a Global Age,” Educational Researcher 37, no. 3 (April 2008): 129-139. Gerald Graff, Beyond the Culture Wars: How Teaching the Conflicts Can Revitalize American Education (New York, 1992), 8, 12, 15. 180 Linda Liska Belgrave, Adrienne Celaya, Seyda Aylin Gurses, Angelica Boutwell, Alexandra Fernandez, "Meaning of Political Controversy in the Classroom: A Dialogue Across The Podium," Symbolic Interaction, 35, no. 1 (2012), 68–87. 181 Anne Colby, Elizabeth Beaumont, Thomas Ehrlich, and Josh Corngold, Educating for Democracy: Preparing Undergraduates for Responsible Political Engagement (San Francisco, 2008), 45, 51. 182 For economic statistics and trends see: Lawrence Mishel, Jared Bernstein, and Sylvia Allegretto, The State of Working America 2006/2007 (Ithaca, 2007). The data presented in this book is also available online at www.epi.org and www.stateofworkingamerica.org . For information on economic and political inequality see: Lawrence R. Jacobs and Theda 179
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democracy is to create an educated and informed citizenry who are willing to stand up and work for democratic values. Most of the students I have tried to educate over the last fifteen years have not have a clue about the meaning of “democracy,” let alone trying to practice or promote it. 183 Politics is a defining feature of our lives. It is important for all Americans to learn how to enter and contribute to public debates, whether they are for scholarly purposes or to discuss social and political issues with friends, family, or strangers. When a person enters a school, listens to public lectures, reads books, engages in political events, or participates in social organizations, that person is entering what philosopher Kenneth Burke once called the “unending conversation” of history. Burke’s unending conversation was a metaphor for how we learn about the important issues and social problems that people are currently debating all over the country and the world right now. Burke described the pursuit of human knowledge and the practice of citizenship as an “unending conversation.” This conversation is composed of all the people who are actively trying to understand our world and its problems and debate the best solutions to these problems: Imagine that you enter a parlor. You come late. When you arrive, others have long preceded you, and they are engaged in a heated discussion, a discussion too heated for them to pause and tell you exactly what it is about. In fact, the discussion had already begun long before any of them got there, so that no one present is qualified to retrace for you all the steps that had gone before. You listen for a while, until you decide that you have caught the tenor of the argument; then you put in your oar. Someone answers; you answer him; another comes to your defense; another aligns himself against you…the discussion is interminable. The hour grows late, you must depart. And you do depart, with the discussion still vigorously in progress.184
It is important for every human being to gain knowledge about their life and times in order to participate in public debates and help contribute to the betterment of their society, not only locally, but also nationally and globally. One of the goals of education in diverse democratic countries should be to help new generations of participants to enter into the conversation of history and take their place with fellow citizens at the debating table of 185 democracy. David Waldstreicher reminds us that "The 'nation' is never just an
Skocpol, eds., Inequality and American Democracy: What We Know and What We Need to Learn (New York, 2005); Theda Skocpol, Diminished Democracy: From Membership to Management in American Civic Life (Norman, OK, 2003). 183 Steven B. Smith, "In Defense of Politics," National Affairs (Spring 2011): 131-143. 184 Kenneth Burke, The Philosophy of Literary Form (Baton Rouge, 1941). See also: J. M. Beach, “Ideology, Reality, and Rhetoric: Kenneth Burke’s Dramatism,” in Studies in Ideology: Essays on Culture and Subjectivity (Lanham, 2005). 185 Walter Feinberg, The Idea of a Public Education, Review of Research in Education 36 (March 2012), 1-22; Steven B. Smith, "In Defense of Politics." 58
idea or a thing; it is also a story, an encompassing narrative or set of competing narratives...[that] suggest not only identification but [also] a script or course of 186 action." The concept of a vast, unending conversation is a good metaphor for the future of our American democracy – an orderly yet “heated” discussion conducted by engaged human beings trying to convince each other with arguments on the best way to live peacefully together and solve our common problems. Our country needs more people to not only take part in the important conversation of our democracy, but the country also needs more committed people to help steer this fledgling democracy closer to a broader realization of life, liberty, and justice for all.
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Waldstreicher, In the Midst of Perpetual Fetes, 142. 59
Chapter 5 --“Less than Legitimate”: The Limited Opportunity of the American Community College
For over half a century one of the most widely debated policy issues in America has been access to higher education. Who has access to what forms of higher education at what cost? For most Americans, access is restricted to the open-access, low-cost American community college. This institution enrolls around half of all first-time freshmen in the U.S. Most students who enroll in community colleges have the goal of transferring to a four-year college or university in order to earn a bachelor’s degree, but the vast majority of these students will never earn any degree. Community colleges have been praised for almost a century as an efficient way to handle the vast surge of Americans looking for access to higher education and as an economical path for social mobility. However, it is unclear if this institution actually helps students, let alone how it might help. Scholars have never been able to completely agree on the mission of the community college, and therefore, have never been able to adequately determine what it is the community college is supposed to do, not to mention how it is supposed to do it. The “junior college,” later renamed the “community college” in the 1960s and 1970s, was originally designed to limit access to higher education in the name of social efficiency. But students and local communities had other ideas. Grassroots movements were inspired by the democratic rhetoric of Americanism and the promise made by junior college leaders, and many communities tried to refashion this institution into a tool for increased social mobility, community organization, and regional economic development. Thus, the community college, much like the country itself, was born of contradictions, and it continues to be an enigma. Contradictions have been sewn into the very fabric of what has become a celebrated, yet beleaguered, institution of higher education. For the past century this institution has been seen by many as a promise. The community college has represented a meritocratic ladder to college and to the middle-class. However, it has also earned itself a reputation as a “less than legitimate” institution of higher education: “a high school with ashtrays,” “a halfway school for losers,” “a self-esteem workshop,” and “a place where old people go to keep their minds active as they circle the drain of
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eternity.”
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The basic narrative of the institutionalization of the community college is a muddle of mixed motives and competing actors. It involves both external social control and internal organizational anarchy. While this institution was formed with clear purposes in mind, it became apparent early on that this institution was not operating as planned, nor was it efficient at achieving its stated missions. Between 1920 and 1940 junior college leaders went through an intense identity crisis as they debated both the purpose of junior colleges and the placement of these institutions between secondary and postsecondary education systems. Where junior colleges extended secondary schools or separate “junior” colleges? Were junior colleges primarily supposed to prepare academically talented students for entry into a 4-year university or were they also supposed to train less talented vocationally-oriented students for local labor markets? And were junior colleges only responsive to universities and labor markets by training and credentialing post-secondary students, or was there also supposed to be responsiveness to local community needs, which might include noncredentialing purposes, like literacy classes, citizenship classes, and general community education classes? Arguably a measure of consensus over these questions among junior college leaders, federal and state educational authorities, and the general public did not congeal until the publication of the President’s Commission on Higher Education report in 1947. In 1947 Higher Education for American Democracy seemed to not only legitimate junior colleges by arguing that half of the American population could benefit from two years of postsecondary schooling, but the report also seemed to sanction a broad comprehensive mission for these institutions by suggesting a new name, and thereby, a new institutional identity: the community college. Up until the publication of this report, junior college leaders had debated whether the primary function of the institution was to keep its traditional mission as a conduit for student transfers to 4-year universities, or whether it should adopt new missions, such as offering terminal occupational and semiprofessional programs. Most junior college leaders liked the latter of these two options because it would increase the legitimacy of the institution within already established systems of secondary and postsecondary education. There were also calls for expanding the institutional mission to incorporate adult education, such as literacy and citizenship classes and also programs that would meet diverse local needs. However, not everyone at the time saw the community college in such
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These flippant criticisms come from a new television sitcom called Community, which will début fall 2009 on NBC. See “Poking Fun at Community Colleges,” Inside Higher Ed (May 6 2009). The “high school with ashtrays” comment was first quoted by Zwirling (1976). The Association of American Community College President has expressed an interest in influencing the themes of this sitcom and he hopes to persuade the producers to include “teachable moments” about real community college life. See “Presidents Report to the AACC Board of Directors,” AACC (Aug 2009). 61
lofty democratic and egalitarian terms. From the start, university officials promoted junior colleges because of their value as a “screening service” to divert many postsecondary students away from the selective and resource limited universities. State legislators also promoted junior colleges as a less expensive form of higher education for the masses that would allow for cost-effective means to democratize access to higher education, while also creating an institution that would filter out the unprepared or disadvantaged majority from actually earning a college degree. The University of California, Berkeley 188 sociologist Burton R. Clark famously called this the “cooling out” process. Clark’s thesis was famously extended into an internationally acclaimed book published in 1989: Steven Brint and Jerome Karabel’s The Diverted Dream: Community Colleges and the Promise of Educational Opportunity in America, 1900 – 1985. Brint and Karabel argued that education in the United States has always been a “hierarchically differentiated” system that has been structurally connected to the labor market and class structure. But the American educational system has also been relatively “open” and democratic, compared th with Europe and Asia, especially in the 20 century. Most Americans have seen it as a “ladder of opportunity” and “upward mobility.” The institution of community colleges offered an “egalitarian promise,” but at the same time it also reflected the “constraints” of the capitalist economic system in which it was embedded. Part of the reality of that system is an optimistic society that generates more “ambition” than its can structurally satisfy, which creates a need for an elaborate and often “hidden” tracking system to channel students into occupationally appropriate avenues largely based on their socio-economic 189 origins. From its beginnings the community college has had the contradictory function of opening higher education to larger numbers of students from all socio-economic backgrounds while at the same time operating within a “highly stratified” economic and educational system, which created a need to “select and sort students.” This “cooling-out function” (or “the diversion effect”) caused ever increasing numbers of lower class and ethnic minority students in higher education to be diverted into more “modest positions” at the lower end of the labor market. As Burton Clark once admitted, “for large numbers failure is inevitable and structured.” Brint and Karabel argued that not only do community colleges help “transmit inequalities” through their sorting function, but they also “contribute to the legitimization of these inequalities” by upholding meritocratic rhetoric that often blames the victim for failing to succeed in an structurally rigged class-system: “The very real contribution that the community college has made to the expansion of opportunities for some individuals does not, however, mean that its aggregate effect has been a democratizing one. On the contrary, the two-year institution has accentuated 190 rather than reduced existing patterns of social inequality.” 188
Burton R. Clark, The Open Door College: A Case Study (New York, 1960). Brint and Karabel, The Diverted Dream, 5-19, 56, 59, 91, 205-32. 190 Ibid., 56, 59, 91, 205-32. 189
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The majority of students who enrolled in junior colleges during the first th half of the 20 century were middle class high school graduates looking to earn their bachelor’s degree and enter a white collar profession. Working class high school students either dropped out of high school early to get a job, or they waited until earning their high school diploma to enter the work force. Very few working class students entered junior colleges. However, the point of Brint and Karabel remains substantial: junior college leaders in conjunction with community business leaders actively tried to manipulate junior college student aspirations by engineering more and more occupationally oriented terminal programs. They also encouraged this route more passively by neglecting a pedagogically appropriate curriculum and adequate student support services geared toward less academically prepared students. Many junior college students tended to either drop out or settle for a terminal occupational certificate. By 1970s, the community college became the point of entry for new student populations who were older and more economically disadvantaged. But this institution did not have the resources to help serve these new populations. Around 75 percent of low achieving students would drop out during their first year in urban community colleges. Critics pointed out that it was not an accident that the lowest achieving students in both secondary and postsecondary schools have historically been, and continue to be, the economically disadvantaged, ethnic/racialized minorities, immigrants, the disabled, and dislocated low-skilled workers. Despite the transfer mission remaining a primary emphasis for most th community colleges throughout the 20 century, the apparent manipulation of institutional purposes by community college leaders, state governments, and the business community has remained constant, if not intensified. Recent scholarship on the community college has demonstrated that community college administrators have increasingly adopted an ideological stance of neo-liberalism over the last couple of decades, which has directed them to focus on efficiency, productivity, and marketplace needs. This has led to a much larger array of occupationally oriented terminal programs. Some have claimed that these occupational offerings may be crowding out academic transfer-oriented programs, and leading away from an institutional climate focused on higher education. A look at the history of higher education in the U.S. and the changing dynamics of student access does reveal some expansion of access and equity in terms of increasing amounts of post-secondary education for a broader swath of Americans. It seems fairly certain that the community college offers opportunities that would otherwise not be available to many students. However, traditionally underserved populations like the economically disadvantaged and many racialized minorities still struggle to achieve equality of opportunity in American society and its systems of higher education. As the U.S. moves into a post-industrial “knowledge economy” in a highly globalized world, the issue of unequal student access to higher education remains a prominent 63
and pressing political problem, and it has recently become intertwined with the issue of outcomes in terms of the educational and economic success of the student and the economic development of the nation. However, the policy community seems more preoccupied with the politicized issue of institutional accountability so as to justify public expenditures in a fiscally constrained economic environment. Due to the Great Recession of 2007-2009 the politics of constrained budgets will mostly likely only get worse over the short term. But policy makers must not lose sight of the equally important issue of access and social mobility because the United States remains an inequitable class-based society. The open access mission of the community college was forged in an environment of socio-political inequality, educational elitism, and restricted educational and financial resources. Community colleges were designed to be under-funded and marginalized institutions in hierarchical state systems of education. While access in community colleges was open to all, no provisions were made to ensure the success of students in community colleges, nor access to the more advanced and economically rewarding levels of the higher education system. In fact, it was assumed that a great many students enrolled in community colleges would be drawn away from higher education and redirected to terminal, lower-status and lower-paid vocational careers. Since more and more students have been clamoring for a university education because of economic conditions that heavily reward university credentials, the notion of community colleges as holding pens for the underprivileged has been increasingly examined by scholars over the past quarter century. Increased awareness of its institutional past has led many state educational officials and community college administrators to curtail older institutional policies of benign neglect that allowed large numbers of students to fail, “cooling out” their ambitions. Most state officials and community college administrators now promote more equitable and just policies to open up state systems of higher education and increase student success. However, the past cannot be ignored. New policies enacted ex nihilo cannot be expected to work because the inequalities and injustices of the past still powerfully constrain the present. Community colleges hold immense promise if they can overcome their historical legacy and be re-institutionalized with unified missions, clear goals of educational success, properly trained faculty, sufficient numbers of support staff, and adequate financial resources. However, despite the good intentions of the policy community, the future is not certain. Institutions are path dependent. Past organizational structures constrain future possibilities. Institutional actors are restricted by incomplete knowledge, bounded rationality, and limited power. Educational institutions are also limited by the micro-level abilities and motivations of their students and the macro-level economic opportunity of regional, state, national, and global labor markets. Thus, institutional structures are incredibly resistant to change and notoriously difficult to redirect. What is the legacy of community colleges? The junior college turned 64
community college was designed to be a socio-economic institution for sorting students, giving some a limited opportunity. It had two major objectives. The first objective was to transfer a select group of prepared undergraduates to the university and, thereby, guide them to a professional career. The second objective was to “cool out” the majority of junior college students, delaying their entry into the labor market, and re-direct them to the mid-to-low skilled labor market. On the one hand, community colleges allowed the universities, like the University of California, to become more restrictive institutions of higher education. On the other hand, they also offered what appeared to be the democratization of higher education, by giving a broad range of students, those who would have never been able to attend college, the opportunity to at least gain some measure of higher education. However, while community colleges offered more students the opportunity of higher education, they also structured the failure of many students by not also providing the necessary support services, financial aid, and trained teachers that would insure their success (not to mention the needed state programs to address segregated housing and labor markets). Also, the socalled higher education that many community college students get, especially the most academically needy, is often nothing more than a second chance at a secondary education – not college. Thus, the community college developed into an under-funded second class institution at the bottom rung of highly selective and segregated state systems of higher education. It is an institution offering an opportunity to many in need, but if one looks holistically at the history, missions, and performance of community colleges to date, it is not much of an opportunity and not easily obtained by the majority of community college students. The community college is a structurally limited opportunity, which has been used to blame the victims of America’s lingering class-based and racebased society. Community college students are offered what appears to be a chance to succeed, but when they fail to obtain success, it appears to be their own fault, due to a lack of academic skills or effort. Whatever the cause, the individual was offered an opportunity and they could not realize it – case closed. But individualist epistemologies obscure the social as well as economic capital that is needed to become academically competent and be able to recognize and realize academic and economic opportunities. Not everyone begins the race of life with equal capacities, and the American people, especially the gifted, socially nurtured, and economically well-placed, have always had difficulty recognizing that many hard-working, competent, and morally upstanding people are born and raised at a disadvantage because they lack the necessary social and economic capital to succeed in a highly discriminating society. Thus, simply offering opportunity to all does not mean that all will succeed due to the inequitable distribution of talent, social capital, and financial resources. To take the case of race, over the past century many non-white citizens and immigrants have been actively disenfranchised from the opportunities that America has to offer because of skin color, culture, or custom. Once state systems of de jure and de facto segregation were challenged and 65
eventually overturned, the community college became the convenient half-way house for increasing numbers of under-prepared and under-educated non-white minority students in higher education – those generations who had been systematically excluded and discouraged from attaining secondary education until the 1950s and 60s. Ethnic minority students were able to gain increasing access to higher education by the 1960s, allowing greater numbers to transfer to four-year universities with access to a bachelor’s degree and the possibility of social mobility, but most racialized minorities who entered community colleges up until the early 1980s remained educationally frustrated and economically disenfranchised. It has only been within the last three decades that increased educational and economic opportunities have been realized by racialized minorities, but they still are disproportionately excluded from the American dream. st A brief look at the evidence at the dawn of the 21 century seems to reinforce the critical objections made by Brint, Karabel, and other New Left critics of the community college. One would assume that there has been significant educational progress for racialized minorities in the United States since the 1970s, but there is lack of adequate data to bolster such a claim. And while the educational levels of non-white minorities may have increased, the educational levels of whites has also increased, thus, the “achievement gap” has 191 remained relatively stable since the 1980s, if it isn’t actually increasing. In the face of structural barriers, many researchers have pointed out that the “individual agency” of motivated students can “mediate” “the legacy of 192 oppression” that has kept various groups of Americans from higher education. But it is also clear that the structural inequalities of both the larger society and the state systems of public education still keep a large percentage of ethnic minority students and lower-SES students from equal educational development, and thereby, equal access to higher education and the social and economic rewards of higher education. The historical achievement and access “gaps” between white and non-white minorities, and more recently between both white and Asian students, compared to other non-white minorities, has been redefined as an economically structured “education debt,” which has also been influenced over two centuries of racialized socio-political segregation. A “legacy” of social, economic, and educational “inequities” has structurally lingered in terms of highly segregated, differentially funded, and thereby 193 differentially resourced primary, secondary, and post-secondary schools. 191 American Council on Education, Minorities in Higher Education 2008 (Washington D.C., 2008); Katherine Magnuson and Jane Waldfogel, eds., Steady Gains and Stalled Progress: Inequality and the Black-White Test Score Gap (New York, 2008). 192 Na’ilah Suad Nasir and Victoria M. Hand, “Exploring Sociocultural Perspectives on Race, Culture, and Learning,” Review of Educational Research 76, no. 4 (2006): 456. 193 Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, “Schooling in Capitalist America Revisited,” Sociology of Education 75, no. 2 (2001): 1-18; Gloria Ladson-Billings, “From the Achievement Gap to the Education Debt: Understanding Achievement in U.S. Schools,” Educational Researcher 35, no. 7 (2006): 3-12; Gary Orfield and John T. Yun, Resegregation in American Schools, Harvard Civil Rights Project (Cambridge, MA, 1997);
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Majority-minority schools at every level of our educational system are concentrated in poor, disadvantaged urban areas, which lack many social, economic, and educational resources that are essential for the preparation of students for access and success in higher education: equal funding, trained and competent teachers, high-quality curriculum, knowledgeable counselors, articulation with post-secondary schools, and social support services to mediate the effects of impoverished environments. Cabrera and La Nasa demonstrated that 71 percent of the lowest-SES high school students failed to “obtain the requisite college qualifications” needed to successfully enter higher education. There is ample evidence that most race/ethnicity and class related differences in academic achievement can be accounted for by academic preparation and achievement in primary and secondary schooling, which means that if all students, regardless of ethnicity/race or social class were equally educated at the primary and secondary level, then there would be near equal academic achievement, and thus, near equal access to higher education. However, as Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis point out, there are still strong correlations between social class and economic earning potential once a 194 graduate leaves school for the labor market. In a historical study of four centuries of opportunity and exclusion in the United States of America, Cal Jillson argued, “Justice requires that we make a conscious national commitment to open opportunity to all Americans, and particularly to those we know to have been systematically disadvantaged at earlier stages in our history. Unfortunately, it is not at all clear that we will do even that.” A look at the history of higher education in the U.S. and the changing dynamics of student access does reveal some expansion of access and equity in terms of increasing amount of post-secondary education for a broader swath of Americans. However, traditionally underserved populations like the poor and non-white ethnic minorities still struggle to achieve equality of opportunity in American society and its systems of higher education. The community college has been a limited opportunity and a mixed blessing to many, but it has not been enough to overcome a history of class-based and race-based 195 road blocks barring most U.S. citizens from obtaining the American dream. Gary Orfield, Why Segregation Matters: Poverty and Educational Inequality, Harvard Civil Rights Project (Cambridge, MA, 2005). 194 Bowles and Gintis, “Schooling in Capitalist America Revisited;” Brantlinger, The Politics of Social Class; Cabrera and La Nasa, “On the Path to College, 121; John Aubrey Douglas and Gregg Thomson, “The Poor and the Rich: A Look at Economic Stratification and Academic Performance among Undergraduate Students in the United States,” Center for Studies in Higher Education (Stanford, 2008); Linda Darling-Hammond, “Securing the Right to Learn,” Educational Researcher 35, no. 7 (2006): 13-24; Darling-Hammond, “The Flat Earth and Education,” Educational Researcher 36, no. 6 (2007): 318-334; Gloria Ladson-Billings, “From the Achievement Gap to the Education Debt;” Lucas, Tracking Inequality; Magnuson and Waldfogel, Steady Gains and Stalled Progress: Inequality and the Black-White Test Score Gap; Greg Wiggan, “Race, School Achievement, and Educational Inequality,” Review of Educational Research 77, no. 3 (2007): 310-333. 195 Jennifer L. Hochschild and Nathan Scovronick, The American Dream and the Public Schools (Oxford, 2003); Cal Jillson, Pursuing the American Dream (Lawrence, 2004), 286. 67
Chapter 6 --Contingent Community College Faculty: A Temporary Cog in the Academic Machine
Full-time community college and university faculty are professionals with a relatively high degree of autonomy and control over their duties, much more so for university than community college faculty. Full-time faculty have a large measure of organizational status and they are compensated relatively fairly because they are able to effect the means and ends of the institution. They are indispensable in its operation and their jobs are protected by long-term contracts with full benefits, and in the case of tenured college professors, a job as long as they want it. Thus, full-time faculty can often identify with and participate in the educational organization of the college because they have job security, a good salary with benefit packages, varying degrees of professional autonomy, and they have the opportunity to participate in various administration decisions within the organization, especially at the department level. However, this is not to ignore the real differences in prestige and pay across the disciplines, as the sciences, medicine, engineering, and various technological fields like bio-engineering garner more respect and higher salaries than my own field of composition and rhetoric, which is perhaps the lowest of 196 the low in higher education, and has been lowly since the early 20th century. But unlike full-time faculty, whatever the discipline, the adjunct 197 instructor has very different employment conditions. The adjunct instructor is often little more than a low-paid, temporary, day laborer, except we don't generally hang out on street corners waiting for department chairs to pick us up and pay us under the table in cash every evening - we wait at home or a coffee shop, nervously waiting for employment, and if we're lucky, some health insurance. The adjunct instructor is just a disposable cog in the academic machine, similar in type to the poorly paid and dispensable Latino migrants who
196 Robert J. Connors, "Overwork/Underpay: Labor and Status of Composition Teachers since 1880," Rhetoric Review 9, no. 1 (Autumn 1990): 108-126. 197 Part-Time, Adjunct, and Temporary Faculty: The New Majority? Report of the Sloan Conference on Part-Time and Adjunct Faculty, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation (1998); Marc Bousquet, How the University Works: Higher Education and the Low-Wage Nation (New York, 2008); Cary Nelson, ed., Will Teach for Food: Academic Labor in Crisis (Minneapolis, 1997).
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are the backbone of the United States agricultural and domestic service 198 economies. In fact, one academic went so far as to call adjuncts "academic 199 lettuce-pickers." Like migrant workers, the adjunct instructor also has an ambiguous, unappreciated, and often invisible place within the organizational 200 culture of our employer, in my case, the university and community college. One study of contingent faculty concluded, "Across disciplines, part-time 201 instructors remain a marginalized and beleaguered lot." The adjunct is a vital part of the educational organization, but they often exist without any recognition, which is often exacerbated by the fact that most adjuncts have to 202 work more than one teaching job to survive. Some are “willing" adjuncts. These instructors see their limited, lowpaid, and temporary position as a minor inconvenience in relation to their overall role with the organization. Willing adjuncts might include instructors who are not financially dependent upon teaching, those who don’t mind bureaucratic structure and limited autonomy, or those who want to teach on a limited basis. However, many if not most adjuncts are “unwilling" because they want full-time work as instructors, but cannot find such work due to administrative regulations, lack of funding, or fluctuating student enrollments. Unwilling adjuncts are financially dependent on teaching, have a high degree of professional competency, expect a degree of autonomy, and want to teach on permanent basis. To unwilling adjuncts, like myself, higher education labor practices can seem unjust and exploitative. I struggle every semester to financially survive, working at least two jobs (often three if I want to save a little money), mostly without health or retirement benefits, never knowing if I will be fully employed or unemployed the next semester. The summer is especially cruel because most institutions offer few if any classes, which means adjuncts like myself are unemployed, although we don't always qualify for state unemployment insurance because of differing state classifications of the teaching profession. I entered higher education because I loved being a scholar and a
198 I make this comparison knowing full well that adjunct instructors are much better paid and do not suffer from back-breaking labor than migrant Latino workers; however, both classes of workers share a systemic exploitation, marginalization, and vulnerability. On Mexican American labor see Juan Gomez-Quinones, Mexican American Labor, 1790-1990 (Albuquerque, 1994); Matt S. Meier and Feliciano Ribera, Mexican Americans/American Mexicans: From Conquistadors to Chicanos (New York, 1993). 199 William Deresiewicz, "Faulty Towers," The Nation (May 23 2011), 30. 200 "Forum on the Profession," College English, 73, no. 4 (March 2011): 409-427. 201 Donald Rogers, Elizabeth Hohl, Arlene Lazorowitz, Howard Smead, and Mark Spence, "A New Initiative for Part-Time and Adjunct Historians," Organization of American Historians Newsletter, 37 (2009), 6. 202 On adjunct community college faculty see J. M. Beach, A Gateway to Opportunity? A History of the Community College in the United States (Sterling, VA, 2011), 34-35; John S. Levin, Susan Kater, and Richard L. Wagoner, Community College Faculty: At Work in the New Economy (New York, 2006), ch 6; John E. Roueche, Suanne D. Roueche, and Mark D. Milliron, Strangers in Their Own Land: Part-Time Faculty in American Community Colleges (Washington, DC, 1995).
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teacher. Naively I thought that a growing list of professional accomplishments and glowing student reviews would eventually earn me a decent paying and stable job. I was wrong. After a decade as an unwilling adjunct instructor, the very thought of working in community colleges and universities sends a shutter down my spine. I fear these institutions, not because I don't like the work or want to be a permanent member, but because I've grown tired of the myriad indignities and insults that come from being a temporary economic cog in the academic machine. First, let me explain the employment process from an adjuncts point of view. A considerable amount of time goes into the application and interview process, albeit a somewhat less for the adjunct than for a full-time applicant, although every adjunct usually applies for both adjunct and full-time positions when they are available, thus, doing double duty for the slim chance at a fulltime position. An adjunct will invest a good 2-3 hours per job for the application and interview process, not including driving time, which could add another hour or more. This is all unpaid, and can be a risk given the large amount of adjuncts who apply for each opening. Living in a large metropolitan area, like Los Angeles, there are many community college districts and universities, but few jobs, so an adjunct will often apply to upwards of ten to twenty positions, while hoping for at least one interview. Thus, an adjunct may spend a good twenty to forty hours filling out long standardized applications that don't allow you to highlight many accomplishments other than previous employment, photocopying resumes, filling envelopes, and mailing these large packages at the post office - all for the chance at an interview. But even when you're lucky enough to get an interview, these ritualized affairs can be both time consuming and humiliating. Adjunct interviewees, especially at the community college level, are not treated with much respect because they are a dime a dozen. Adjuncts are often squeezed back to back into a long day of 30 to 45 minute interviews. Of course you show up early, but often interviews run late and you spend extra time waiting in an uncomfortable chair for upwards of an hour. I once waited for over an hour because the search committee had packed too many applicants into the day and the process was running really late. Once I got into the interview the committee was obviously exhausted and I was treated quite curtly. They asked only a few method-oriented questions about how I taught and where I taught, obviously I wasn't even being taken seriously as a candidate but I still had to go through the motions on the slight chance one of my interviewers was listening. On another occasion, I waited for over thirty minutes before sitting down in front of the committee, but I was almost turned away because I didn't come with my transcripts. The dean wanted to see transcripts before any interview, but nobody told me to bring anything - and I always ask if I'm supposed to bring something before an interview. The Dean was very upset and treated me as if I was an unqualified candidate for the rest of the interview. He sneered at me the whole time. Once you've applied for forty positions and received three interviews, 70
you usually get offered a single job (if you're lucky) that pays less than you need to survive. But of course, your meager pay is only linked to classroom teaching hours; however, the job makes many small organizational demands that are outside the boundaries of the job description and therefore uncompensated: welcome activities, orientations, staff training, paperwork, parking, organizational networking, familiarization with organizational facilities and resources, and meetings. Full-time employees who are paid a decent salary are naturally required to be physically present on campus for much of the week, and they can satisfy all of these "extra" requirements without much hassle, competing most of these tasks within paid working hours. However, part-time employees often live much farther from the job site, are on site for very limited amounts of time, are compensated at a rate close to 1/3 that of a full-time faculty, and only for in-class instructional activities. These small organizational demands add up and can be quite a burden, especially when an adjunct is a "freeway flyer" working between several schools, sometimes over an hour away in different counties. It’s also demoralizing to pay $45 a semester for full-time parking when you make only $800 a month, or commuting two hours roundtrip for a three hour unpaid orientation (filled with mostly useless information). Even if you put up with all these unpaid indignities, and you are a model employee, what then? Does this organization owe you anything, like a living wage, health benefits, retirement benefits, sick leave, or job security? Nope, usually none of these things (sometimes you get sick leave). In California, the community college adjunct can only work a maximum of 9 credit hours within a single school district, which often amounts to a part-time load of two 4credit classes or three 3-credit classes. Other states have similar restrictions. Working the maximum, an adjunct could not survive on only one job so you need to work at least two jobs to come close to making ends meet, although even with two jobs this is not often possible. But what if you want to be a good teacher, plan activities, and spend time with your students to help them learn? Not only do adjuncts receive unequal pay, but they're under pressure to perform all of the unpaid activities external to the classroom yet integral to the educational process to produce good teaching and encourage student learning: creating a syllabus, meeting with students, grading, curriculum development, instructional planning, photocopying materials, reviewing new text books, and organizational duties like paperwork and book orders. Despite all this unpaid work, and even if the adjunct is a great teacher, there is no guarantee that the adjunct has a job the following semester, nor is it certain which hours on which days the adjunct might be offered work, if at all. Some districts are very slow in settling teaching assignments and when you are juggling more than one job this creates a lot of extra stress and sleepless nights. Sometimes a district might offer a course which conflicts with an assignment from another school, and you're lucky if you can resolve it without losing some hours. Sometimes it seems that your department forgets about you or that you've have lost a job. 71
I was at one community college for over three years and I had heard nothing about the upcoming semester, which was in three months. I had emailed the schedule coordinator I repeatedly and got no response. I had to email the chair in order to ask if I still had a job. He told me he didn’t know and to wait for a response. Luckily the assignment finally came through. However, there was a conflict with another job and I could only teach one of the courses offered, which seriously reduced my finances for the next three months. Most adjuncts live three months at a time, and have no guarantees that they will be employed next semester. This is an intolerable way to live. And when the economy implodes, as it did during the Great Recession of 2008-2009, adjuncts are fired en mass, or more accurately, their contracts expire and they are left unemployed in permanent limbo. I lost four teaching positions over the course of 2008, landing on unemployment twice, before I finally found a job teaching in South Korea. Within the organizational culture of the institution the adjunct is invisible and expendable. These judgments are often demonstrated in many subtle and not so subtle ways. Outside of the formal evaluation process, the adjunct rarely sees a full-time faculty member. Most departmental information is communicated by email and support staff handles the rest. My instructor evaluations were the only time I talked to full-time faculty, and then only briefly, sometimes only a few words were exchanged. The faculty member gives you a date and shows up for thirty minutes. They don't tell you how they will evaluate your teaching, what standards or criteria they use, or what types of practices a particular department expects to see. Evaluators sit in the back of the class and observe you for a short time and then pass out a form for students to fill out. Rarely, if ever, does the evaluator actually speak to you, nor do they give personalized feedback, unless you do something wrong. Most of the time flippant and contradictory student comments count for more than teacher performance. Once this process is complete, the adjunct is organizationally ignored for another year. And then there are the numerous humiliations that let adjuncts know they are but temporary workers on a short leash. One example is the tournament style allocation of classes each term, which are always provision, subject to enrollment, right up to the first day of class. This indignity it taken to an extreme in certain community colleges in Texas where I have lost between 30% to 100% of my classes each semester due to low enrollment, which results both in class cancelations and in losing a class so that a full-time professor can meet their teaching quota. At one school, I literally did not know if I had a job or not until the first day of classes – and this takes a psychological toll semester after semester. Another example is depersonalized departmental communication. Adjuncts are often addressed with issues with little or no tact or time to prepare. Some department heads would not even address me my name in official emails, simply making demands with tight deadlines. Finally, there is exclusion from oncampus programs, especially grants. Once I applied for a Title V innovative 72
teaching grant at a community college and my proposal was accepted. The grant coordinator seemed very excited about my proposal even though I was just an adjunct. The grant coordinator was going to contact the department chair to talk about my submission and negotiate an adjusted workload. But the faculty chair said that I had no right to submit a proposal, besides all teaching and curriculum were decided by full-time faculty. The grant coordinator said she would try to work things out. I sent emails every week for two months, but the grant coordinator never responded. Eventually, I figured the answer was clear: I was not a valued member of the organization and I didn't deserve even the small courtesy of an email telling me that my proposal had been rejected. But that wasn't the worst humiliation I've suffered. At a different community college the former chair of my department happened to see some of my students’ writing while she was supervising the Writing Center. She felt that I was not teaching them appropriately so she wrote me a very angry email. In essence she said that I was not doing my job and not following department Student Learning Outcomes. She basically commanded me to change my teaching methods and assignments. I responded with a very long email answering her complaints, explaining my teaching methodology and my curricular objectives, and explaining how all of my methods and assignments fully met department guidelines. I also said that if she wanted to have a discussion that was fine, but a more collegial tone was needed. However, I also let her know that if she wanted to discipline my professional behavior then she was out of line because her comments should have been directed to the current chair, not sent informally through email. Four months earlier I had actually given the current chair of our department a copy of the syllabus and curriculum that I was using. The chair had said in passing that it was great and to keep up the good work. However, after the angry email from the former chair, the current chair now started to question my teaching methods and competency. After meeting with the current chair to settle the issue face to face, it seemed like the situation was diffused. I had done nothing wrong. However, I then received another email out of the blue the following week saying that I needed to correct my behavior (in very vague terms), which confused me because I thought the issue had been settled after our last meeting. Not one day later the Dean of my college called and left a message on my answering machine: “we will no longer require you for the next semester, thank you very much.” I had been previously scheduled to teach two sections the next fall, and now I was fired - no cause given. Absolutely disposable. I wrote a letter to the dean and the current chair telling them that this type of behavior was indecent and unprofessional, and that I would be formally quitting after the semester was over. I also threatened to write a letter to the president asking for a review of the English department. Surprisingly, about five months later, I received a “bonus check” in the mail for about $800, and about 9 months after that I received another “bonus check” for $800. The money was nice but I never received any word of recognition or apology. 73
Based on my personal experiences as an un-willing adjunct, I have 203 always felt like a subaltern “other” within the various institutions of higher education where I have worked, especially in community colleges. There are very few spaces where the adjunct can fully speak or participate because they are positioned far from the center of the organization. The adjunct lives on the margins of higher education as a temporary, alienated, and exploited laborer. Much is expected of adjunct instructors, yet very little is given in return. Not only are adjuncts are not compensated fairly, but they are also treated unjustly by the organization. If community colleges and universities are to become more effective at the mission of educating students then the subaltern majority of the faculty must be brought into the center of the organization in order to more fully participate in the organizational culture. Speaking from my own experience, I want only to make a decent living by sharing my knowledge and expertise as a teacher. Yet this relatively simple goal has been frustrated over the past decade by the organizational structure of these institutions, which continually crush my spirit and jeopardize my economic livelihood.
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C. G. Spivak, "Can the Subaltern Speak?" Colonial Discourse and Post-Colonial Theory, Williams and Chrisman, eds. (New York, 1994). 74
Chapter 7 --Children “Dying Inside”: Education Fever in South Korea
In East Asia, state sponsored education and a cultural emphasis on credentialed knowledge workers has been a venerated tradition for a long time. In what is often called “Confucian” culture, academic degrees have been the primary markers of social distinction and economic mobility for over two thousand years. The hereditary locus of aristocratic power became blended with a meritocratic educated bureaucracy, which created a “mixed aristocratic/ 204 bureaucratic ruling class.” Educational institutions stressed rote memorization of the Chinese language, classical Chinese texts, ritualized 205 socialization, writing, and the arts. And while Confucian and neo-Confucian educational principles did stress individual development as “self cultivation,” the emphasis of formal schooling, especially in later neo-Confucian institutions, focused more on situating the individual within the hierarchical “structure” of society. Thus, much of a student’s instruction was geared toward a socialization process, whereby, one learned proper social discourse, deference to superiors, 206 and traditional rituals. Instruction culminated in a final “examination” that served as the gateway to a social title and a position in the state bureaucracy. This East Asian educational system produced a small population of literate and cultured elites, trained in a traditional and largely unchanging body of ethical and technical knowledge. In South Korea these literate and elites, known as yangban, served as ministers in a "rigidly hierarchical bureaucracy" and ran the day to day 207 operations of the state. The yangban class became hereditary during Choson
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James B. Palais, “Confucianism and the Aristocratic/Bureaucratic Balance in Korea,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 44, no. 2 (Dec 1984): 427-68. 205 Palais, “Confucianism and the Aristocratic/Bureaucratic Balance in Korea”; Clark W. Sorensen, “Success and Education in South Korea,” Comparative Education Review 38, no. 1 (Feb 1994): 10-35; Fredrick W. Mote, Intellectual Foundations of China (New York, 1971); Lett, In Pursuit of Status, 35. 206 Michael Charles Kalton, The Neo-Confucian World View and Value System of Yi Dynasty Korea (Diss., Harvard University, Sept 1977), 6, 7, 9, 82; Dennis Lett, In Pursuit of Status: The Making of South Korea’s “New” Urban Middle Class (Cambridge, MA, 1998), 15. 207 Palais, “Confucianism and the Aristocratic/Bureaucratic Balance in Korea;” Sorensen, 75
dynasty (1392-1910), thus, access to quality education and the civil service examination became restricted by birth. Thus, the Korean system of schooling 208 "primarily served as a means of allocating power, privilege, and status." This ancient system was largely destroyed in Korea by the occupation of Imperial Japan, as ethnic Koreans were largely segregated from the ruling Japanese society and its racist system of schooling. A minority of Koreans were educated in Japanese dominated schools in the Japanese language, but Koreans were restricted in access to both upper levels of education and to upper levels of 209 the job market. After the liberation of Korea, a quasi-democratic constitution was enacted, including a series of education laws in 1949, which called for 6 years of compulsory free education and non-compulsory tuition-based middle schools, high schools, and colleges. South Koreans embraced Western democratic ideals, especially free public schooling, and they pushed their children towards the only viable avenue for upward social mobility and the middle class. There was a "spontaneous" and "exuberant rush" for more and more schooling even though the country lacked 210 schools, textbooks, and qualified teachers. In 1964 elementary enrollments exceeded 90 percent of the cohort population, by 1979 middle school enrollments exceeded 90 percent, and by 1994 high school enrollments 211 exceeded 90 percent. Today, South Korea has one of the highest percentages of school-age population enrolled in both K-12 and higher education, around 99 percent enrollment in middle school, over 96 percent in high school, and close to 212 70 percent in some form of higher education. th In the 20 century, South Korea has combined the older “Confucian” values with modern notions of meritocracy, consumer capitalism, and western 213 educational models. Public schooling became not only an economic ladder to the middle class, but academic achievement also conferred social status and 214 prestige. However, public schools in Korea have a bad reputation for poor quality due to lack of funding, outdated curriculum, exam oriented classes, autocratic and untrained teachers, large classes, and ancient pedagogical techniques that include rote memorization, standardized tests, and corporeal punishment. Korean schools are also highly tracked from middle-school and they relentlessly sort students based on a variety of standardized tests. Student “Success and Education in South Korea;” Michael J. Seth, Education Fever: Society, Politics, and the Pursuit of Schooling in South Korea (Honolulu, 2002), 9-12. 208 Seth, Education Fever, 12; Lett, In Pursuit of Status, 19-21. 209 Seth, Education Fever, 19-31. 210 Seth, Education Fever, 46-47. 211 Sorensen, “Success and Education in South Korea,” 16; Hong Sah-Myung, “The Republic of Korea,” Schooling in East Asia: Forces of Change, R. Murray Thomas and T. Neville Postlethwaite, eds. (Oxford, UK: Pergamon Press, 1983), 208-09. 212 UNESCO, South Korea; Hye-Jung Lee, “Higher Education in Korea,” Center for Teaching and Learning, Seoul National University (Feb 2009). 213 Sorensen, “Success and Education in South Korea;” Philip G. Altbach, “Twisted Roots: The Western Impact on Asian Higher Education,” Higher Education 18, no. 1 (1989): 9-29. 214 James Robinson, “Social Status and Academic Success in South Korea,” Comparative Education Review 38, no. 4 (Nov 1994): 506-530; Lett, In Pursuit of Status, 159. 76
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start preparing for these high stakes tests in primary school. It’s no surprise that superior achievement scores are still highly correlated with socio-economic status, as wealthier families can afford more private education to prepare 216 students for these tests. The Korean system of schooling based on high stakes testing has been 217 called "examination hell" (sihom chiok) or "examination mania." The pinnacle of K-12 public schooling is the National University Entrance Examination, whereby, only the best and brightest students make it into the top tier Korean universities and on to the best jobs. Some have dubbed the South Korean 218 educational system a “testocracy,” where students train for a single test that will forever define their lives. If a student gets into a top-tier university, success. 219 If not, failure. It’s a "one-shot society." As one scholar summarized the predicament of schooling in South Korea, “The crux of the matter is that this system is too competitive, too exam-oriented with a single preoccupation to 220 prepare students for college entrance exams.” The pressure to perform and earn academic distinction to increase social prestige and economic stability is not new to East Asia. But there has been a recent development that has changed the whole dynamic of education in this region. Up until the 19th century the primary language of instruction in Korean 221 schools was Chinese and Chinese texts were almost exclusively studied. With the occupation of Japan in the late 19th and 20th century, Japanese was the 222 primary language of instruction. The most notable change to East Asian schooling in the late 20th century, especially in South Korea, has been the shift from Chinese to the English language, which has become the lingua franca of the globalized world. English is taught not only as a foreign language in K-12 schools, but it is also used as a primary language of instruction in secondary schools and higher rd education. In South Korea, students have to start learning English in 3 grade, if they have not already started to learn it sooner in private schools. By high school, Korean students spend about 4 hours a week learning English in public schools, plus extracurricular classes at private hagwons. Many Korean colleges and universities require a foreign language test in English before admittance and mandate anywhere from 3 to 12 credits of English for a standard degree. And once a student graduates from college, many businesses require TOEIC or TOEFL
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Seth, Education Fever, 157. Robinson, “Social Status and Academic Success in South Korea; ” Sorensen, “Success and Education in South Korea;” Koo, “The Changing Faces of Inequality in South Korea;” Seth, Education Fever, 88-90, 142. 217 Seth, Education Fever, 140. 218 Sorensen, “Success and Education in South Korea,” 17; Sah-Myung, “The Republic of Korea,” 229. 219 "The One-Shot Society," The Economist (Dec 17 2011), 77-80. 220 Koo, “The Changing Faces of Inequality in South Korea,” 11; Seth, Education Fever, 140. 221 Lett, In Pursuit of Status, 35, 164. 222 Seth, Education Fever, 20-29. 216
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scores for a job or promotion. Speaking English has become an "essential 224 element in the admissions process from middle school through college." One scholar has argued, English skill has become widely regarded as a measure of one’s competence in this age of globalization. Those with low English competency are regarded as outdated and lacking proper sociocultural aptitude required for the global business environment… Increasingly, English proficiency is what distinguishes between the first-class and the second-class employees in the globalized economy sectors…English is now an essential requisite for survival.225
With a growing emphasis on increased levels of credentialed education for socioeconomic status and fluency in English, East Asian students, especially in South Korea, are doubly pressured to perform. In South Korea, education is seen as a competition, not a process of individual development. Family and society push students to succeed, where success is measured in exam scores, English language acquisition, placement at elite universities, white collar jobs at corporate firms, and all the trimmings of Western consumer capitalism. This institutionalized drive for academic, social, and economic success has been captured in a Korean phrase (kyoyungnyol), 226 which can be translated as “education mania” or “education fever.” In South Korea, “education fever” is an intensifying epidemic, threatening the wellbeing of a whole generation of youth. The post-war construction of public schooling was centered only on the elementary level. Middle school through university was left to private institutions and private sources of funding, mostly tuition paid by parents. As Michael J. Seth explained, "In general, the higher and more prestigious the level 227 of schooling, the greater the share of enrollments in private institutions." Because of the frantic push for academic success, different forms of private schooling have dramatically increased over the last two decades in order to profit from “education fever." There are four types of private education in South Korea: private K-12 schools, private colleges and universities, private tutoring, and hagwons. The most popular form of private schooling is the hagwon. A hagwon 223 Nunan, “The Impact of English as a Global Language on Educational Policies and Practices in the Asia Pacific Region,” 600-601; Koo, “The Changing Faces of Inequality in South Korea,” 13. 224 KEPA CEO, "From Blended Learning to Critical Learning" (May 15 2009), KEPA Papers. This study was based on original research conducted at a private academy in South Korea. My collection of primary documents will be collectively referred to as KEPA Papers. 225 Koo, “The Changing Faces of Inequality in South Korea,” 13. 226 Thomas R. Ellinger and Garry M. Beckham, “South Korea: Placing Education on Top of the Family Agenda,” The Phi Delta Kappan 78, no. 8 (April 1997): 624-625; Sorensen, “Success and Education in South Korea,” 21, 23. 227 Seth, Education Fever, 82-83, 135.
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is a private, for-profit educational institution that delivers instruction seven days a week. The legal hours of operation are 5am to 10pm, although many hagwons open after regular school hours (3-4pm) and stay open until late at night, some 228 past 1am. In 2008 there was a move to eliminate all restriction on hours of operation so that hagwons could stay open all night, but this measure went 229 down to defeat, later narrowly upheld by the Constitutional Court in 2009. Hagwons enroll students from pre-school age through high school, and they come in a wide variety of forms. Many of them focus on single subject areas, like math, English, piano, or golf. There are even military-style boot camps run by retired soldiers, focusing on physical drills to test the endurance and pain 230 threshold of students. But some of the largest hagwons present themselves as comprehensive preparatory academies. These comprehensive academies offer a multi-leveled array of academic classes, including English, Chinese, TOEFL exam prep, literature, history, philosophy, and debate. The primary purpose of most private education is to prepare students for the College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT) and the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL), which are the formal placement exams for college. The entire country adjusts its schedule on CSAT day: the government orders business to modify the work day to clear the roads for students heading to the test; all nonessential workers, both government and private, are told to report late to work; construction work near schools is halted; motorists are informed not to honk their horns; thousands of police are mobilized to handle traffic; the Korean stock market opens late and closes early; flights at all of the nation's airports are restricted; the U.S. military suspends aviation and live-fire training; and adults flock to churches to pray for their child's success. The results of the CSAT are considered the "crowing life achievement" of a student. Good scores place students in Korea's top universities, which is the primary factor in finding a good 231 job after college. In 1997 over half of Korean students were being privately educated: 70 percent of elementary students and 50 percent of middle and high school students. By 2003 Koreans were spending around $12.4 billion on private 232 education, which was more than half the national budget for public schooling. In 2003 about 72.6 percent of Korean students were privately educated. Parents were spending between 10 to 30 percent of family income on private 233 schooling. By 2008 there were around 70,213 hagwons and Koreans spent
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Bae Ji-sook, "Should Hagwon Run Round-the-Clock?" Korea Times (March 13 2008). Kim Tae-jong, "Seoul City Council Cancels All-Night Hagwon Plan," Korea Times (March 18 2008); Park Yu-mi and Kim Mi-ju, "Despite Protests, Court Says Hagwon Ban Is Constitutional," Joong Ang Daily (Oct 31 2009). 230 John M. Glionna, “South Korean Kids Get a Taste of Boot Camp,” Los Angeles Times.Com (Aug 21 2009). 231 James Card,"Life and Death Exams in South Korea,"Asia Times Online (Nov 30 2005). Seth, Education Fever, 1. 232 Koo, “The Changing Faces of Inequality in South Korea,” 12, 14. 233 Joseph E. Yi, "Academic Success at Any Cost?" KoreAm: The Korean American Experience (Oct 1 2009); Lartigue, "You'll Never Guess What South Korea Frowns Upon." 229
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almost 21 trillion won (around $17 billion) on private education. Because the state has never funded much of the educational system, parents bear most of the burden of educating their children in the private educational market. Because of this, South Korean families spend more on education than in most other countries, around 69 percent of the total price, making the South Korea 235 "possibly the world's costliest educational system." While many Koreans consider private education superior to public education, the private sector is not without its flaws. For one, the ability to utilize private sector schooling is highly correlated to family income, which contributes to rising inequality through unequal access to quality education and through unequal preparation for elite universities. Private schools, tutoring, and 236 hagwons serve only those who can pay, so they largely benefit the wealthy. Hagwons also take their profit motive too far. Business practices routinely determine educational practices. These institutions inflate grades, teach to standardized tests, and place 237 more emphasis on marketing than teaching. It also seems that these institutions have been systematically overcharging parents for services, which promoted a rebuke by the President in 2009. The Ministry of Education, Science and Technology reported the 67 percent of hagwons overcharged, 74 percent of foreign language institutes, with more than 40 percent charging twice the standardized tuition level set by the government. But enforcement is almost impossible, not least because of the lack of government officials. In southern Seoul there are about 5,000 hagwons but only three civil servants monitoring 238 the district. Hagwons also employ teachers who have limited knowledge of subject matter and no training or experience as educators. The only qualification to teach in Korea is a bachelor's degree from a western university, no matter the subject. Few instructors have any previous teaching experience and most know nothing of curriculum or student learning. One critic sarcastically claimed, "Business owners with suspect educational credentials seem content to hire foreign staff with equally suspect educational credentials to pretend to teach (more like entertain) children in some kind of a babysitting service designed 239 more to generate fast profit rather than quality education." There have also been widespread complaints by foreign teachers that hagwons do not live up to 240 the terms of employment contracts.
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Moon Gwang-lip, "Statistics Paint Korean Picture," Joong Ang Daily (Dec 15 2009); "Lee Seeks to Cut Educational Costs," Korea Herald (Aug 14 2009). 235 Seth, Education Fever, 172, 187. 236 Koo, “The Changing Faces of Inequality in South Korea,” 31. 237 KEPA papers. 238 Kim Tae-jong, "Hagwon Easily Dodge Crackdown," Korea Times (Oct 26 2008); Kang Shin-who, "67 Percent of Private Cram Schools Overcharge Parents," Korea Times (April 14 2009). 239 "Unforeseen Dangers of Korea's Hagwon Culture," Asian Pacific Post (Jan 10 2006). 240 Ibid., Limb Jae-un, "English Teachers Complain about Certain Hagwon," Joong Ang Daily (Dec 8 2008). 80
The most serious flaw with private education, and with “education fever” more broadly in Korea, is the damage done to children. Korean culture places a lot of emphasis on exams and college placements, which creates a 241 "pressure-cooker atmosphere." Thus, most hagwons use a "teach-for-thetest" curriculum that focuses on the memorization of information, standardized multiple-choice tests, and test-taking techniques. Korean students rarely understand the information being taught to them, they are not taught to critically analyze information, and they cannot apply information to other contexts. Students simply become "expert memorizers" of "decontextualized" 242 facts that can only be used to take standardized tests. This teach-for-the-test curriculum "stifle[s] creativity, hinder[s] the development of analytical reasoning, ma[kes] schooling a process of rote memorization of meaningless 243 facts, and drain[s] all the job out of learning." High stakes exams also leads to 244 widespread cheating, grade inflation, and outright bribery. But there is a much more serious problem for students. Hagwons take up a lot of extra time for classes and homework, add additional pressure for academic performance, and induce more stress on already overburdened students. Students already spend a lot of time studying for regular school exams, but the addition of hagwons and private tutors takes up a lot of time during the week, leaving most students with little to no free time. Students routinely are in school, studying, or engaged in private education for up to 18 hours a day, seven days a week. One student explained, "I have to get up at 7 in the morning. I have to be at school by 8 and lessons finish at 4. Then you go to a 245 hagwon and when you arrive home, it's around 1 o'clock in the morning." The Korean Teachers and Education Worker's Union claims that high school students sleep on average 5.4 hours a day, although a recent academic study found that 246 the average sleep time was slightly higher, around 6.5 hours a day. The Ministry of Health, Welfare and Family Affairs has issued warnings about student's irregular meals and lack of sleep. About 40 percent of elementary and middle school students skip meals because they lack a break in their busy daily 247 schedule. There is a popular student proverb, "If you sleep for four hours a night, you'll get into the college of your choice - if you sleep for five hours, you fail." This pressure to perform leads to serious physical harm and
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Seth, Education Fever, 192. Rose Senior, "Korean Students Silenced by Exams," The Guardian Weekly (Jan 15 2009); Card, "Life and Death Exams in South Korea." 243 Seth, Education Fever, 170. 244 Card, "Life and Death Exams in South Korea." 245 Hyun-Sung Khang, "Education-Obsessed South Korea," Radio Nederland Wereldomroep (Aug 6 2001). 246 Bae Ji-sook, "Should Hagwon Rune Round-the-Clock?;" Soonjae Joo, Chol Shin, Jinkwan Kim, Hyeryeon Yi, Yongkyu Ahn, Minkyu Park, Jehyeong Kim, and Sangduck Lee, “Prevalence and Correlates of Excessive Daytime Sleepiness in High School Students in Korea,” Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences 59 (2005): 433-440. 247 Bae Ji-sook, "Should Hagwon Rune Round-the-Clock?." 242
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psychological distress. Parents and teachers routinely beat students that do not perform well academically. A study published in 1996 found that "97 percent of all children reported being beaten by parents and/or teachers, many of them 248 frequently." Many students turn to suicide as the only escape from this relentless pressure to perform. Statistics are not routinely kept on this issue, but limited data are frightening. Around 50 high school students committed suicide after failing the college entrance exam in 1987. An academic study published in 1990 revealed that "20 percent of all secondary students contemplated suicide 249 and 5 percent attempted it." And the problem is only getting worse. Two recent surveys found that between 43-48 percent of Korean students have contemplated suicide. From 2000 to 2003 over 1,000 students between the ages of 10 and 19 committed suicide. Families also suffer. In 2005 a father was so distressed over his son's bad grades that he torched himself, his wife, and their 250 daughter outside his son's school in shame. I worked at an English language academy that was one of the biggest and most respected hagwons in South Korea. It boasted professionally trained st teachers, a 21 century curriculum, and engaged students. But behind the corporate rhetoric lay a different, darker reality. The organization was run like a prison, for both students and faculty. The hagwon employed an inexperienced, untrained, and transient workforce to instruct overworked students who were pushed past their limits of endurance. All of the English instructors were recruited from overseas on one-year contracts, and the majority staid for only a single year. If an instructor persisted for more than a year then they were automatically considered an "expert" instructor. Most of these instructors have only a bachelor’s degree in fields other than English and no previous teaching experience or knowledge of student learning. Some have extremely limited reading, speaking, and writing skills and they are not fit to teach. Most if not all instructors were employed because they could not find work in their home country. Some came overseas to primarily "party," while waiting for a better opportunity back home. For the majority of instructors, it was all about the money. To deal with an unskilled and transient workforce, the organization was built on the foundation of authoritarian managers who enforced a rigid classroom management method. As in America, instructors and administrative staff were but the interchangeable and temporary vessels delivering a standardized product, but in South Korea this system was much more rigid, authoritarian, and intense. All instructors had to follow the same "method," which is a rigid classroom routine. Instructors were not told how or why the method works. They were simply told to follow the method. Every three hour class had the same standard format and was planned down to the minute. Instructors were told to follow the "class structure" without question and without modification. The main task of middle-management is surveillance. They monitor instructors 248
Seth, Education Fever, 168. Seth, Education Fever, 166. 250 Card, "Life and Death Exams in South Korea." 249
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via CCTV to make sure every part of the "class structure" is accomplished according to a standardized "observation report," which is a checklist based on the "class structure." Except for the college prep courses, which I mostly taught, every class followed the same basic routine. On the surface, this basic structure seems to pack a range of languagebased activities into a well-organized three hour block. Time is given to vocabulary, skill acquisition, skill practice, skill test, writing, group work, and oral presentations. And in fact, high performing students are able to use this structure to practice and polish their English skills. However, there is almost no time for individual feedback or correction, thus, there was very little opportunity for students engage the material and learn new skills. Furthermore, the curricular materials are inappropriately advanced for most students, thus, students struggled to understand the lesson's conceptual topic and advanced vocabulary words. Elementary students in the basic reading and listening programs were taught about beneficial bacteria, hyperinflation, competing scientific theories of species extinction, or cryogenics. In the more advanced classes, elementary and middle school students used American college textbooks with sophisticated essays and they were introduced to logic argumentation, fallacies, and expository writing. Most students were completely overwhelmed, not only by the advanced conceptual topics, but also by the extremely advanced vocabulary. The majority of students in every class routinely failed the reading or listening comprehension quiz. The average score hovered around 50 percent or lower. Students struggled to comprehend the material thrown at them each week, let alone trying to develop their language skills. These students were just "crammed with mere facts, and with the opinions or phrases of other people, and these are accepted as substitute for the power to form opinions of their own...[they became] mere parroters of what they have 251 learnt." The pedagogical structure itself is to blame. Due to the rigid time and activity structure, there was no opportunity for instructors to explain each week's topic, nor was there any time for the class to engage in discussion. The whole focus of the class was preparing students to take the standardized multiple choice question test during the second hour, which was meant to prepare them for the standardized final exam week 10. In fact, the whole curriculum was built around the College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT) the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL), and a host of other standardized tests, which are the formal placement exams for academic high schools and colleges. Despite rhetoric about language acquisition, this hagwon was only concerned about one goal: preparing students to take standardized tests in the English language. Thus, the primary instructional activity that management placed at the center of the method was "test-taking skills." In training secessions and from management comments, the primary instructional activity was to help students
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John Stuart Mill, Autobiography (London, 1989), 45. 83
"refine fundamental test-taking skills" so that they could "obtain the best iBT score possible." This was the central mission. Classroom activities focused not on discussion or understanding written texts or oral texts, instead they focused on standardized test question types, strategic approaches to text taking, note taking, and summary writing. This also explains the difficult nature of the textbooks because TOEFL and other standardized tests use "excerpts from college-level textbooks." Thus, students read or listened to college-level texts, not because it was developmentally or educationally appropriate, but because it was necessary to acclimatize them to standardized test taking. There was no room in the method to make weekly topics interesting, relevant, or even understandable to most students. This alienated and frustrated even willing students. But most classrooms were not filled with willing students, especially when they were in middle school. There is an underlying reality behind Korean private schooling: it is culturally mandatory. Because of the general "education mania" in Korea, parents enroll students in private education all week long. Some students go to hagwons and private tutors seven days a week for up to six to eight hours a day. After an informal class discussion on how students are overworked in Korea, I had one of my students approach me after class. He was one of my worst, most unresponsive students. He informed me that he had to go to 13 hagwons a week, each assigning homework, plus his regular school and homework. He said he had no choice. His parents made him go. Many students reported that they were always going to hagwons or doing homework, that they had no free time, and that they slept only four to six hours a night. Thus, many students were unresponsive zombies who did the very least just to get by, and they knew how to work the system. As long as students filled out their book, staid quiet during class, and did at least some homework then they would earn passing grades. Many students just stared at the walls during class. The week 10 standardized achievement tests were also rigged to accommodate these unresponsive students. The same tests were used over and over again, grading was curved, and students advanced to higher classes if their parents complained. My hagwon offered a highly ritualized environment that demanded very little from students other than displaying the proper behavior. There was a subtle truce between instructors and students. Many students played the hagwon game to keep up the appearance of schooling; however, a close look into their blank eyes revealed a silent, enduring resistance. Sometimes this resistance turned into open hostility. One student explained that there was "conflict between teachers and the students which leads to an uncomfortable learning environment." Near the end of each term I asked students to write a "Letter to the CEO" in order to find out what they liked and didn't like about the company. Most of the letters repeated the same basic evaluations: too much homework, too many tests, too much stress to perform, and not enough break time to eat and go to the bathroom. On student wrote, "They spend lots of time in doing hagwon homework, no time to do school homework, and no time to study other 84
subjects." Most disturbingly were the repeated comments about how much "stress" all the class time, homework, and tests put on students. One college prep student wrote, "The Korean school system puts too much pressure on students. The stress that the students have to carry on their backs is very heavy that some students fall down, never reaching their goals. Do we have to do it this seriously? I absolutely DON'T think so." Another college prep student wrote something similar, "Every day I have to go academies...every day I have to finish homework...I get tired, stressed usually, when I am busy. I am hated of doing this uninterested thing...Usually I feel negative of this busy life. But I'm continuing this life because I'm being forced." Two elementary students verbalized in quite shocking language how this stress made them feel: "Children dying inside" and "Children die inside (test kill children)." A couple of students said they "hate" the school and wanted to "destroy it." I managed to teach my classes very differently than most other instructors. Having been a teacher and educational administrator for over fifteen years, I operated based on my own professional standards, and was also given a lot more latitude by middle-management than most other instructors. While I followed the major activities of the school's method, I also managed to change them in significant ways that would not be readily apparent to supervisors watching via CCTV, which thankfully did not clearly record speech. For example, when I did the critical thinking project, I never used the company's prompt or textbook. Instead, I would engage students with a much more creative topic and I would ask them to draw pictures as well as write an oral presentation. I hung these pictures in the classroom and covered all four walls with student art (no other teacher had ever done this and at the end of each term the administrative staff would rip them off the wall and throw them in the trash before I could save them). I also actively encouraged group discussion in both English and Korean to open students up, even though speaking Korean was forbidden by management. I frequently criticized the textbook in front of the children in order explain how the information or skills were not professionally sound, and then I would modify activities accordingly, often substituting a diagram on the board or some other activity. Needless to say my classes were not typical classes, although I did my best to hide this fact from management, especially upper-level corporate management who routinely visited, so that I would not get fired. I taught according to my professional standards and my years of experience, and the children responded well. On the back of an anonymous survey, I asked students to evaluate my teaching by writing a sentence or two. One of my students wrote, "Mr. Beach was a great teacher. He always answered the questions that the students asked and he had a huge amount of background information. He is always ready for the class and unlike the big body, he has a very warm heart. He tries his best to make students fully participate in the class and motivates to make a good atmosphere for them to study. There's nothing he could do better (TRUST ME)." 85
Another student wrote, "I think you are one of, if not, the most intellectual and interesting and admirable teacher that I had in my life so far." I tried to give my students a more open, creative, and less stressful atmosphere and most of my students loved my classes. When I gave my kids an informal evaluation, most students said that I was a "good," "great," and "kind" teacher. During my one-year contract I managed to keep a retention rate between 98 and 100 percent, while the school's average was around 83 percent. I think I was doing something right, although the institution was suffocating me and crushing the souls of my students. During the 1990s free market enthusiasts pronounced a “new” type of 252 economy that was spreading across the globe. This new economy was a postindustrial “knowledge” economy focused on the development of “human capital” and new forms of technology. For the past twenty years the strong correlation between education, economic opportunity, and social class has been under scrutiny, hence, finding ways to increase educational opportunity has 253 become a prominent public policy issue. The economic necessity of increased education, especially college degrees and credentials, has become a new 254 “gospel” and a "secular faith." Today, insecure people all across the world feel immense pressure to gain increased amounts of education in order to hold onto middle-class social status, let alone to seek increased economic mobility. Nowhere is this pressure felt more than in South Korea. Since the 1990s South Korea has caught the spotlight of global attention as one of the four "Asian Tigers." This moniker denoted the "miracle" socio-economic transformation from an underdeveloped, autocratic third-world backwater into a developed, free-market, high-skilled economy and democratizing society. South Korea has become famous for its highly educated population, soaring industrial productivity, and innovative technology. In global policy circles South Korea is being heralded as an economic model, not only for 255 developing states, but also for advanced market democracies. South Korea is 256 also held up as a model for education by various policy wonks and some
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Thomas Frank, One Market Under God: Extreme Capitalism, Market Populism, and the End of Economic Democracy (New York: Anchor, 2001); Alison Wolf, Does Education Matter? Myths about Education and Economic Growth (London: Penguin Books, 2002), 14. 253 Amartya Sen, Development as Freedom (New York: Anchor, 2000); Paul Morris, “Asia’s Four Little Tigers: A Comparison of the Role of Education in their Development,” Comparative Education 32, no. 1 (March 1996): 95-109. 254 W. Norton Grubb and Marvin Lazerson, The Education Gospel: The Economic Power of Schooling (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2007); Wolf, Does Education Matter?, x. 255 Mark Borthwick, Pacific Century: The Emergence of Modern Pacific Asia (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2007); Eum Mee Kim, The Four Asian Tigers: Economic Development and the Global Political Economy (Burlington, MA: Academic Press, 1998); Youngil Lim, Technology and Productivity: The Korean Way of Learning and Catching Up (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999); Ian Williams, "Korean Model Triumphs Over West," Asia Times Online (Nov 17 2009). 256 David Azocar, "Korean Educational Model: A Good Pattern for Chile to Follow," Chilean Library of Congress (June 13 2008) ; "A Slow Learning Curve," Holding Its Breath: A Special Report on Egypt, The Economist (July 17 2010): 1086
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renowned educational scholars. International policy makers point to its highly educated population (one of the highest in the world), its high levels on international achievement tests, and its "efficient educational system," which produces notable results on little public funding - the South Korean government 258 invests in education "well below" the international average. However, upon closer examination, South Korea not only has a troubled free-market economy and embattled political democracy, but its "intense" "obsession" with education borders on psychosis. And despite some claims of an "efficient" educational system, South Korea has some serious issues that undermine the quality of its educational system and it boasts one of the most expensive, if not the most expensive, educational systems in the world, with most of the total cost borne on the backs of middle-class parents. When it comes to education, South Korea is suffering from "education fever," a concept 259 that Korean's themselves have used to label their particular malady. While national statistics paint a pretty portrait, the underlying reality is a nightmare, especially for the young, who are pushed into a highly competitive and stressful social environment from a very early age. The American public has recently been exposed to this relentless form of education through the media hype over Amy Chua's Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, a relatively moderate account 260 compared with the experiences of children in South Korea. International educational reformers and policy makers are focused on increasing years of schooling, increasing educational achievement on standardized tests, increasing access to post-secondary institutions, and increasing the attainment of post-secondary degrees. But rarely does anyone ask, why? And further, are the means (not least of all the stress and strain on children) worth the ends? The standard reply, which has become a policy mantra, is that education furthers national economic growth and global competiveness, while enriching the individual consumer. These economic ends 261 are offered as the supreme value of human life. But there is no evidence to prove that more schooling, more achievement on standardized tests, more access to college, or more college degrees will bring more national economic growth. Alison Wolf perceptively argued, "Just because something is valuable, it does not follow that yet more of 12. The Economist often uses South Korea as a positive example of a developing country that used education to bolster economic success, as it does in a cross-cultural comparison with Egypt in the above article. 257 See for example Linda Darling-Hammond, "Korea's Climb to Extraordinary Attainment," The Flat World and Education: How America's Commitment to Equity Will Determine Our Future (New York, 2010), 173-181. 258 Wolf, Does Education Matter?, 41; Michael J. Seth, Education Fever: Society, Politics, and the Pursuit of Schooling in South Korea (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2002), 6-7. 259 Seth, Education Fever, 2, 7; Michael J. Seth, "Korean Education: A Philosophical and Historical Perspective," Korean Education, Young-Key Kim-Renaud, R. Richard Grinker, & Kirk W. Larsen, eds. (Washington, DC, 2005), 3. 260 Amy Chua, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother (New York, 2011). 261 Grubb and Lazerson, The Education Gospel; Wolf, Does Education Matter?, ix-xi. 87
it is by definition a good idea." Besides the unexamined connection between education and economic growth, no one bothers to ask, what does all this education cost - not just financially, but in human terms, socially and psychologically? But questioning the global "secular faith" in education, as Alison Wolf pointed out, "places one somewhere between an animal-hater and 262 263 an imbecile." South Korea is not alone in being "obsessed" with education. The whole world seems to be in the grip of education fever. Taking the ethical vantage point of Amartya Sen's "impartial 264 spectator," I want to make a few observations about the South Korean pursuit of "education fever" and the social role of hagwons, like KEPA, in order to ask a basic question: Is the South Korean educational model just or fair? Specifically, I want to use Sen's "capability approach" to look at the means and ends of "satisfactory human living" and the extent to which an individual not only "ends up doing," but also what that individual is "in fact able to do" and whether or not 265 that individual is able to freely choose any particular course of action. As Sen explains, "A theory of justice - or more generally an adequate theory of normative social choice - has to be alive to both the fairness of the processes involved and to the equity and efficiency of the substantive opportunities that people can enjoy...Neither justice, nor political or moral evaluation, can be concerned only with the overall opportunities and advantages of individuals in a 266 society." The ends of South Korean education look very attractive. Today, South Korea has one of the highest percentages of school-age population enrolled in both K-12 and higher education, around 99 percent enrollment in middle school, over 96 percent in high school, and close to 70 percent in some form of higher 267 education. South Korea has also been the site of a "miracle" socio-economic transformation from an underdeveloped, autocratic third-world backwater into a developed, free-market, high-skilled economy and democratizing society. South Korea deserves credit for its highly educated population, soaring industrial productivity, and innovative technology, but at what cost and to whom? In 2008 Korean families spent almost 21 trillion won (around $17 268 billion) on private education. South Korean families spend more on education than in most other countries, around 69 percent of the total price, making the 269 South Korea "possibly the world's costliest educational system." And students
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Wolf, Does Education Matter?, x-xi. Ibid., 13. 264 Amartya Sen, The Idea of Justice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009), 124. This idea can be traced back to Adam Smith. See Robert Heilbroner, The Worldly Philosophers (New York, 1953). 265 Ibid., 234-35, 238. 266 Ibid., 296-97. 267 UNESCO, South Korea; Hye-Jung Lee, “Higher Education in Korea,” Center for Teaching and Learning, Seoul National University (Feb 2009). 268 Moon Gwang-lip, "Statistics Paint Korean Picture," Joong Ang Daily (Dec 15 2009); "Lee Seeks to Cut Educational Costs," Korea Herald (Aug 14 2009). 269 Seth, Education Fever, 172, 187. 263
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are pushed from as early as kindergarten or the 1st grade to not only perform well in regular schooling, but also to go to private tutors and hagwons so that they can prepare for the high stakes testing in middle school, high school, and the college entrance exam. Most students study all day for seven days a week and get less than eight hours of sleep a night. These students are pushed to study and succeed on standardized tests, they are pushed to become fluent in English, and they are pushed to get into the most prestigious high schools and universities. Students are slaves to their parents' ambitions, whether or not some students actually internalize "education fever." Students are under so much pressure that a large percentage of students, somewhere between 20 to 48 percent, actively contemplate suicide each year, and a significant minority actually kill themselves because they cannot take the pressure to succeed or the burden of failure. And what are South Korean children actually learning in this "pressure270 cooker atmosphere"? Public and private schools use a "teach-for-the-test" curriculum that focuses on the memorization of information, standardized multiple-choice tests, and test-taking techniques. Korean students rarely understand the information being taught to them, they are not taught to critically analyze information, and they cannot apply information to other contexts. Students simply become "expert memorizers" of "de-contextualized" 271 facts that can only be used to take standardized tests. This teach-for-the-test curriculum "stifle[s] creativity, hinder[s] the development of analytical reasoning, ma[kes] schooling a process of rote memorization of meaningless 272 facts, and drain[s] all the job out of learning." And what are the ends of this education system? Students are ultimately competing for a limited number of high paying jobs with top corporations or government agencies. But economic and social inequality has intensified over the last several decades, and there is “a growing disparity” between rich and poor measured by consumption patterns, residential segregation, and access to quality education, especially quality higher 273 education. Not only are the numbers of impoverished and underemployed still a problem, there has also been increasing unemployment and growing job insecurity for white collar workers. Women still find it hard to compete in the labor market. Over the past decade, Koreans have suffered setbacks from less protective labor laws, increased competition in the skilled labor market for fewer full-time jobs, and the introduction of neoliberal business models, like increased use a flexible, contingent, and low-paid labor force that can be easily hired and 274 fired in reaction to business cycles. Plus, the educationally driven culture of 270
Seth, Education Fever, 192. Rose Senior, "Korean Students Silenced by Exams," The Guardian Weekly (Jan 15 2009); Card, "Life and Death Exams in South Korea." 272 Seth, Education Fever, 170; Darling-Hammond, The Flat World and Education, 70. 273 Hagen Koo, “The Changing Faces of Inequality in South Korea in the Age of Globalization,” Korean Studies 31 (2007): 1-18. 274 Koo, “The Changing Faces of Inequality in South Korea in the Age of Globalization”; Andrew Eungi Kim and Innwon Park, “Changing Trends of Work in South Korea: The 271
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South Korea turns out many more college graduates than can be adequately 275 employed in the economy. But schooling in South Korea has traditionally been about social status 276 and class, not employment in the labor market. Koreans have had a "faith in education," seeing it as the only avenue to social advancement, if not economic 277 opportunity. A successful student not only raises his or her own status, but also brings social benefits to the entire family. Thus, Denise Potrzeba Lett has argued that economic goals are not "the primary motivation" behind Koreans' pursuit of education. Instead, Koreans' "pursuit of education was more than 278 anything else a pursuit of status." Lett calls the modern manifestation of the process the "yangbanization" of Korean society: "as South Korea's middle class has become more affluent, it has come to exhibit characteristics more typically 279 associated with an upper rather than a middle class." The pursuit of formal education, especially higher education, becomes the primary marker of class distinction, which helps position an individual within the highly regimented labor 280 market. The ends of the South Korean education system seem perversely clear: a successful student spends 16 years of intense intellectual labor, earns a degree from a prestigious university, and gains entry to one of the top 50 corporations, only to raise a family and push his or her children onto the same path. But only a minority of South Korean students actually fulfill this career trajectory. In a society defined by social status and the attainment of success markers, what is the quality of life for the majority who fail to reach the cultural pinnacles of success? And is educational, social, and economic success truly just if it is not freely chosen? And even if one of the lucky few achieve all of these markers of success, what then? Are they happy, fulfilled, content, and complete? South Korean society is obsessed with status and education seems to be the primary vehicle to attain this future end. But if the process to obtain a desired end causes only misery than what happiness can come when the end is reached? As John Dewey noted, most people see education as simply "the 281 control of means for achieving ends." However, Dewey explained that education is connected to the development of human beings, and as such, it is a
Rapid Growth of Underemployed and Job Insecurity,” Asian Survey 46, no. 3 (May/June 2006): 437-56; Nelson, Measured Excess; Dennis Lett, In Pursuit of Status: The Making of South Korea’s “New” Urban Middle Class (Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1998). 275 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), South Korea, revised version, World Data on Education, 6th ed. (Paris: UNESCO, Oct 2006), 30; Cho Jae-eun, "Too Many Grads Fight for Too Few Jobs," Joong Ang Daily (Oct 18 2010); "The One-Shot Society," The Economist (Dec 17 2011), 77-80. 276 Seth, Education Fever, 100; 277 Seth, Education Fever, 102. 278 Lett, In Pursuit of Status, 159, 164; Cho Jae-eun, "Too Many Grads Fight for Too Few Jobs," Joong Ang Daily (Oct 18 2010). 279 Ibid., 212, 215. 280 Ibid., 218-19. 281 John Dewey, Democracy and Education (New York: Feather Trail Press, 2009), 28. 90
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process of discovery, and should have "no end beyond itself." If education is treated simply as a means to an end then personal development and learning will not happen - education will be reduced to a perverse ritual that tortures the young to conform to competitive social pressures. Sadly, education in South Korea seems to be a demonstration of Dewey's point: "Education fever" is not about education at all. Schooling is but the means for the relentless pursuit of social status and prestige. Thus, the recently debated phenomenon of "tiger mothers" in the United States should 283 give us pause to think about the means and ends of education. The education system in South Korea is a warning to the world. It helps us understand how education can be used and abused in the pursuit of social goals, and how children can suffer from their parents' pursuit of an ideal end. South Korea should not be seen as a global educational exemplar. In contrast, the South Korean educational model should serve as a warning. Beware the reduction of education to economic mobility and social status. Beware the grip of "education fever."
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Ibid., 29. Amy Chua, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother (New York, 2011); Sandra Tsing Loh, "My Chinese American Problem - and Ours," The Atlantic (April 2011) 83-91. 283
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Chapter 8 --Academic Capitalism in China: Higher Education or Fraud?
The concept of “academic capitalism” was popularized by Sheila 284 Slaughter and Larry L. Leslie in their book on the subject. They explored how universities (as organizations) and professors (as individual knowledge workers) were becoming more capitalistic and entrepreneurial, leaving behind many traditionally academic characteristics. This transformation was due in large part to the reduction of national and state funding of higher education and research. Both universities and professors had to turn to the private marketplace in order to find funding. The consequences of this turn to the marketplace have led many to question the purpose of higher education and research. As Slaughter and Leslie noted, “Participation in the market began to undercut the tacit contract 285 between professors and society.” Slaughter and Leslie claimed this 286 transformation is a “quiet revolution.” Universities as organizations and professors as individuals have begun to turn away from serving the public towards serving their own private interests. In effect, university presidents and professors have become profit seeking capitalists, rather than stewards of the public good. Hence, as Jennifer Washburn has noted, universities “look and behave more and more like for-profit commercial enterprises,” rather than 287 educational institutions. One major consequence of this turn towards academic capitalism has 288 been a “decline in undergraduate education” and the “neglect of students.” Universities are still concerned about students, but only in terms of selling a product to an expanded consumer base, in this case a degree. Universities have lost sight of their traditional purpose: Teaching inexperienced young people who need information, skills, and guidance. In order to sell future students on the
284 Sheila Slaughter and Larry L. Leslie, Academic Capitalism: Politics, Policies, and the Entrepreneurial University (Baltimore, 1997). 285 Ibid., 5. 286 Ibid., 11. 287 Jennifer Washburn, University Inc.: The Corporate Corruption of Higher Education (New York, 2005), 140. 288 Ibid., 22, 202.
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value of higher education, non-educational goods and services have been developed as a tantalizing draws: football stadiums with winning teams, posh student residences with pools and lounges, state-of-the-art recreational centers, and top-of-the-line social events, including superstar musicians and comics. Professors, never much concerned about educating undergraduates, have now become even more focused on securing research dollars and publishing academic articles and books. But what about higher education and the learning and personal development of students? Most classes have been reduced to traditional lecture and recitation with nothing more than short-term learning demonstrated on standardized tests. Students have become more like consumers than scholars. They are concerned only about getting their money’s worth. Most students put in the minimum amount of effort to pass a class. Are students enrolled in university for an education? Do they really want to learn information or skills? Hardly, they want to buy the coveted product of a university degree so they can quickly get to work and become rich. Students are not getting the higher education they deserve – the education they need. The cost of higher education in the United States has increased dramatically, but according to recent research, institutions of higher education have not "delivered extra value to match the extra costs...indeed, the 289 average student is studying for fewer hours and learning less than in the past." Students are paying more and more, but getting a lot less. Many students are not learning much in universities. The so-called “higher education” has been watered down to not much more than what used 290 to be a high school education. There is also evidence that institutions of higher education are exacerbating social and economic inequality because rich students tend to do better in college and earn degrees, while poor students find it harder to get into college, and once they get there, they find it hard to succeed and earn a degree. But even when students are successful, either in terms of passing classes or earning degrees, what does this success really mean? One study in the United States found that around 45 percent of university students had no statistically significant gains in core learning areas over the first two years in 291 college. This study discovered that not only did many students not learn much, but students with individual advantages, like high socio-economic status, 292 demonstrate more learning in college than less advantaged students. So it doesn’t appear that students are learning much, if anything, in college. Smarter, more privileged students are succeeding, not because they are learning, but
289 “The College-Cost Calamity,” The Economist (Aug 4, 2012), Retrieved Dec. 3, 2012, from www.economist.com 290 Stanley Aronowitz, The Knowledge Factory: Dismantling the Corporate University and Crating True Higher Learning (Boston, 2000), 2. 291 Richard Arum and Josipa Roska, Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses (Chicago, 2011), 36. 292 Ibid., 38-57.
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because they are able to rely on social capital they already possessed to navigate the increasingly bureaucratic maze of the university system. Derek Bok, former President of Harvard University, has argued that universities need to “protect academic values from excessive 293 commercialization.” He explained, “Many are afraid that commercially oriented activities will come to overshadow other intellectual values and that university programs will be judged primarily by the money they bring in and not 294 by their intrinsic intellectual quality.” But a line has already been crossed over the past quarter century. The “intellectual quality” of the university seems to have been sacrificed to the market imperative to create economic growth and maximize profit. As more and more private, for-profit organizations move into higher education, especially those offering on-line education and less than four-year degree programs, the whole notion of “higher education” has been replaced with cost-effective 295 vocational training preparing student-clients for the labor market. Students without motivation or vision enroll in colleges and universities because of social pressure and the imperative to conform. They enroll not because they want to learn, nor because they want to personally develop, but because they must earn a college degree if they want a chance at a decent job and entry into the middle class. Students too have become capitalists. They are clients looking to invest their economic and human capital in order to secure their future. In such an environment, education as personal development is lost. As Sociologist Stanley Aronowitz explained, “I used to think that most students had no idea why they were in college beyond the widely shares sense among several generations of young adults that on the other side was the abyss. Now I am pretty sure most students understand that to play the job game they need a degree, even if their expectations are often buffeted by the market’s vicissitudes. From their friends and parents, they know how little a terminal high school diploma will buy. Yet they have little idea what they want to ‘study.’ In most cases, their choice of major and minor fields are informed (no, dictated) by a rudimentary understanding of the nature of the job market rather than by 296 intellectual curiosity, let alone intellectual passion.” However, there is a looming problem with the reduction of higher education to cultural capital, to a mere commodity that is prized because of its scarcity and exclusivity. This problem is endemic with all luxury goods. Once more people attain the previously exclusive product, it begins to lose its value, until one day the popularized good becomes debased through widespread ownership and fraudulent reproduction. Then, people begin to lose interest in
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Derek Bok, Universities in the Marketplace: The Commercialization of Higher Education (Princeton, 2003), 185. 294 Ibid., 16. 295 W. Norton Grubb and Marvin Lazerson, The Education Gospel: The Economic Power of Schooling (Cambridge, MA, 2004). 296 Aronowitz, The Knowledge Factory, 10. 94
the former luxury good all together. If college students are not earning a real education through the acquisition of knowledge and skills, then the mere commodity they have purchased will leave them unprepared for the looming creative destruction of the markets. For a while a college degree will signal certain value to employers in the marketplace, but perhaps at some point in the near future, such degrees will literally become worthless. Speaking from experience, degrees in certain fields, such as English or the Humanities in general, have already become mostly worthless in the contemporary marketplace, even graduate degrees. We have already reached a point where some for-profit universities and colleges are knowingly selling students debased courses and empty degrees, which is tantamount to fraud. As professor of Higher Education Philip Altbach has noted, “As higher education has ‘marketised,’ it has adopted more 297 commercial values, including a greater predilection for corruption.” More traditional universities and academic programs are devolving into for-profit businesses. Some perilously push the bottom line ahead of academic values and interests, putting money making activities (like football teams and patented technologies) ahead of student learning or community development. We have entered a brave new world where higher education is no longer about teaching, learning, research, and public service. The citadel of higher learning has been besieged, and its walls breached, by bottom feeding, get-rich-quick, snake-oil salesmen. Businessmen and financiers are flooding into the frothing market of higher education to extract as much profit as possible 298 from ignorant consumers before the bubble bursts. A developing global crisis looms.
1. Higher Education in China In East Asia, state sponsored education and a cultural emphasis on credentialed knowledge workers have both been venerated traditions for thousands of years. In what is often called Chinese “Confucian” culture, education has been revered as a time-honored process of transmitting the collected wisdom of Chinese civilization – one of the oldest civilizations on 299 Earth. Academic degrees have been the primary markers of social distinction and economic mobility for over two thousand years. The hereditary locus of aristocratic power became blended with a meritocratic educated bureaucracy, 300 which together created a “mixed aristocratic/bureaucratic ruling class.”
297 Philip Altbach, “Stench of Rotten Fruit Fills Groves of Academe,” The Times Higher Education Supplement (Jan 21, 2005), 12. 298 Glenn Harlan Reynolds, The Higher Education Bubble (New York, 2012). 299 Martin Jacques, When China Rules the World: The End of the Western World and the Birth of a New Global Order (New York, 2012), 248. 300 James B. Palais, “Confucianism and the Aristocratic/ Bureaucratic Balance in Korea,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 44, no. 2 (Dec 1984): 427-68.
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For much of the past two millennia of human history, China was “the 301 most literate and numerate society in the world.” Educational institutions stressed rote memorization of the Chinese language, classical Chinese texts, 302 ritualized socialization, writing, and the arts. And while Confucian and neoConfucian educational principles did stress individual development as “self cultivation,” the emphasis of formal schooling, especially in later neo-Confucian institutions, focused more on situating the individual within the hierarchical “structure” of society. Thus, much of a student’s instruction was geared toward a socialization process, whereby, the individual student learned proper social values, such as formal social discourse, deference to superiors, and traditional 303 rituals. Instruction culminated in a high stakes final “examination” that served 304 as the gateway to a social title and a position in the state bureaucracy. This East Asian educational system produced a small population of literate and cultured elites, trained in a traditional and largely unchanging body of ethical and technical knowledge. The literate elite served as the administrative center of the Chinese empire. This elite “enjoyed unrivalled authority and numerous 305 privileges” because they effectively ran the empire by implementing the demands of the emperors. This caste of educated elites was higher in status than all other social classes, including military leaders, merchants, and priests. The Communist revolution of the 1950s did not displace the standing of the educated elite in China, nor did it diminish the cultural importance of learning. However, the revolution did temporarily replace the venerated texts of Confucius with those written by communist leaders, such as Marx and Mao. In many ways, the communist revolution was co-opted by the previous imperial bureaucracy. The state remained the paternalist center of an imperial empire, but there was a political shift away from hereditary monarchs towards the somewhat more open structure of the communist party, which supplanted the 306 monarchs as the ruling authority. Chinese communism was a very “pragmatic” blend of imperial 307 bureaucratic tradition, communist ideology, and market activity. Chinese leaders began to move further away from communist ideology towards capitalist economic development in 1978, albeit a form of state directed capitalism, starting with a few “special economic zones,” which eventually served as a
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Jacques, When China Rules the World, 15. Fredrick W. Mote, Intellectual Foundations of China (New York: Knopf, 1971); Jacques, When China Rules the World, 96. 303 Michael Charles Kalton, The Neo-Confucian World View and Value System of Yi Dynasty Korea (Diss., Harvard University, Sept 1977), 6, 7, 9, 82; Jacques, When China Rules the World, 96. 304 Jacques, When China Rules the World, 96; Philip G. Altbach, “The Giants Awake: Higher Education Systems in China and India,” Economic and Political Weekly, 44, No. 23 (Jun. 6 - 12, 2009), 39-51. 305 Ibid. 306 Ibid. 307 Ibid., 176. 302
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model for the rest of the country. Due to these economic reforms, the economic growth rate accelerated considerably, moving from 4-5 percent during 309 Mao’s administration to a yearly rate of 9.5 percent from 1978 to 1992. The economic turn toward capitalism also ushered in a cultural transformation as well. The Chinese people began to “worship wealth” and celebrate entrepreneurs, just like their counterparts in the capitalist western 310 world. As the political scientist Martin Jacques has explained, “Moneymaking, meanwhile, has replaced politics as the most valued and respected form 311 of social activity, including within the [communist] Party itself.” Communist Party leaders have set a new example for the rest of the nation. They are highly educated, many with western university degrees, and they participate in market activities. These leaders also often engage in corruption, exploiting state power to privately enrich themselves and their families. Over 92 percent of central committee Party members have earned a college degree, many in technical subjects. Most have used their political standing and connections to engage in entrepreneurial and investment activities, much of which would be considered corruption. The former Prime Minister, Wen Jiabao, reportedly enabled his extended family to amass a fortune of over 312 $2.7 billion dollars. In 2011 alone, close to 143,000 Party officials were accused of illegal activity, which led to “the recovery of 8.4 billion Yuan ($1.35 313 billion) in assets.” The traditional veneration of education and credentials has only st intensified in the 21 century. China produces more college graduates than any other country, around 4.5 million in 2007 alone. This was up from approximately 314 950,000 college graduates in 2000, an increase of over 470 percent! And the numbers keep going up. Now, there are close to 8 million college graduates a year, including both community colleges and universities. A growing fraction of these college students attended and/or graduated from western universities. By 2020, China anticipates having 195 million college graduates, compared to the 315 United States, which expects to have only 120 million. The Chinese government has been investing around $250 billion a year in its educational system, encouraging more and more students to attend college and earn degrees. Over the last decade, the number of colleges and universities 316 in China had doubled, now numbering 2,409.
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Ibid. Ibid., 177. 310 Ibid., 179. 311 Ibid., 282. 312 “China’s Ruling Families: Riches Exposed,” The Economist (Nov 3, 2012), Retrieved from www.economist.com 313 “The Fight Against Corruption,” The Economist (Dec 8, 2012), Retrieved from www.economist.com 314 Jacques, When China Rules the World, Ibid., 217. 315 Keith Bradsher, “Next Made-in-China Boom: College Graduates,” The New York Times (Jan 16, 2013), Retrieved from www.nytimes.com 316 Ibid. 309
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The demand for college credentials in China has increased exponentially, but the quality of Chinese institutions of higher education has 317 been low and their management “dysfunctional.” However, due to increased state investment and regulations, Chinese universities are becoming stronger. Hu Jintao, the President of China, has admitted that “While people receive a good education, there are significant gaps compared with the advanced 318 international level.” Part of the problem with Chinese higher education is the lack of 319 professors trained in research, leadership, and academic ethics. A generation ago, there were not many college graduates, especially researchers with postgraduate degrees. With the exponential increase in Chinese colleges and universities, there have not been enough highly qualified college graduates to serve as professors. And the pay is not great. The average professor earns only the equivalent of $300 a month, which is less than many skilled laborers. Many professors become entrepreneurs out of necessity, turning to the labor market 320 for second jobs or to start a company. In 2010, no mainland Chinese universities were ranked in the top 30 internationally, but six mainland Chinese universities were ranked in the top 200, up from only five in 2004. The United States, by contrast, has the most developed and highest ranked universities in the world. Seven of the top ten universities in the world are in the U.S., the other three are in the U.K. The allure of a degree from a top-ranked university has caused more and more Chinese students to study abroad in the U.S. and U.K. During the 2003-04 school-year, there were approximately 128,000 Chinese students studying in the U.S., and another 75,000 studying in the U.K. These numbers have been steadily increasing over the past decade, albeit with some fluctuation during the Great 321 Recession of 2008-10. Chinese students studying abroad make up 17 percent of the total amount of international students globally. In 2010, there were approximately 562,889 Chinese international students. The top destinations were the U.S., Australia, Japan, the U.K., and Korea. The U.S. is the most popular destination globally for international students, hosting approximately 19 percent of all such 322 students. But there is a dark side the educational boom in China. For one, there is widespread corruption and fraud, by both students and professors. Philip Altbach tentatively noted that “such corruption seems embedded in [Chinese] 323 academe.” One recent study conducted by researchers from Beijing 317
Altbach, “The Giants Awake: Higher Education Systems in China and India,” Ibid., 42. Bradsher, “Next Mand-in-China Boom,” Ibid. Altbach, “The Giants Awake: Higher Education Systems in China and India,” Ibid., 46. 320 Bradsher, “Next Mand-in-China Boom,” Ibid. 321 Jacques, When China Rules the World, Ibid., 547-48. 322 “Global Flow of Tertiary-Level Students,” UNESCO Institute for Statistics, UNESCO.org (2012), Retrieved from http://www.uis.unesco.org/EDUCATION/Pages/international-student-flow-viz.aspx 323 Altbach, “The Giants Awake: Higher Education Systems in China and India,” Ibid., 47. 318 319
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University found that Chinese students and professors had “little or no idea” about “academic ethics and misconduct.” Approximately 40 percent of students 324 admitted that current policies did not deter widespread cheating and fraud. Unethical behavior in higher education mirrors widespread unethical behavior in the larger society, especially in politics and business, perhaps signaling a sort of break down in traditional ethical principles due to the momentous social 325 transformation from a socialist to a capitalist society. In order to quickly graduate and get low-skilled government jobs, many students don’t care about learning or the quality of their academic work. University students are plagiarizing established information from published sources or simply fabricating research results. Graduate students steal research from their colleagues, publishing the data before the authors’ can write up their report. Some hire ghost-writers to research and write graduate thesis papers and dissertations. A master’s thesis in English costs around 20,000 Yuan, cheaper if it is written in Chinese. You can even pay some academic journals to have your work published. Some ghostwriting businesses offer to both write 326 your paper and get it published! One Chinese student explained, “No one likes writing papers. It is meaningless and just a technicality before graduation. 327 Most teachers are acquiescent." Some graduate students just buy their degrees from corrupt higher education officials or from fake schools, often 328 referred to as diploma mills. Sometimes, students have to bribe university officials just to get accepted. One student with adequate test scores was asked 329 to pay a $12,000 bribe in order to be admitted to a university. Professors are also engaging in academic fraud, perhaps setting bad examples, which their students eagerly follow. More than a few professors have
324 “Chinese Students Admit to Little or No Idea about Ethics,” The Times Higher Education Supplement (Aug 5, 2010), 11. 325 “China’s Ruling Families: Riches Exposed,” The Economist, Ibid.; “The Fight Against Corruption,” The Economist, Ibid.; Nick Lee, Amanda Beatson, Tony C. Garrett, Ian Lings and Xi Zhang, “A Study of the Attitudes towards Unethical Selling Amongst Chinese Salespeople,” Journal of Business Ethics, 88, Supplement 3 (2009), 497-515. 326 Yojana Sharma, “New Academic Misconduct Laws May Not Be Adequate to Curb Cheating,” University World News Global Edition, 234 (Aug 12, 2012), Retrieved from www.universityworldnews.com; Yojana Sharma, “Regulation on Academic Fraud Hopes to Reduce Plagiarism,” University World News Global Edition, 253 (Jan 6, 2013), Retrieved from www.universityworldnews.com; “Fake Papers Are Rife at Universities,” China Daily/Asia News Network (March 8, 2010), Retrieved from www.news.asiaone.com 327 As cited in “Fake Papers Are Rife at Universities,” China Daily/Asia News Network (March 8, 2010), Retrieved from www.news.asiaone.com 328 Yojana Sharma, “New Academic Misconduct Laws May Not Be Adequate to Curb Cheating,” University World News Global Edition, 234 (Aug 12, 2012), Retrieved from www.universityworldnews.com; Yojana Sharma, “Regulation on Academic Fraud Hopes to Reduce Plagiarism,” University World News Global Edition, 253 (Jan 6, 2013), Retrieved from www.universityworldnews.com; “Fake Papers Are Rife at Universities,” China Daily/Asia News Network (March 8, 2010), Retrieved from www.news.asiaone.com 329 Philip Altbach, “Stench of Rotten Fruit Fills Groves of Academe,” The Times Higher Education Supplement (Jan 21, 2005), 12.
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lied about their qualifications, falsely claiming non-existent degrees or falsely claiming published papers or books. A couple of professors have falsely claimed to be the authors of research papers published in the west. At least a few unscrupulous professors have just copied previously published papers and then re-submitted the work to another journal, falsely claiming original authorship of 330 someone else’s paper. At least one professor, Lu Jun, who was hired by Beijing University of Chemical Technology, admitted to completely falsifying his entire resume, lying about not only his degrees, but also his work experience and published work. He simply copied information from the resumes of western 331 professors and then claimed it all on his own. Western universities have been experimenting with collaborative ventures, offering a western style university education taught by visiting professors and sanctioned by the prestige of western university standards. Universities such as Yale, Columbia, and Arizona State University offer higher education programs in China, but students earn a western degree. However, widespread academic fraud and corruption have strained these endeavors. Students lie about academic credentials and research, and they routinely plagiarize and cheat. One Yale professor explained, “When a student I am teaching steals words and ideas from an author without acknowledgment, I feel 332 cheated…I ask myself, why should I teach people who knowingly deceive me?” Chinese academic fraud is also affecting international students and their host countries. Western institutions of higher education want to attract international students for a number of reasons. These students enhance a school’s diversity, it builds brand recognition and loyalty in developing countries, and international students pay full tuition, often at higher rates that domestic 333 students. Such calculations can often devolve into a type of fraudulent academic capitalism, whereby western universities sell their brand, and the lure of a prestigious degree, to unprepared students who do not have the foundational knowledge or skills to successfully pass western university classes. But not all international students are victims. Many students lie, cheat, and buy their way into western universities. Approximately 80 percent of Chinese international students hire an agent to prepare the application materials to apply to a western university. These agents are paid up to $10,000 for their services. Many of these agents not only fraudulently fill out the application, lying about educational credentials, skills, and references, but these agents also write the students application essays, lying about the student’s experience and misrepresenting students’ foreign language proficiency. One consultancy group researching such agencies estimates that most of the information on Chinese
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Ibid. “University Sacks Prof Who Was 3 Times A Fake,” People's Daily Online (July 30, 2012), Retrieved from www.english.peopledaily.com.cn 332 “Campus Collaboration: Foreign Universities Find Working in China Harder than They Expected,” The Economist (Jan 5, 2013), Retrieved from www. economist.com 333 Alexis Lai, “Chinese Flock to Elite U.S. Schools, CNN (November 26, 2012), Retrieved from www.cnn.com 331
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student applications is fraudulent: 90 percent of recommendation letters, 70 percent of application essays, and 50 percent of high school transcripts are 334 fake. An educational researcher from the U.S. warned, "The problem is massive. There's no oversight in China, no control over who can set up an agency, over what the agency can and can't do…[These agencies] help in creating 335 fraudulent documents." One Australian research group explained, “Unscrupulous education agents on impossibly high commissions” are “funneling students with fraudulent documents into any course irrespective of the quality 336 of the course or the student.” The Chinese government has finally recognized this problem and is starting to take steps to regulate these college application agencies. But unscrupulous Chinese students and entrepreneurs are not the only people engaged in academic capitalism. As already noted, American institutions of higher education are also exploiting students for brand expansion and economic gain. But a new class of fraudulent for-profit colleges, which are often referred to as “diploma mills,” have sprung up in the U.S. to take advantage of gullible Chinese exchange students. Some of these fraudulent organizations have been set up by former Chinese nationals who have used their knowledge of Chinese education to better exploit eager international students. Dickson State University admitted unqualified international students, 95 percent of whom 337 came from China, and awarded them fraudulent degrees. Herguan University and Tri-Valley University, both located in the San Francisco Bay Area, preyed upon Chinese exchange students and generated millions in illicit profits, until 338 U.S. officials began to investigate these fraudulent organizations. A newer type of academic capitalism has recently emerged in China, which is a hybrid form of Chinese entrepreneurialism and western higher 339 education. The Chinese government designates these ventures as “duli” or “independent institutions.” Luxi Zhang and Bob Adamson, professors at The Hong Kong Institute of Education, explain, “The Ministry of Education stated that an independent institution should be run by entrepreneurs, following the principle of ‘seven independences’: independent campus and basic facilities, relatively independent teaching and administrative staffing, independent 334 Justin Bergman, “Forged Transcripts and Fake Essays: How Unscrupulous Agents Get Chinese Students into U.S. Schools,” Time (July 26, 2012), Retrieved from www.time.com 335 As cited in Justin Bergman, “A U.S. Degree At Any Cost,” Time (Aug 20, 2012), Retrieved from www.time.com 336 As cited in Yojana Sharma, “Ministry Mulls Powers to Ban Student Recruitment Agents,” University World News Global Edition, 246 (November 1, 2012), Retrieved from www.universityworldnews.com 337 Ibid. 338 Lisa M. Krieger and Molly Vorwerck, “Sunnyvale University CEO Indicted on Visa Fraud Charges,” San Jose Mercury News (May 8, 2012), Retrieved from www. mercurynews.com 339 Luxi Zhang & Bob Adamson, “The New Independent Higher Education Institutions in China: Dilemmas and Challenges,” Higher Education Quarterly, 65, No. 3 (July 2011), 251–266.
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student enrolment, independent certification, independent finance budgeting, 340 independent legal entity and independent civil responsibilities.” One variant of this new phenomenon is the international university summer school. Chinese capitalists have created undergraduate “summer school” programs hosted at Chinese universities, but usually not officially connected to, or sponsored by, the university. These programs target mostly international students who return home to China during the summer, although some also target western undergraduates looking to study abroad. But unlike other forms of academic capitalism in China, these organizations hire western 341 university professors and lecturers who teach western style classes. These programs claim that students can take credits from these summer schools back to the U.S. and earn transfer credit from U.S. universities. Most of these programs operate on the campus of various Chinese universities, and some actually use the name of host universities; however, these summer schools are actually just private businesses renting classrooms, ostensibly using 342 the university location to provide a veneer of academic legitimacy. These programs are mostly run by young Chinese businessmen who have been educated in western universities. Some of these entrepreneurs are still registered undergraduate students at U.S. universities, taking time off from school to develop their own business. These young entrepreneurs secure funding from Chinese capitalists and run their summer school businesses like franchises, spinning off affiliated programs in new cities, most likely earning a percentage of profits for new programs. As The Chronicle of Higher Education recently explained, “These entrepreneurs have taken an American product—the Western college course—and created a shorter, cheaper version to sell to their peers. In doing so, they have tapped into the seemingly insatiable demand for 343 Western education by China's growing middle class.” Besides the convenience of taking western university courses back home in China, these programs also offer western credit hours at substantially lower prices than exchange students would be paying at U.S. universities. As one Chinese student explained, “If summer school provides me the credits and it's cheaper, why not choose that?" According to another international student, these programs seem to attract two different types of students: “Those who want to finish college as soon as possible, they work very hard. Another group, they can't finish the courses in their own school, and they think summer school will be easy.” There is evidence to suggest that some of these schools engage in deceptive practices, similar in type of broader forms of fraud and unethical
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Ibid., 253. Beth McMurtrie and Lara Farrar, “Chinese Summer Schools Sell Quick Credits,” The Chronicle of Higher Education (January 14, 2013), Retrieved from www.chronicle.com. I was a main source of information for this article. Information from this source draws from both the published article and my own research in China. 342 Ibid. 343 Ibid. 341
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behavior documented in the larger Chinese marketplace. Profit hungry administrators at these for-profit schools don’t seem to be screening applicants to differentiate serious students from others who just want to buy cheap 345 credits. Some of these schools, as I’ll explain in the next chapter, give students financial incentives to take as many classes as possible, which set up most students to fail – or puts pressure on faculty to just pass all students. One U.S. professor criticized these summer schools for undermining the integrity of western institutions of higher education: "Essentially what Summer China did was create a cheap, Chinese program. I was providing an inexpensive product students could buy in lieu of better developed courses back home [in the 346 U.S.]." With some much scheming and fraud in Chinese higher education, by faculty, students, and businessmen, it seems insightful to ask, what is Chinese higher education for? If these institutions were actually imparting real skills and knowledge that were to be usefully employed in Chinese society and in the economy, then cracking down on academic fraud would be a pertinent policy issue. But if high education is simply a status marker of prestige, a mindless social ritual that serves as a gateway into the Chinese state bureaucracy, then why not just buy a credential, or steal it? For thousands of years in China, education has been reduced to a commodity, mere social capital, and it is prized not for its utility, but because of its exclusivity, like a luxury good. As such, it should come as no surprise that educational credentials are bought and sold like any other commodity. Further, like most other luxury goods in China, educational credentials are easy to fake. Selling fake credentials is simply one more black market activity, a mundane expansion of China’s seemingly limitless sea of counterfeit goods.
2. CHINA X: Educational Opportunity or Fraud? 347
CHINA X International Summer School was created in 2011 on the campus of Qingdao University in Qingdao, Shandong province, which is located on the central-east coast of China. The purpose of the program was to invite the "world’s top professors" to China in order to teach western university classes in English. The program is mostly geared to Chinese foreign exchange students studying abroad in the United States. While home visiting their families, these students could earn transfer credits towards an American bachelor’s degree. 344 Nick Lee, Amanda Beatson, Tony C. Garrett, Ian Lings and Xi Zhang, “A Study of the Attitudes towards Unethical Selling Amongst Chinese Salespeople,” Journal of Business Ethics, 88, Supplement 3 (2009), 497-515. 345 Ibid. 346 As cited in Ibid. 347 China X is a pseudonym for a real organization that continues to operate an international summer school in southern China. This chapter is based on information gleaned from the organization’s web site, organizational documents, first-hand observation of the program, and interviews with members of the organization.
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The program claims to offer the equivalent of American college courses taught in English by American professors - for a much cheaper price. CHINA X is a private school. It is not an official part of any university, nor is it run by local faculty. Instead, it is organized and administrated by local businessmen and hosted at prominent Chinese universities. Some of these program administrators are college students in their mid-twenties. CHINA X is a franchise business. Each locale is independently organized and operated. There seems to be no centralized coordination or oversight, although all campuses share a single website. In 2012 the CHINA X program expanded into two more cities in China: Southwest Jiaotong University in Chengdu and Jinan University in Guangzhou. In 2013 the program will reportedly spread to Beijing and Taiwan. In its first year, there were around 200 students accepted into the program. By 2012, around 400 to 500 students enrolled between the three campuses. Most students were Chinese exchange students who have already been accepted for undergraduate study in American universities. Many of these students were freshmen or sophomores already studying abroad, some from prominent U.S. universities, like the University of Wisconsin, Syracuse University, and the University of California. Most of these students had come home to China for summer vacation in order to see family. Some of the students were recent graduates from local Chinese high schools. Students who pass CHINA X courses earn credits that supposedly can transfer to "over 200 American colleges," although only 35 universities are listed on the website. The program is not just academic. It also offers non-credit classes on dance, rock-n-roll, and yachting, as well as on-campus dormitories and social activities, like dance parties and field trips. The CHINA X program has a highly ambitious, and potentially contradictory, vision. The mission statement of the program is published on its website, both in English and Chinese. It claims, Cooperating with more groundbreaking Chinese and American universities, CHINA X International Summer School is devoted to constructing the best summer program in Greater China, building an international high-end platform for the elite students community, well-known professors and Fortune 500 companies.
There seem to be several different, and possibly conflicting, goals here. One part of the CHINA X mission seems to be to foster international cooperation between Chinese and American universities through cultural exchange. Another goal seems to be a competitive educational and/or business vision to create "the best" university summer school in China for "elite students" at the "lowest cost among peer programs across the world." And finally there is another goal, only half-articulated, which seems to be an aspiration to be a business school. It is not clear if this program wants to attract funding or guest speakers from "Fortune 500 companies," or if CHINA X aspires to be a global corporation, like most Fortune 500 companies. I want to look at each of these goals, one by one. Did this program 104
foster international cooperation between Chinese and American universities? Did this program hire the "world's top professors" in order to create a superior university summer program for "elite" students? Was this program seeking to become an international business school, or did it aspire to be a global corporation? I evaluated the claims made on the CHINA X website with three sources of data: my observation of this program in Guangzhou during the summer of 2012, discussions with other American faculty members who taught in this program, and interviews with support staff. I concluded that this program does not foster much international cooperation, and what little cooperation did take place was marred by economic exploitation. It does not recruit "top" professors, nor does it recruit "elite" students. And the program does not offer superior university courses. The program did focus on business and economics, but was not a coherent business school. And finally, CHINA X was a for-profit enterprise that seemed to focus on maximizing profit, not maximizing education or student learning, and towards this end, the program may have committed academic fraud. First, did this program foster international cooperation? Yes, there were some forms of international cooperation; however, it was mostly between faculty and support staff. One Chinese professor from the business school gave a speech on the first day, but was never seen again. Another Chinese professor from the business school attended a few of the public speaking classes. No other Chinese professors participated in the program. Students attended classes, but rarely, if ever, talked to professors outside of class. Most did not do much speaking in class. Some students also attended field trips and social events, but there was rarely any mixing with professors, outside of occasional small talk. The only real exchange was between faculty and the sixteen support staff, all of whom were local students at Jinan University, and many of whom were graduate students. Faculty members were dependent upon these students for help, both with classes and with navigating the culture. Supposedly there were "research" opportunities to collaborate with Chinese colleagues, but nothing was ever said of this opportunity once we arrived, and no American faculty had any contact with the local professors. While there was collaboration and exchange with the support staff, it was not collaboration between equals. Sadly these staff members were being economically exploited by the program, as are many workers in China. There were two types of support staff: teaching assistants and living assistants. Teaching assistants, like their counterparts in American universities, were mostly graduate students who attended classes, lead recitation sections, and helped professors proctor exams and grade assignments. Living assistants were both graduate and undergraduate students who helped professors interact with the local culture, which included help with shopping, dining, banking, sightseeing, and issues with living quarters. These students served an important role, but they were not being compensated fairly for their work. Over the five week program, the TAs would 105
work between 15 to 30 hours a week, while the living assistants would work between 5 to 10 hours a week. Both groups were required to be on call day and night to help professors when needed. And they were required to put in extra hours as service workers during program events and parties. For this all this effort, TAs earned 700-500 Yuan, which is the equivalent of $80-$122 for five weeks. Thus, for 75 to 150 hours of work over five weeks, TAs earned the equivalent of $0.53 to $1.63 an hour. Worse, the living assistants were paid nothing at all. Almost all of the assistants I interviewed said they were not treated fairly by the program. One TA said the working conditions were "terrible" and that "I did not feel like I was valued." Another TA said "the payment is abnormal in the market," which meant that the CHINA X wages were low, even by the extremely low standards of the Chinese labor market. But this student didn't complain. She was the only respondent to consider her treatment fair because she was able to take free classes by American professors, which she valued more than a decent salary. She said, "I don’t really care about the salary. I join the program because there are relevant courses that I want to learn. So, I tend to participate it even there’s no payment." Clearly, these students joined the program for non-monetary rewards, but the CHINA X administrators seemed to exploit these motivations. All Chinese undergraduates need to take an internship for school, thus, working for CHINA X fulfilled this requirement. Some students also saw this as an opportunity to make connections with American faculty who might help them later study abroad in the U.S. But rather than treat support staff as volunteers and students, they were treated as menial workers who were expected to be on call for duty at all hours of the day. While CHINA X didn't foster much by way of international cooperation, how about its second claim: Did it hire the "world's top professors" in order to create a superior university summer program for "elite" students? On all three parts of this claim the answer is unequivocally negative. CHINA X did not hire "top professors" by any standard way of measuring such a claim. The program was inferior in every way to an American college course, although it was potentially much cheaper. And the program certainly did not admit "elite" students. First, who were the professors? The website claims that CHINA X has "the best line-up of professors in Asia." It claims that professors come from highly acclaimed tier-1 research universities in America and England, like Harvard University, The University of California at Berkeley, and University of Cambridge. The program also claims that professors are focused on "improving the quality of learning and teaching," "curriculum design," and "pedagogical innovations." Some of the visiting professors did in fact work at internationally recognized, top-tier American universities, like the University of California at Berkeley. But the vast majority did not. Most of the professors came from midto low-ranked American state universities, like the University of Texas at San Antonio or Arlington, the University of Wisconsin at Platteville, or the University 106
of Minnesota at Crookston. Few, if any, of the professors were tenured full-professors, and none were leaders in any academic field. Only a small minority of the visiting professors had done any original research or published academic work. Some of the "professors" were not even professors at all. Around half of the faculty were adjunct lecturers, some only partly affiliated with universities, as they taught primarily at community colleges in the United States. Many of these adjunct faculty had only master’s degrees and not much experience teaching at the university level. In several instances, the program website lied about the credentials of some of these professors, claiming they had earned PhDs (when they had not), and claiming they worked at more prestigious universities. Few of the professors knew anything about curriculum or instruction and there was little, if any, "curriculum design" or "pedagogical innovation." Most professors simply lectured to students, assigned readings from the course textbook, used high stakes exams, and a few assigned academic papers. While the quality of "learning and teaching" in any university naturally varies from class to class, depending on both the professor and the students, at this summer program there was no evidence of any exceptional teaching or innovative pedagogical techniques. In fact, just the opposite. Most offered very traditional classes. Thus, the claims of "the best line-up of professors in Asia" and “pedagogical innovations” were clearly false. And the claim that all professors came from prominent tier-1 American research universities was grossly overstated and misleading. What about the program? Did CHINA X offer a superior university summer program? A good university program would have innovative and demanding university classes that reinforce core learning goals, the program would be coherently integrated and well organized, and it would provide adequate student support services to ensure quality learning. CHINA X did not display any of these characteristics. The classes were standard, lecture and exam oriented college classes taught by, at best, adequate instructors. Most classes did not demand much time and effort from students, outside of preparing for exams. There were no core learning goals or outcomes for the program. The classes were not integrated in any way. The program was poorly organized. Decision making was reactive, rather than proactive, with many modifications made on the fly as problems arose. And there were almost no student support services: computers in classrooms were slow and infected with viruses, there was only one printer in the faculty lounge, the library did not have access to English language academic databases, there were few English language books, and there was no writing and learning facility to help tutor students. Several faculty noted the absence of a writing and learning lab because most students struggled with their reading and writing skills. A hastily organized "writing center" opened halfway through the five week program. It was staffed by one novice English instructor for a couple hours a day, and it could not accommodate even a fraction of the students who needed such services. 107
But the program was relatively cheap, in comparison with non-resident tuition at American universities. Including fees and free books, one CHINA X class was $2,450 (15,680 Yuan), which at the low end of typical out-of-state tuition for an American public university, which cost around $1,500 to $7,000 for a three credit class, depending if the university is a lower-tier or a tier-one institution. Essentially, students were paying for a lower-tier American university education and that is exactly what they were getting, with the exception, of course, of the condensed 5 week structure. Such short classes severely constricted the amount of information and assessment students received, thus, students were being sold a false bill of goods and left classes with little “higher education,” in terms of either knowledge or skills. CHINA X also gave students financial incentives to take as many classes as possible. If a student registers for two or more classes, each additional class is only an additional $400 to $500. And this includes free books, albeit the books are pirated photocopies of American textbooks. Many students registered for three or four classes (at least a couple registered for five!). There is no way these students did any more than memorize short-term information to pass standardized, high-stakes exams. Several students had to eventually drop out of classes (and lose their money) because there was no way for them to be successful with such an unrealistic load of classes. And finally, what about the students? Did CHINA X admit "elite" students? Well, the answer to this question is mixed, yes and no. Any exchange student who enrolls in a foreign language university to earn a degree should be considered an "elite" student due to the difficulty of mastering a second language on top of the knowledge requirements of a university degree program. However, there have been many studies about sub-standard educational practices in Chinese schools and the struggles of foreign-exchange students in American universities. These reports raise doubts about how prepared these students are for a western university degree programs. Further, there have been recent investigative reports about Chinese students engaging agents to apply to western universities. These agents not only fill out the college application, but also have been known to lie about students qualifications and to write the application essay for the student. While some of the students enrolled in CHINA X were absolutely "elite" students, many were not. Most CHINA X students were not fluent in English speaking, reading, and writing and they struggled to successfully pass intense five-week college courses. Under ideal circumstances, with a low class load, trained teachers, and adequate student support services, most of these students could have developed their English skills and mastered course material. But CHINA X did not provide ideal circumstances. Most professors had no knowledge of pedagogy, they used class only to lecture, and few met with students outside of class to help them learn. Some professors used class time to go on “field trips,” which were no more than tours of local sites that had, at best, moderate connection to the course curriculum. As already noted, there were almost no student support services. And students had low expectations of easy and cheap college courses, 108
so many enrolled for three, four, even five courses at once. Under such circumstances, there was little student learning. Students struggled to meet the workload requirements and usually studied only before exams. Many had difficulty understanding verbal English and so they sat quietly in class, taking fractured notes, starting at the walls, or playing on their computers. Many students also had difficulty reading in English, which limited their ability to understand their textbooks, especially in the reading-heavy courses of literature and philosophy. Many students also routinely plagiarized ideas and wording from their textbooks. The American professors seemed to have low expectations. Most seemed to treat their stay in China as a vacation, rather than a serious academic endeavor. Some dealt with poor student performance by grading on curves, setting the academic bar fairly low. Most professors passed every student, even though few of these students possessed the English skills to pass a real university level course in the United States. The few professors who pushed students to learn, and who eventually failed some students, were pressured to lower their standards, change grades, and pass all students. There was even some evidence that grades were tampered with. Two of the CHINA X support staff said that administrators may have changed professor's final grades so that all students in the program would pass classes. Looking past the false rhetoric of the mission statement, the CHINA X program seemed to have only one goal: It wanted to attract a lot of students to take many classes so that program administrators could make a large profit. CHINA X did focus on business and economics, around 40% of the total classes offered, but it did not create a coherent business school model. Instead, the program offered a diverse variety of core freshman and sophomore classes in a range of disciplines, which was meant to attract a wide variety of students. It also offered a price plan that was meant to encourage students to take multiple classes. All of the support staff that I interviewed agreed that the primary goal of CHINA X was to make a profit. CHINA X is a for-profit enterprise that is clearly focused on maximizing profit, not maximizing education. The enterprise forfeited not only educational values in the pursuit of profit, but it broke the law as well. Most of the professors were surprised when they were told to enter the country on a tourist visa, rather than a work visa. The program administrators explained that it was just easier that way, as there was a lot of red tape to hire foreign workers. While plausible, it turns out that most Chinese educational institutions do in fact apply for work visas for foreign staff, and they are not all that hard to get approved. Professors found it a bit more shocking to be paid in cash. They were given large stacks of American dollars in incremental stages. This method of payment gave the whole operation a gangster-like feel. CHINA X had a clear, for-profit mission, which was at odds with its stated mission published on its website. When asked, the support staff agreed: this was a business, not a school. One staff member stated, "It was clear that the directors didn't care much about the quality of education." Another 109
explained why, "This program is a business to make profit." Towards its profit-driven end, CHINA X exploits support staff, students, and visiting professors. Most participants were manipulated with false or misleading information. Students were sold a false bill of goods. They did not receive a top-notch American university education from highly regarded American professors. They were provided no support services to help them learn. And they were encouraged to take more classes then they could successfully pass. They were also not told that many American universities would not accept CHINA X courses for transfer credit. Perhaps more worrisome, the CHINA X program seems to have engaged in deliberate academic fraud by altering the final grades of professors so that all students could pass classes. Students may have also been complicit in the fraud if they were promised easy credits with the guarantee of passing. The academic community in the U.S. and in the rest of the world needs to be aware of profit-driven programs, such as CHINA X, so as to guard against a breach in the academic integrity of the western university system. Programs such as CHINA X seem to be selling college credits, rather than offering quality higher education. Such programs also tarnish the integrity of visiting faculty and foreign exchange students who travel abroad.
3. What Is the Value of Higher Education in China? For thousands of years, the value of higher education in China has not been intrinsic. The value and utility of a college credential has rested upon one distinguishing characteristic: it is an unobtainable good that most cannot afford. It was used solely as a status symbol, a credential signaling exclusivity. As historian of education David F. Labaree argued, schooling is often reduced to a commodity: it is “a kind of ‘cultural currency’ that can be exchanged for social 348 position and worldly success.” Schools offer, according to Thomas Frank, the 349 “golden ticket” to success, thus, universities offer the “capital-C Credential.” In such a cultural environment, real learning is not important. Instead, “surrogate learning” is all that’s needed. As Michael W. Sedlak explained, “As long as the tests are passed, credits are accumulated, and credentials are 350 awarded, what occurs in most classrooms is allowed to pass for education.” And often, as philosopher Matthew B. Crawford points out, where such social rituals displace real learning, an educational credential “serves only 351 to obscure a more real stupidifictaion.” Rather than make a person smart, by imparting real knowledge and skills, schools often make people stupid, by
348
David F. Labaree, How to Succeed in School without Really Learning: The Credentials Race in American Education (New Haven, 1997), 43. 349 Thomas Frank, “A Matter of Degrees,” Harpers (Aug 2012), 4. 350 As cited in Labaree, How to Succeed in School without Really Learning, 44. 351 Matthew B. Crawford, Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry in the Value of Work (New York, 2009), 144. 110
incapacitating them through mindless ritual and deference to authority. Higher education in China is more like virtual education, rather than the acquisition of higher order skills and knowledge through real learning. For centuries, higher education in China has been a social marker of legitimation, a mere gatekeeping function. Higher education has served the imperial bureaucracy for centuries, certifying an administrative class of deferential servants. It has the same basic function today. But the enduring problem of all luxury goods, especially in vibrant, unregulated marketplaces like China, is the ability of entrepreneurs to cheaply replicate fakes, flooding the marketplace with worthless replicas and deflating the value of luxury goods through a crises of identity. China has long been known for its industrious ability to produce cheap knock-offs of designer goods. There is evidence to suggest that deceptive practices, including the selling of fraudulent merchandise, are perfectly acceptable in the Chinese business 352 world. The Economist sardonically notes, “You could almost say that counterfeits remain Silk Street’s trademark, despite the market’s efforts to 353 stamp them out.” 354 The marketplace for educational credentials has been no different. If all have access to a luxury good, then it can’t be a luxury anymore. If more and more people have the capital-C Credential of higher education, then how can elites visibly identify superiority? The fake good eventually becomes exposed and devalued, and elites move on to the next luxury marker of higher social status, perhaps to goods that are not so easily knocked-off, like cars, foreign travel, and real estate. Higher education has always been traditionally reserved for an elite upper class. It was meant to be exclusive and to serve as a social signal legitimating elite status because it was guarded by elite institutions and conferred only by elaborate social rituals. But the democratization of western th th society in the 19 and 20 centuries corroded the exclusivity of traditional elite institutions, such as political governance, schooling, and the market place. These democratizing currents were at first forced on eastern nations, such as Japan and China, due to the western world’s insatiable appetite for new markets to buy raw materials and sell manufactured goods. But eventually, the public at large in south-east Asia and Japan began to demand more and more democratization, albeit blending western ideas and institutions with traditional eastern ways of life. th In the early 20 century, the economist Joseph Schumpeter foresaw how democratization would produce a credential arms race and would result in the devaluation of higher education. He was writing at a time when only a small
352 Nick Lee, Amanda Beatson, Tony C. Garrett, Ian Lings and Xi Zhang, “A Study of the Attitudes towards Unethical Selling Amongst Chinese Salespeople,” Journal of Business Ethics, 88, Supplement 3 (2009), 497-515. 353 “Fakes and Status in China,” The Economist (June 23, 2012), Retrieved from www.economist.com 354 Frank, “A Matter of Degrees.”
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minority of people went to college, but policy makers were heatedly discussing the opening of higher education to larger swaths of the middle class. Schumpeter warned that the supply of credentialed workers would outpace labor market demand. Flooding the market with credentialed workers would devalue the signaling function of degrees, thereby, reducing the social capital of all degree holders. This devaluation of credentials would thus condemn the previously elite class of college graduates into a netherworld of over-education 355 and “substandard work.” It would be instructive to step back and ask, Why are Chinese students so focused on earning college degrees? What will they do with this luxury of exclusive social capital? In 2012 approximately 7 million students graduated with a college degree in China, but there were no jobs for many of this credentialed class. Due to the constrained possibilities and fierce competition of the private market, around 1.4 million of these students applied for the government civil service exams, a massive increase from the previous decade, 356 but there were only 20,800 positions to fill. Some turned to state-run corporations, and a lucky few found work abroad. But many college graduates were forced into low-paid work in factories, the emerging service sector, or in small, local, mostly family-owned businesses. And for the lucky college graduates who find a government job? Do they get a life of privilege and ease? The Economist paints a different portrait: “Mr Zhang, who is 27, is beginning his climb up the bureaucracy in the capital of a province, Shanxi, south-west of Beijing, which is reputed to be among the most corrupt and least competently governed. The jobs are hard to get, says Mr Zhang, but they are not the cushy sinecures that many assume. He works from 8am until midnight on most days, he says, compiling dry reports on topics like coal production and sales for higher-level officials. He commands a modest salary by urban standards—about 2,800 Yuan ($450) a month, in a city where a decent flat near his office rents for two-thirds that much. This way of life does not impress the ladies, he says; he has been on two blind dates in four years, both of them failures. This picture of dedication and loneliness stands in sharp 357 contrast to the popular image.” But isn’t a position like Mr Zhang’s just a starting point, an entry-level job with which one could work their way up the ladder to success? Sadly, no. As The Economist goes on to explain, “The chance of advancement is small indeed. Of China’s 6.9m civil servants, about 900,000 are, like Mr Zhang, at the lowest official rung of government above entry-level. Roughly 40,000 civil servants serve at the city or ‘bureau’ level. Many promotions are handed out on the basis of relationships, gifts and the outright sale of offices. Even when they compete for promotions on merit, some officials will pad their CVs with fake graduate
355
Joseph Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (New York, 1942), 152. “The Golden Rice-Bowl,” The Economist (Nov 24, 2012), Retrieved from www.economist.com 357 Ibid. 356
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degrees.”
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And Mr Zhang is not alone. A reporter for The New York Times interviewed a young community college graduate, Wang Zengsong. Mr Zengsong is 25 years old. He grew up in the country on a rice farm, but he managed to go to community college and earn a three-year associates degree. But ever since graduating, now over three years, he has been mostly unemployed. He has only had a couple of short-term, low-paying jobs, such as a security guard at a shopping mall and a waiter in a restaurant. There are factory jobs, but Mr Zengsong won’t apply for those. Why? As the Times reporter explains, “He will not consider applying for a full-time factory job because Mr. Wang, as a college graduate, thinks that is beneath him. Instead, he searches every day for an office job, which would initially pay as little as a third of factory wages. ‘I have never and will never consider a factory job — what’s the point of sitting there hour after hour, doing repetitive work?’ he asked. Millions of recent college graduates in China like Mr. Wang are asking the same 359 question.” There is now widespread “over-education” in China because the labor market does not have enough high-skill positions for all the graduates leaving 360 college each year. In 2012, Prime Minister Wen Jiabao noted that only 78 percent of graduates from the year before had found a job. There is a persistent “structural mismatch,” as the deputy secretary general of China’s Education Ministry has acknowledged: Too many college graduates and not enough good 361 jobs. The situation is not any better for students with postgraduate degrees. And not only are many college graduates unemployed, under-employed, and desperately looking for work, but those college graduates who do have jobs are seeing their wages erode, as a flood of skilled laborers devalue the market. This leaves many college graduates with a difficult choice: work in a factory or go 362 back home to live with parents. The problem of credentialism and over-education is not only affecting China. It is happening in the U.S. too. It is a global problem. One has to ask, what good is an education if there is no way to use such an education to live a better life? If higher education has been reduced to a credential that signals elite status, then why not just buy one, legitimate or fake? But what happens when the labor market is flooded with bought degrees that signal no real learning or skills? What happens when technological development and the globalized economy creatively destroy old industries and create new ones? 358
Ibid. Keith Bradsher, “Chinese Graduates Say No Thanks to Factory Jobs,” The New York Times (Jan 24, 2013), Retrieved from www.nytimes.com 360 Dan Wang, Dian Liu, Chun Lai, “Expansion of Higher Education and the Employment Crisis: Policy Innovations in China,” On The Horizon, 20, no. 4 (2012), 336-344. 361 Yojana Sharma, “Concern Over Too Many Postgraduates as Fewer Find Jobs,” University World News Global Edition, 235 (Oct 28, 2012), Retrieved from www.universityworldnews.com 362 Bradsher, “Chinese Graduates Say No Thanks to Factory Jobs,” Ibid. 359
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Those who see higher education as nothing more than a credential leave themselves exposed to the mercies of the global labor market. There is a lot that can be said about the intrinsic value of knowledge, skills, and personal development. But leaving all that aside, and simply focusing on the labor market value of a college degree, which is what most people seem to be doing in the world, there is a frightful consequence of credentialism. If the individual does not actually purchase real knowledge and skills that can be creatively and purposefully used in the marketplace, then they offer employers nothing other than a piece of paper signaling exclusivity. But if a growing minority, or even a majority, of people possess that same piece of paper, then its sole signaling purpose ceases to function and it becomes devalued, if not completely devoid of value. At such a point, the individual becomes completely helpless as an un-skilled laborer, potentially much worse off because the college students has spent tens of thousands of dollars, at least, to purchase a now worthless credential. What would be the national and global consequence of such a dismal situation? We will most likely find out over the coming decades.
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Chapter 9 --Technology Isn’t Magic: The Lie of On-Line Education
In the modern world, technology is often conflated with magic. Sometimes this confusion is justified. Think about the marvels of the computer age and the ever shrinking size of personal computers and the development of nanotechnology. Think about the technology of touch screens and the developing technology of operating computers with brain waves. In many ways, especially for those untrained in the intricacies of science, these technological breakthroughs seem magical. But technology is not magic. For those who don’t know any better, believing in magic is perfectly rational. For thousands of years humans have created “just so” stories to explain the unexplainable. But for those scientists and engineers who should know better, placing faith in technology as a panacea is just as irrational as those uneducated fools who believe in magic. Technology cannot fix human nature, nor can it solve the intractable social and political problems that have plagued our species for centuries, such as clashes of values leading to violence and war. Scientists and engineers cannot even understand the nature or purpose of values, let alone coming up with an app to solve culture wars. While our new technologies, especially computers, are making us smarter and more capable, they cannot solve all of our problems. Technofanatics, like Ray Kurzweil, are wrong when they claim that technology will allow us to “transcend” the “limitations of our biological bodies and brains,” to so say nothing of our conflict infected societies. Technology is not a magic that will allow us to “gain power over our fates,” enabling us to overcome mortality and 363 every other conceivable problem we face as a species. Technology, as the ancient Greek root word techno implies, is just a tool that can be used for any purpose, good or bad. Cutting edge technology, like social media, can bring people to come together, help forge social and political bonds, and enable a revolution, as we saw in the “Arab Spring” of 2011-2012. But the same technology can also be used by totalitarian governments to isolate people and control their thought and behavior, like those in North Korea, China, and Iran. So when it comes to education and schooling, the technology 363
Ray Kurzweil, The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology (New York, 2005), 9. 115
cheerleaders are mindlessly evangelizing their belief in magic, mostly to the detriment of students and teachers. The policy community seems to believe that technology in the classrooms (or outside the classrooms) will make all the problems of teaching and learning and schooling magically disappear. Somehow, technology can only help. There is no possible way it could exacerbate current problems or create new ones. One of the most popular technological “fixes” is on-line education. The popular consensus seems to be: put courses materials on-line and you will automatically see better results. Now, there is obviously some merit to on-line education, if done correctly with the proper motivation and oversight. Course materials could be freely distributed, or available at much lower costs that current textbooks, and they would be available to everyone with an internet connect at any time. Students also have more freedom to work at their own pace. Multimedia curriculums (video, text, images, and audio) offer more learning opportunities to different kinds of learners than the standard printbased literacy delivered from books. But therein lays the problem behind both conventional teaching and newer forms of on-line teaching. Both models rely on students having previous literacy skills, critical thinking ability, and motivation. Online education cannot teach students to read, think, or become motivated – at least, not most of the current online educational models. Students don’t read their textbooks in traditional classrooms. Why would they magically start reading their textbook in online classrooms? Students can’t understand what they read in traditional textbooks. How will they magically understand what they read, or listen to, or watch in a video or on a website? And while multimedia has its obvious advantages, the main disadvantage to multimedia is that non-print based media sources are much more difficult to “read,” to critically analyze, and to integrate within conceptual frameworks. Most students are not motivated to learn in traditional classrooms. Why will they magically find motivation to learn in online courses? At best, on-line education promises more comprehensive, more flexible, and (potentially) cheaper learning environments. But that is it. Online education can’t teach students how to read and comprehend texts (multimedia or other types). It can’t motivate students to learn or remove the various sociopolitical distractions that inhibit all students everywhere from succeeding in school. But there are also some serious problems with online education. First, who will monitor the teaching and learning of online environments to make sure basic teaching and learning objectives are met? Some software is being developed to track when and how much students read from their textbooks. But there will always need to be follow up done by real people to encourage and motivate the student to learn. But many online classrooms are not monitored or the results of such monitoring are not revealed. Take the University of Phoenix, for example. No one really knows what this private corporation is doing in their online classrooms, whether it is effective or not, or whether their curriculum 116
actually helps students get jobs or earn advanced degrees. But that hasn’t stopped this private company from inflating tuition costs far above any rational level. Lack of oversight easily leads to a second problem: financial corruption. What is to prevent unscrupulous private companies from offering shoddy online educational products and claiming that they work when in fact such courses might not be doing anything at all? What is to prevent lazy teachers from putting up substandard materials? Consumers think that all colleges or universities are alike, and such ignorance can help snake-oil educational companies sell an online educational course that is much more expensive and drastically inferior to a standard textbook that could be checkedout free from a library. The web is also filled with unreliable sources. Will students be able to tell the different between reliable, accurate information on the web from the blizzard of subject buzz? Will students understand the difference in quality between an online university course and a chat-room, or will all online sources be perceived as intellectually equal? Students seem to use Google as an older generation once used the Encyclopedia Britannica, but unlike the encyclopedia, the web if full of subjective opinions and lies. Will online courses further mislead ignorant consumers into blinding trusting all internet sources as reliable information? Now ask yourself, Why this sudden push to on-line education as the panacea for all educational problems? Partly it’s just a fad. Technology is new and cool so it must be good. Partly there has been a push to integrate technology across all social sectors to increase precision, efficiency, and to drive down costs. Technology has worked wonders for private business and government services. Policy makers and school administrators thought that naturally technology could also streamline schooling as well. But no one bothered to ask if manufacturing widgets is the same thing as educating human beings? The post office and General Electric all offer specific services and goods that can be easily quantified. This enables such organizations to use technology to streamline and economize production and distribution. But kids aren’t like letters or washing machines. They aren’t products that are made and shipped. Likewise, learning is not a manufacturing or distribution process that can be easily defined, let alone quantified. Few have stopped to ask some difficult questions: What current technologies (pencils, paper, books, desks, and computers) are being used in educational settings and how do they already enhance learning? What learning problems arise with our current educational technology and will new technologies offer a fix to these problems? Once these questions are fully investigated, one might ask, Do we really need new educational technologies, and if so, what specific learning problems do we need to fix, streamline, or economize? Rather than just adopting new technologies on faith or because it’s a social fad, educators, administrators, and policy makers should first ask, what new tool do we really need to allow students to learn more quickly and easily? 117
And further, they should ask, What new problems might this new technology create? New technology can help educational endeavors, don’t get me wrong. But we must adopt the right technology for the right reasons. And we shouldn’t replace old learning technology just because it’s old. Otherwise, we risk ruining educational environments with useless new gadgets that distract student from real learning, or worse. Also, dare one suggest that the fundamental problem of education can’t ever be fixed by technology. Around the world, pummeled by schooling and competitive capitalist societies, students never develop the desire to learn, nor the will to imagine a better future.
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Chapter 10 --Serious Games: Higher Education and the Perils of Independent Thought
Higher education has always advanced social status and bred elitism, turning the educated few into a ruling caste of Brahmins. As Henry Adams noted in the 19th century, "college offered chiefly advantages vulgarly called social, 364 rather than mental." Both the older ecclesiastical university and the modern research university have been hierarchical and authoritarian institutions, molding young minds by socially conditioning them to carry on a prescribed intellectual tradition. In 1876 the college student G. Stanley Hall famously fumed about "the erroneous belief that it should be the aim of the professors of this department to indoctrinate rather to instruct - to tell what to think, than to 365 teach how to think" [author's emphasis]. Professorial indoctrination of ignorant youth was standard university practice in the 19th century and it remains standard practice in the 21st century. While the basis of elite power has changed (from dogmas of culture and religion to science), the phenomenon of social distinction based on academic degrees has been around for thousands of years and will never 366 disappear. Because universities are primarily institutions of socialization, learning is often subsumed to ritualized performance, deference to power, and 367 rites of passage. Sometimes these social rituals in higher education still resort to intimidation, bullying, and violence as formal or informal pedagogical 364
Adams, The Education of Henry Adams, 91. G. Stanley Hall, "College Instruction in Philosophy," The Nation 23 (Sept 1876), 180. Passage was quoted in Ellen Condliffe Lagemann, An Elusive Science: The Troubling History of Education Research (Chicago, 2000), 28. 366 On social distinction and class see: Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction, trans. Richard Nice (Cambridge, MA, 1988). On the long history of academic degrees and social status see: Fredrick W. Mote, Intellectual Foundations of China (New York: Knopf, 1971); James B. Palais, “Confucianism and the Aristocratic/Bureaucratic Balance in Korea,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 44, no. 2 (Dec 1984): 427-68; Michael Charles Kalton, The NeoConfucian World View and Value System of Yi Dynasty Korea (Diss., Harvard University, Sept 1977). 367 Michael Polanyi, Science, Faith and Society: A Searching Examination of the Meaning and Nature of Scientific Inquiry (Chicago, 1964), 16, 43, 46. While Polanyi explored the concepts of tradition and authority in higher education, he emphasized the value of independent, free inquiry as the heart of the scientific enterprise. 365
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techniques. Professors form a priesthood, or a guild, preserving canonical knowledge and officiating traditional practices. Education is reduced to 369 memorizing information and replicating ritual. Disciplinary theories and 370 methodologies "degenerate into rigidity" and are often transformed into 371 "unchallengeable dogmas." Orthodoxy and the acceptance of dogma become the only test of 372 373 competence. Students are taught "the one and only right way" and jump through intellectual and behavioral hoops in order to become initiated into the guild, earning public distinction and academic degrees. These markers of social 374 status can be used to enter the labor market or to climb further into the holy of academic holies. Those who correctly internalize the institutional norms of the university gain a sense of accomplishment and superiority, as Herman Hesse 375 noted, “somewhat toward smugness and self-praise.” Thorstein Veblen was so critical of the modern university system that he wanted to subtitle his treatise 376 on the subject with "A Study in Total Depravity." He wasn't far off the mark. Both Veblen and Max Weber argued that “a large and aggressive mediocrity is 377 the prime qualification” for becoming a professor. One of the greatest disappointments of my life was discovering that the citadel of the modern American university was cracked, corrupted, and crumbling from within. From an early age we are all socialized to respect teachers, worshiping them as an almost mystical class. In this unearthly light, university professors are often revered as high priests holding the keys to the intellectual kingdom. But most professors are not deserving of reverence. Even if many are sometimes brilliant, these custodians of higher education are self378 absorbed, narrow-minded, vindictive tyrants, most of whom cannot teach. 368
Pauline W. Chen, "The Bullying Culture of Medical School," New York Times (Aug 9 2012), Retrieved from www.nytimes.com Walter J. Ong, Ramus: Method, and the Decay of Dialogue (Chicago, 2004), 194. 370 Stephen Toulmin, Return to Reason (Cambridge, MA, 2001), 41. 371 Andrew Collier, "Critical Realism," in The Politics of Method in the Human Sciences, George Steinmetz, ed. (Durham, NC, 2005), 327. 372 Charles E. Lindblom, Inquiry and Change: The Troubled Attempt to Understand and Shape Society (New Haven, 1990), 199; John Gray, Enlightenment's Wake (New York, 2009), 231. 373 Toulmin, Return to Reason, 42. 374 Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, trans. Richard Nice (Cambridge, MA, 1987). 375 Hermann Hesse, The Glass Bead Game, 348-49. 376 Robert L. Heilbroner, The Worldly Philosophers (New York, 1961), 251; Michael Spindler, Veblen & Modern America: Revolutionary Iconoclast (Sterling, VA, 2002), 51-56. 377 Quote from Veblen. See Russell Jacoby, The Last Intellectuals: American Culture in the Age of Academe (New York, 1987), 142. 378 While there have been some efforts in disciplines like sociology to put more emphasis on teaching, these efforts are not really about teaching because the focus is still on scholarship, the presentation of knowledge, and the academic ranking of professors. These initiatives fail to address the central problem, which is the status obsessed professor who is too busy to interact with and teach ignorant and insecure students who desperately need guidance. On some reform efforts see Scott Jaschik, "Credit for Teaching," Inside Higher Ed (May 30 2010). 369
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Apocryphal stories of the absurdity and cruelty of higher education have abounded for ages. One graduate student recalled a typical class, notable only by the fact that it was led by one of the luminaries of the American academy, "He read from his text for an hour or more, every so often losing his place...Such silly stories did not interest me, and [his] summary of them remained remote from anything I knew or cared about...Altogether, a puzzling performance from a man reputed great...Why did he teach so badly? It seemed 379 unpardonable." The modern university is focused on one primary goal: the creation of 380 new knowledge through scientific research. The traditional goal of transmitting knowledge has been eclipsed, but it is still a necessary function; however, it is clear that most professors grudgingly dole limited amounts of time 381 and energy to deal with students and their learning. Established forms of knowledge transmission have always been based on tradition, authority, and the ritual socialization of students. Actually teaching students by helping them learn is a relatively novel invention, especially within institutions of higher education. Students are mostly a burdensome bother to professors who are obsessively concerned about cornering academic niches of power and prestige through 382 publications, conferences, and committees. Professional academics are 383 preoccupied with their research because they endure a "living hell" of intense scrutiny and competition, trying to reach a pinnacle offered by no other occupation: a well-paid, self-directed career with full benefits secured for life. Professors are trained to do research, not to transmit information, and certainly not to teach. For this reason, most professors merely propagate canonical dogma in the classroom and initiate students into a ritualized 384 academicism, as their autocratic professors had done to them for generations. Having become thoroughly institutionalized themselves, professors are the passive the agents of the institution we call "higher learning." Most professors merely replicate the socialization process they were once put through by their previous masters. For centuries graduate students have been trained to be a 385 "well-trained pet...obey[ing] the mental image of his master." This process is rightly called "schooling," after the Latin term schola, which meant a sect with a 386 distinct set of practices. Official knowledge is by definition "what you learn 379
The professor was famed historian Carl Becker who was teaching at Cornell. McNeill, Mythistory and Other Essays, 149, 152. Veblen was one of the first social scientists to understand and critique this function of producing "merchantable knowledge." Spindler, Veblen & Modern America, 53. 381 Jonathan R. Cole, The Great American University: Its Rise to Preeminence, Its Indispensable National Role, and Why It Must Be Protected (New York, 2009). 382 Michele Lamont, How Professors Think: Inside the Curious World of Academic Judgment (Cambridge, MA, 2009). 383 One anonymous faculty member described the tenure process as a "living hell." Jack Stripling, "Burning Out, and Fading Away," Inside Higher Ed (June 10 2010). 384 Louis Menand, The Marketplace of Ideas: Reform and Resistance in the American University (New York, 2010), 121. 385 Paul Feyerabend, Against Method, 4th ed. (London, 2010), 9. 386 Walter J. Ong, Ramus: Method, and the Decay of Dialogue (Chicago, 2004), 149-161. 380
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when you are taught at school." Within their classrooms, professors are often autocratic dictators who merely throw a barrage of information at a class full of bleary-eyed and confused students. Many professors do not bother to acknowledge (let alone get to know) the ill at ease and tongue-tied young people populating their classes. These ignorant beings awkwardly seeking social 388 mobility are merely powerless pawns to be pushed around the "serious game" called the university. Most university courses are cruel and boring jokes with limited application to students' lives or career aspirations. All students, except the most eager and stupid, intuitively know this. Most of the time professors simply 389 lecture to a crowd for an hour. Learning has been "bureaucratized," as content is pared down to a meaningless fiction of formulas, graphs, and factoids. If you're lucky you might get some face time for twenty minutes during office hours, but the most prestigious professors can't be bothered with even these few moments of human interaction, delegating them instead to teaching assistants. Few professors try to understand a particular student's learning needs or educational goals. Even in graduate school, in an expensive doctoral program no less, I had my graduate advisor tell me that he had no time to hear my about my academic goals or personal life. He was perturbed at the suggestion that he should even care about such trifling matters. As one relatively frank professor noted, "Your advisor may be crucial to your life, but you are not at all crucial to 390 your advisor's." This of course can be extended to every facet of the university. Students are simply transient, expendable, cogs in the academic machine. Most of the time students are merely tolerated and treated with 391 "benign neglect." After the initial glow of earning an undergraduate degree, many students decide to move into the academic holy of holies, clamoring to become rich or join the academic priesthood. Unlike undergraduate studies, a graduate program initiates students into a specific professional practice by socializing them into ritualized disciplinary norms. The assumption is that students enrolling in an anthropology or economics program want to be anthropologists 392 or economists. Thus, graduate school is actually glorified vocational training. A student is trained to become a professional knowledge worker in a specific academic market. As far as professors are concerned, there is no other possible aim or objective for graduate studies - certainly a student would never enroll just to learn and gain knowledge. That would be inconceivable! But unbeknownst to most students, these programs operate more like 387
Ibid., 161. Sherry B. Ortner, Anthropology and Social Theory: Culture, Power, and the Acting Subject (Durham, 2006). 389 Toulmin, Return to Reason, 45. 390 Steven M. Cahn, From Student to Scholar: A Candid Guide to Becoming a Professor (New York, 2008), 12. 391 Menand, The Marketplace of Ideas, 142. 392 Ibid., 149; see also Spindler, Veblen & Modern America, 53-55. 388
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medieval guilds than modern trade schools. The young apprentice is sold into virtual slavery for a number of years as the price of initiation into the secrets of the restricted trade. What is the most important characteristic of a graduate student? Brilliance? Hard work? Team player? Talent? No! According to one professor who's written a book on the subject, the most important single characteristic is "resiliency," the "power to persevere" in the face of all the "countless hoops and hurdles" thrown at the graduate student in a veritable 393 gauntlet of painful bullshit. Students are taught the supreme value of 394 "conformity" and walking "the straight and narrow path." Success in graduate school is not about knowledge or skills, it is about endurance and compliance. One former grad student explained his low position within the academy as "masochistically overworked and under-appreciated." He viewed himself as an "idiot" for thinking that graduate school would advance his future 395 career. Authoritarian professors treat graduate students like dumb pack mules. They're loaded down to the breaking point and then lead around by the bit, tracing some proscribed and monotonous course that tradition dictates is appropriate. Most professors don't care about students' educational or professional goals. Students exist to be molded by the institution while serving their masters' interests. John Dewey once quipped about a fellow academic, "[He] is incapable of either permitting men near him to work freely along their own lines of interest, or to keep from appropriating to himself credit for work 396 which belongs to others." Graduate school is a not-so-disguised form of exploitation. While professors would no doubt be offended by such a remark, most graduate students clearly realize and suffer from their subjugation. Stanley Aronowitz is one professor who has acknowledged that graduate school often 397 "destory[s] the spirit of the aspiring intellectual." Louis Menand also 398 acknowledged that "lives are warped." Lucky graduate students actually get paid to debase themselves, but of course most of these student workers are no more than glorified indentured servants, lacking "health insurance, benefits, parking, unionization, or a living wage." Many grad students spend their time turning a tenured professor's grant money into more grant money, which primarily benefits the established professor's academic prestige and economic security, but does little to help the graduate student. Thus some students have described themselves a little more 399 than "slave labor" and "disposable academics." The pinnacle of academic
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Ibid., 5. Stephen Toulmin, Return to Reason (Cambridge, MA, 2001), 140. Adam Ruben, Surviving Your Stupid, Stupid Decision to Go to Grad School (New York, 2010), ix, xvii. 396 Dewey's remarks were directed against G. Stanley Hall. Qtd. in. Lagemann, An Elusive Science, 30. 397 Stanley Aronowitz, The Knowledge Factory, 148. 398 Menand, The Marketplace of Ideas, 152. 399 "The Disposable Academic: Why Doing a PhD is Often a Waste of Time," The Economist (Dec 18 2010), 156, 158. 394 395
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success is to "discover something extremely trivial about the world." Then you take this information and "share your observations with a small room of social awkward people paying minimal attention." Or, if you're extremely lucky, you get "to publish your ideas in a small, unpopular journal." Of course, if your research does get published, your major professor is more than happy to take credit for your success, often claiming primary authorship, even though this person didn't do anything, except maybe criticize you for not doing things 401 properly. There is a general rule of thumb for academic publishing. It’s called the "Matthew effect," as David Goodstein has explained, "Credit tends to go to 402 those who are famous at the expense of those who are not." But even if you're a model student, suffer through, and work your way through to a PhD, there is no guarantee that you'll ever be able to fully capitalize on your degree. Graduate schools have been overproducing PhDs for years, 403 while the amount of full-time academic positions has steadily declined. Currently only about 50 percent of the academic jobs in universities are staffed by full-time professors, and many of these full-time professors are non404 405 tenured. The other half are staffed by part-time adjuncts. The ratio between full-time and part-time instructors jumps to about 30/70 in the community college. Between 1990 and 2004 only 34 percent of history PhDs were working in a higher education history department. This problem has only been exacerbated by the Global Recession of 2008-9, as many universities and community colleges have cut budgets and slashed academic jobs. In California, one of the hardest hit states, the California State University system cut 10 percent of its full-time professors, around 1,230 jobs - not to mention the thousands of lost jobs at the University of California and the community college system. After surviving the gauntlet, one recent PhD graduate emerged into a wasteland without any employment options. She now 406 makes a living playing on-line poker. A PhD graduate from Columbia University turned to prostitution to earn a decent salary in order to pay off
400 This quote and the following two quotes come from Ruben, Surviving Your Stupid, Stupid Decision to Go to Grad School, ix, xvii, 49, 61, 69, 81. 401 Generalization is these paragraphs are also based on my own experiences as a graduate student. For a brief line on the "exploitation" of graduate students see Paul Gray and David E. Drew, What They Didn't Teach You in Graduate School (Sterling, VA, 2008), 100. 402 David Goodstein, On Fact and Fraud: Cautionary Tales from the Front Lines of Science (Princeton, 2010), 15, 25. 403 Menand, The Marketplace of Ideas. 404 Milton Greenburg, "Tenure's Dirty Little Secret," The Chronicle of Higher Education (Jan 1 2012). 405 Chris M. Golde and Timothy M. Dore, At Cross Purposes: What the Experiences of Today's Doctoral Students Reveal about Doctoral Education, Pew Charitable Trusts (Jan 2001), 18. 20; Marc Bousquet, How the University Works: Higher Education and the LowWage Nation (New York, 2008). 406 Alana Semuels, "Universities are Offering Doctorates but Few Jobs," The Los Angeles Times (June 3 2010); Jenna Johnson Daniel De Vise, "Students Protest Cuts to Higher Education Funds" The Washington Post (March 4 2010); Lexi Lord, Beyond Academe
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$80,000 in student loans. Those that are lucky enough to find an academic job often earn a meager living as an adjunct. This lowly group of faculty are an exploited and 408 vulnerable group of workers one critic called "academic lettuce-pickers:" low pay, no benefits, no office, and no institutional support. A growing number of these adjunct instructors have been forced to augment their meager salaries 409 with food stamps to avoid slipping completely into poverty. The lack of viable employment opportunities for most graduate students has led some to criticize doctorate degrees as "a waste of time" and 410 even a "Ponzi scheme." Speaking partly from his own experience as an economically frustrated PhD, Thomas Frank explains that many college 411 graduates, not just those with graduate degrees, have been "screwed." Louis Menand is more gracious. He simply calls the situation "inefficient": "There is a huge social inefficiency in taking people of high intelligence and devoting resources to training them in programs that half will never complete and for jobs 412 that most will not get." William Deresiwicz calls this situation a "human 413 tragedy:" Most students, like myself, enter graduate school with their own educational aspirations and vocational goals, many not even planning on an 414 academic career because there are few full-time jobs available. Almost all graduate students are eager, smart, ambitious, and idealistic young people looking to make a mark on the world. Some, like myself, had very specific academic objectives to accomplish. Given the democratic and liberal rhetoric of most western institutions of higher education, you would expect that professors would try to understand the personal interests of their students so as to individualize courses of study and help the student on his or her path to success. Worse case, you would expect professors to be open to negotiation on the subject of course projects and supplementary reading. The nightmare reality is that most professors are narrow-minded petty tyrants who nail graduate students to the syllabus as if it was canonized holy writ. Some of the more boorish even dictate the exact subject, style, and method of the assignments, leaving the student in the position of a mere scribe transferring doctrine from textbook to term paper. The chair of my dissertation committee was like this. To put it nicely, most professors are guilty of
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Thomas Frank, "The Price of Admission," Harper's Magazine (June 2012), 9. This anecdote comes from the anthropologist David Graeber. 408 William Deresiewicz, "Faulty Towers," The Nation (May 23 2011), 30. 409 Stacey Patton, "The PhD Now Comes with Food Stamps," The Chronicle of Higher Education (May 6 2012). 410 "The Disposable Academic," 156. 411 Frank, "The Price of Admission," 9. 412 Menand, The Marketplace of Ideas, 152. 413 Deresiewicz, "Faulty Towers," 30. He went on to explain, "It's also a social tragedy, and not just because it represents a colossal waste of human capital. If we don't make things better for the people entering academia, no one's going to want to do it anymore." 414 Ibid., 158. 125
"professional malpractice" when it comes to teaching and student learning, which is exceptionally ironic when one is studying in a Department of 415 Education! However, I would never put it so nicely. These intellectual cops often brutally abuse their status and authority because there is no one to keep watch over the knowledge police. While free inquiry and academic freedom are hallmark values of the modern university, these mores are meaningless to graduate students and many junior faculty. Most professors are "ideological bullies" and they indoctrinate 416 students after their own disciplinarian and methodical molds. When students try to question or challenge this authority, professors quickly "stop reasoning" 417 and begin to "use propaganda and coercion." Excellence in scholarship, as one professor explained, is that "quality of mind and work that most resembles 418 their own." Every academic discipline has a set of "canonical hypotheses" that are the specialized province of a "religious imperium," which rules over a small 419 corner of the intellectual world like royals controlling a fiefdom. Students are expected to bow down to existing dogma, often without any critical discussion. Failure to submit to orthodoxy is fatal to one's academic career, even if you're a tenured professor. Chemist Dan Shechtman was ridiculed by his colleagues and kicked out of his research group because he tried to challenge the conventional wisdom. It took him almost 30 years, ostracized by many in his field, before his 420 important research was finally recognized. He won the Noble Prize in 2011. This kind of "academic dogmatism" is not only a threat to students' academic freedom, but it also violates students' intellectual development and 421 maturation, turning students into mere clones of their professors. It also stultifies knowledge and prevents the progress of new ideas, like the marginalization of Shechtman's discovery of quasi-crystals. Sometimes dogmatism can turn into authoritarianism. Senior professors often command their cowering coterie of graduate students to follow orders. Sometimes this 422 bullishness is but a tactic to stifle criticism or to cover fraudulent behavior. 415 I quote the term "professorial malpractice" from Cahn, From Student to Scholar, 11. The generalization that most professors are guilty of malpractice is my own and based on my own experience and the testimony of countless graduate students. 416 Cole, The Great American University, 60-63, 379. 417 Paul Feyerabend, Against Method, 9. Author's emphasis. 418 John Kenneth Galbraith, A Life in Our Times: Memoirs (Boston, 1981), 60. 419 David M. Kreps, "Economics - The Current Position," American Academic Culture in Transformation, Thomas Bender and Carl E. Schorske, eds. (Princeton, 1997), 77-78. 420 Aaron Heller, "Vindicated: Ridiculed Israeli Scientist Wins Nobel" Associated Press (Oct 5 2011). 421 While I agree with Cole's emphasis on the "core values" of the university and the importance of these values, I don't think Cole realizes the social gulf between students and professors, and between junior professors and senior professors. I think Cole drastically underplays the importance of "academic dogmatism," especially between professors and graduate students. Cole, The Great American University, 60-63, 379. I agree with Stanley Aronowitz, "I believe that advice that stifles the voice of the student who really has something to say, the intellectual means to say it, and the stamina to tolerate perpetual wagging heads is cockeyed and indefensible." The Knowledge Factory, 147. 422 Charles Gross, "Disgrace," The Nation (Jan 9/16 2012), 30.
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I was acutely aware of this situation and I did my best to hold my ground, demand respect, and define the contours of my education. At first I tried to negotiate with my professors. I had thought, wrongly it turns out, that these people are reasonable and good natured individuals who could be persuaded by the light of logical arguments. Some were, but most were impervious. I tried to explain my own educational objectives and interests, and how I wanted to design the parameters of my research papers and course of study. Instead of writing a traditional, positivistic, theory-laden literature review, I dared to historicize the subject, criticize a lot of vapid scholarship, and explain how the scholarly literature was effected by temporal and political processes inside and outside the academy. I tried to explain, as Isaiah Berlin, Stephen Toulmin and others have argued, that it is "irrational" to force positivistic methods used in natural science on every conceivable type of social 423 scientific inquiry. I tried to explain, as Paul Feyerabend has argued, "that all 424 methodologies, even the most obvious ones, have their limits." Of course, this line of argument was unacceptable. Merely opening my mouth to air disagreement with professors was deemed impertinence and was often punished. Stanley Aronowitz has perceptively captured the unstated graduate school status quo, "In no case ought the neophyte attempt to forge a new paradigm, or even suggest a novel interpretation that might offend the 425 intellectual powers-that-be." But even trying to engage most professors in a critical conversation was a monstrous impropriety and proof of impertinence and disrespect. How dare I presume such an insolent posture towards my intellectual betters? I was told to just make it easy on myself and do as the professor had dictated. When I pressed forward with my impassioned plea to do my own research to accomplish my own objectives, the glare of disapproval and impatience lashed out. How dare I disrespect my superiors with such trifling sophomoric arrogance. Just do the assignment or leave the class. Some professors made a more damning and vitriolic judgment: Just do the assignment or leave the program! Why are you even hear if you are not going to do what you're told. Unbelievable! But really, what kind of arrogance is this? As a graduate student I've spent a lot of time, effort, and money, not to mention all the personal sacrifice and stress, to join a department in order to reach my goals. I did not come to a university to invest this much of myself just to mindlessly do someone else's work. Am I really paying tens of thousands of dollars and enduring hell just to be institutionally socialized by self-obsessed and arrogant professors? As it turns out, yes, that is exactly was graduate school is all about. Backed into a corner, I almost always acquiesced. Like most graduate students I often just did what professors wanted me to do. I was a good dog and rolled over. Bullying and intimidation were a constant threat. In order to survive, I had bow before the voice of authority and toe the line. And this always 423
Isaiah Berlin, qtd. in Stephen Toulmin, Return to Reason (Cambridge, MA, 2001), viii. Paul Feyerabend, Against Method, 16. Author's emphasis. 425 Stanley Aronowitz, The Knowledge Factory, 147. 424
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kept me from spending my time working on my own research agenda, for which I had come to graduate school to accomplish. It was a nightmare, straight out of Henry Adams' critique of the 19th century American college, which was itself a holdover from the middle ages: He found only the lecture system in its deadliest form as it flourished in the thirteenth century. The professor mumbled his comments; the students made, or seemed to make, notes; they could have learned from books or discussion in a day more than they could learn from him in a month, but they must pay his fees, follow his course, and be his scholars, if they wanted a degree.426
I could appreciate the irony of this archaic drama, as I pulled my hair out and my stomach turned in knots. Here I was in a 21st century university, at one of the premiere institutions of higher education in the world, and I was receiving a 13th century course of study, delivered with all of the pompous and prejudiced authority of a pack of medieval catholic priests. Of course what none of my professors would ever acknowledge is that the university is a fractured political body of diverse units fighting over scarce resources, jockeying for legitimacy, authority, and social prestige. All academic 427 disciplines, especially ad hoc ill-defined disciplines like Education, were rife with methodological diversity and factional dispute, as well as interpenetrated with various stripes of interdisciplinary niches. Remembering his time at Harvard, John Kenneth Galbraith acknowledged, "All academic disciplines have their feuds - intense conflicts much cherished by the participants and regularly combining differences in scholarly method or conclusion with deep personal 428 dislike." Often these intense conflicts are over issues so arcane or insignificant that Henry Kissinger once quipped, "academic politics are vicious precisely 429 because the stakes are so small." There is no such thing as a unified professoriate and the notion of scholarly "consensus" on any subject is largely a myth. Robert Maynard Hutchins once joked, "the modern university [is] a series of separate schools and departments held together by a central heating system," and Clark Kerr added, "In an area where heating is less important and the automobile more, I have sometimes thought of it as a series of individual faculty entrepreneurs held 430 together by a common grievance over parking." How do we ever reach the truth if no one questions certainties and
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Adams, The Education of Henry Adams, 75. See Jurgen Herbst, “Nineteenth-Century Normal Schools in the United States: A Fresh Look,” History of Education, 9, no. 3 (1980): 219-27; David F. Labaree, The Trouble with Ed Schools (New Haven, 2004). 428 Galbraith, A Life in Our Times, 55. 429 The quote is a paraphrase of Kissinger's remark. "A Post-Crisis Case Study," The Economist (July 31 2010), 55. 430 Robert Maynard Hutchins and Clark Kerr, quoted in Cole, The Great American University, 141. 427
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asks searching questions? The physicist Werner Heisenberg said that the scientist "should always be prepared to have the foundations of his knowledge 432 changed by new experience." Looking back on the history of western thought, Karl Popper argued that "the tradition of critical discussion" is the "only practical 433 way of expanding our knowledge." How will scholarship or science advance if everyone simply gives in to the voice of established authority, and rolls over like a dog when the master speaks. Many scholars grow complacent in their tenured security, preserving the antiquated custom of a gentleman's game (dandy, prim and proper with status and authority) rather than doing the dirty, hard work of scholarship and science. When it comes to the judgments of professors in their classrooms, they are local gods and their evaluations are sacrosanct, above dispute. But when it comes to the actual activity of professional scholarship, it is a messy 434 game of reasoned debate and power politics. Henry Adams once complained that while both congressmen and professors suffered from the same "maelstrom" of political bickering, "he preferred Congressmen," perhaps because they were more honest in the naked exercise of their power. Adams 435 dryly noted, "Education, like politics, is a rough affair." A couple of professors have frankly noted in book on academic culture, "Most academic fields are 436 dominated by...powerful people." These powerful academic barons battle each other for intellectual supremacy, prestige, and research grants, and they autocratically reign over their own local fiefdoms like kings. While some academics will admit that the practice of science is filled 437 with "disputes," "controversies," "violence," and "political methods," I've found that most professors hide this aspect of their profession from the public (and students), concealing the messy nature of knowledge creation behind the myth of "consensus." Academics also frequently ignore or deny the very real "exercise of authority or other power" in scholarly debates. As Charles E. Lindblom has noted, "Aside from flights into the most fanciful utopias, one cannot even conceive of a solution or outcome reached wholly by examining its merits. For all participants in problem solving live in a network of existing 438 impositions and coercions." The notion of scholarly consensus became more 431 Imre Lakatos and Alan Musgrave, eds., Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge (Cambridge, UK, 1970). 432 Heisenberg, Physics and Philosophy, 114. 433 Karl Popper, Conjectures and Refutations (London, 1963), 148-52. 434 Lamont, How Professors Think: Inside the Curious World of Academic Judgment, Ibid. 435 Adams, The Education of Henry Adams, 306-7. 436 Gray and Drew, What They Didn't Teach You in Graduate School, 7. 437 Heisenberg, Physics and Philosophy, 141. See also Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago, 1962); Peter Novick, That Noble Dream: The ‘Objectivity’ Question and the American Historical Profession (Cambridge, UK, 1988); Steven Shapin, Never Pure: Historical Studies of Science as if It Was Produced by People with Bodies, Situated in Time, Space, Culture, and Society, and Struggling for Credibility and Authority (Baltimore, 2010). 438 Charles E. Lindblom, Inquiry and Change: The Troubled Attempt to Understand and
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important as disciplines became professionalized during the early 20th century because "internecine intellectual warfare carried on in public compromised the image [academics] were trying to cultivate as professionals with insights that 439 deserved to be taken seriously." But often consensus is nothing more than the weight of privileged opinion holding down dissent. C. Wright Mills warned of the “vague general fear,” which is “sometimes politely known as ‘discretion,’ ‘good taste,’ or ‘balanced judgment.’ It is a fear which leads to selfintimidation…The real restraints [on academic freedom] are not so much external prohibitions as control of the insurgent by the agreements of academic 440 gentlemen.” But this myth of consensus now makes it much harder for scholars to criticize academic practice or the university system from within. As the philosopher and academic maverick Stephen Toulmin once confided, "Academics 441 who criticize the Academy, of course, put themselves at risk." I find it disingenuous, if not flat out hypocritical that academics consider it their right and duty to criticize every aspect of social and physical reality, except themselves and their own practices. And when the public finds out about the dirty little secrets of academia, as it did in the recent debate over global warming, it does much more harm to the reputation of science than if practitioners simply admitted the existence of politicized debates within the 442 academy. The myth of the "ivory tower" must be overcome and replaced by the more sordid but palatable truth: professors play at power and politics just like everyone else. Knowledge, like other disputed goods, is shaped by subjectivity and power, and it is constructed through messy political processes. I am reminded of a story told by Charles E. Lindblom: "On the occasion of receiving a professional award from his disciplinary colleagues, a distinguished social scientist reminded his audience of colleagues that for violating a dominant set of beliefs and attitudes among them they, a little more than a decade earlier, had 443 subjected him to 'a tortured period of intellectual isolation.'" Thus it is and has always been, albeit the academic community no longer beats or burns heretics. And while like laws and sausages, most people would prefer not to see the gritty truth, there is no excuse for practitioners to deny the dirty nature of their work - especially to graduate students who are being initiated into the
Shape Society, 46. 439 William J. Barber, "Reconfigurations in American Academic Economics: A General Practitioner's Perspective," American Academic Culture in Transformation, Thomas Bender and Carl E. Schorske, eds. (Princeton, 1997), 117. 440 Quoted in Russell Jacoby, The Last Intellectuals: American Culture in the Age of Academe (New York, 1987), 143-144. 441 Stephen Toulmin, Return to Reason (Cambridge, MA, 2001), ix. 442 "Spin, Science and Climate Change," The Economist (March 18 2010); "The Clouds of Unknowing," The Economist (March 18 2010). 443 Lindblom, Inquiry and Change: The Troubled Attempt to Understand and Shape Society, 200. 130
trade. In such an environment, open and reasoned debate should be the highest virtue, but sadly, "intellectual orthodoxy" and "ideological conformity" define 444 the rules of the game. As one scholar noted, an academic discipline is "a group of scholars who ha[ve] agreed not to ask certain embarrassing questions 445 446 about key assumptions." These "canonical assumptions" cannot be questioned because doing so would reveal the arbitrary and overly simplified analytical boundaries demarcating one field of study from another. And unfortunately, since I was young, I have always pushed boundaries and questioned dogma. In this I shared a sentiment with John Kenneth Galbraith, who once said of himself, "For me, at least, there has always been a certain 447 pleasure in questioning the sacred tenets." Once I went all the way to the Dean of the university Graduate School to make this argument about the politics of disciplinary boundaries and the unstated dogmas of academic discourse. I was trying to dispute the unreasonable and invisible rubric that professors were using to subjectively grade and unfairly judge students - the same invisible and subjective rubrics that 448 most professors use to evaluate their peer's work. I was told that the university operated on the assumption that all professors were experts in their fields, which meant their knowledge was infallible and their judgments beyond reproach, especially by students. The voice of tradition and authority was unassailable. It was a frank admission that the university and scientific practice is founded not on reason and consensus, but on the ancient feudal tradition of 449 power and authority, as Michael Polanyi had argued. More recently Jonathan Cole pointed out that faculty "tend not to be tolerant of those in their midst who are courageous enough to challenge prevailing systems of thought," instead 450 most faculty "define and enforce dominant orthodoxies." I tried to question some intellectual orthodoxies and blaze my own academic trails, but I was hammered down because of it. Jonathan Cole is one of the few to have exposed the dangers of independent thinking in the American academy: "In truth, there is both intellectual and personal risk involved in challenging the presumptions of the group...rather than viewing unconventional thinking as an appropriate challenge to received wisdom and ideology, those being challenged often become defensive, and these questions, even is posed in 451 the most neutral of forms, get people into trouble." But looking back, knowing the danger of my intellectual positions, I
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Cole, The Great American University, 494. Mark Nathan Cohen, Health and the Rise of Civilization (New Haven, 1989), viii. 446 David M. Kreps, "Economics - The Current Position," American Academic Culture in Transformation, Thomas Bender and Carl E. Schorske, eds. (Princeton, 1997), 97. 447 John Kenneth Galbraith, American Capitalism: The Concept of Countervailing Power (New Brunswick, NJ, 1997), xi. 448 Lamont, How Professors Think: Inside the Curious World of Academic Judgment, Ibid. 449 Michael Polanyi, Science, Faith and Society: A Searching Examination of the Meaning and Nature of Scientific Enquiry (Chicago, 1964). 450 Cole, The Great American University, 494. 451 Ibid., 494-495. Stanley Aronowitz is another. 445
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would not have done anything different. Personally, professionally, and morally I was compelled to resist the narrow, egotistical authoritarianism of my professors. As Michael Polanyi once remarked, there are professors who are "uninspired, pedantic, and oppressive," "misguided by their personal bias," "who try to impose their personal fads" on students. These members of the academy must be "firmly opposed" because education "would be impossible and science 452 would soon become extinct" if they are not firmly challenged. Some might say that my characterizations of higher education are unfair and that my experiences as a graduate student were atypical. Perhaps. At some institutions and in some disciplines, the academic ideals of collegial critical analysis and rational discourse are the norm. David Deutsch has recounted his experience with the ideal of scientific debate: The majority of the scientific community is not always quite as open to criticism as it ideally should be. Nevertheless, the extent to which it adheres to 'proper scientific practice' in the conduct of scientific research is nothing short of remarkable. You need only attend a research seminar in any fundamental field in the 'hard' sciences to see how strongly people's behavior as researchers differs from human behavior in general...In this situation, appeals to authority (at least, overt ones) are simply not acceptable, even when the most senior person in the entire field is addressing the most junior...The professor tries hard to show no sign of being irritated by criticism from so lowly a source [i.e. a graduate student]. Most of the questions from the floor will have the form of criticisms which, if valid, would diminish or destroy the value of the professor's life's work. But bringing vigorous and diverse criticism to bear on accepted truths is one of the very purposes of the seminar. Everyone takes if for granted that the truth is not obvious, and that the obvious need not be true; that ideas are to be accepted or rejected according to their content and not their origin.453
While I too believe in this ideal, I have never seen it as perfectly practiced as Deutsch portrays. I was the that graduate and junior colleague, as Deutsch describes, and I was often savagely beaten down for my impertinence. Perhaps Deutsch's experience was more ideal due to the fact that he was educated and is still employed by two of the most prestigious research universities in the world, Cambridge and Oxford. At these privileged institutions of higher learning, I would imagine that things work very differently than your average public research university in the United States. Perhaps Deutsch's experience is also a product of the "hard sciences" where key theoretical assumptions and quantitative methodology are less contentious than the social sciences and the humanities. 452 Michael Polanyi, Science, Faith and Society: A Searching Examination of the Meaning and Nature of Scientific Inquiry (Chicago, 1964), 46. 453 David Deutsche, The Fabric of Reality: The Science of Parallel Universes - and Its Implications (New York, 1997), 325-26.
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But even acknowledging these legitimate factors, I think that Deutsch is still overly idealistic, albeit sharing an ideal that I also firmly believe in. I would agree more with a statement Deutsch made leading up to the above quoted passage, "The academic hierarchy is an intricate power structure in which people's careers, influence and reputation are continuously at stake, as much as 454 in any cabinet room or boardroom - or more so." In short, the academic hierarchy, and the research university as an institution, are fundamentally political, as everything that humans say or do is filtered through contested values and through political processes based on power, prestige, and struggles over limited resources. In the wake of 9-11 and the political repression of dissent and unconventional viewpoints, Lisa Anderson, professor of political science and former dean of Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs, reminded the nation of the importance of intellectual debate and free speech. She warned, "We must be constantly, restlessly open to new ideas, searching for new evidence, critical of received wisdom, old orthodoxies, and ancient bigotries, always crating and criticizing ourselves, each other and our world. This 455 is the life of scholarship and we must embrace it for what it is and do it well.'' Over a half century before, in 1945 after the World War II, Michael Polanyi had acknowledged the political nature of academia and he forcefully argued that scientific enquiry must be based on the freedom of scientific research and 456 457 discussion. Stephen Toulmin called this openness "intellectual democracy." Unfortunately, the whole notion of free inquiry and intellectual democracy has begun to corrode and rot away in the very place it was supposed to be preserved and supported. We must never forget that knowledge creation in our universities is a political process, partly because conflict and debate are part of our very nature as social beings. We should never shy away from or deny the reality of politics in the construction of knowledge, even though this means engaging in controversial debates. The political process cannot be eliminated from the scientific process, nor should it, because politics is part of the very 458 constitution of human society. Paul Feyerabend once warned that those who claim that "SCIENCE speaks with a single voice" should not be trusted because it’s quite clear that 459 "the sciences are full of conflict." John Kenneth Galbraith also insightfully explained, "Both scholarly and political life require criticism of others and invite 460 attack or reprisal." Perhaps the ideal of intellectual democracy is still strong at 454
Ibid., 325. Lisa Anderson, quoted in Cole, The Great American University, 446. Polanyi, Science, Faith and Society, 62. 457 Stephen Toulmin, Return to Reason (Cambridge, MA, 2001), 99-100. 458 Steven B. Smith, "In Defense of Politics," National Affairs (Spring 2011): 131-143; Debora Stone, Policy Paradox: The Art of Political Decision Making (New York, 2002); Aaron Wildavsky, Speaking Truth to Power: The Art and Craft of Policy Analysis (New York, 1979). 459 Paul Feyerabend, The Tyranny of Science (Cambridge, UK, 2011), 56. 460 Galbraith, A Life in Our Times, 58. 455 456
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the more prestigious (and well-funded) research universities, and perhaps more in the physical sciences than in the social sciences and humanities. But I contend that this ideal is beleaguered, not only from outside the university, but most disturbingly, from within. Unless more professors stand against the authoritarianism, orthodoxy, and conformity of higher education, especially in their own departments and with their own students, we risk the corruption of the whole scientific enterprise. Openly engaging conflicting points of view is 461 difficult and potentially dangerous, however, it is the very heart of the scientific process and the hope of intellectual and political democracy.
461 Linda Liska Belgrave, Adrienne Celaya, Seyda Aylin Gurses, Angelica Boutwell, Alexandra Fernandez, "Meaning of Political Controversy in the Classroom: A Dialogue Across The Podium," Symbolic Interaction, 35, no. 1 (2012), 68–87.
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Chapter 11 --Requiem for the “College Idea”: Andrew Delbanco’s Beleaguered Defense of Liberal Arts Education
Most policy makers and pundits seem to believe that higher education is a good that you can buy. It is either an investment (human capital) or a commodity (social status). As one critic bemoaned, college is “informed (no, dictated) by a rudimentary understanding of the nature of the job market rather 462 than by intellectual curiosity, let alone intellectual passion.” Taking for granted that college is an unqualified good, political debates over higher education tend to focus on two issues: cost and access. How can we make college more affordable so everyone can go? But what if college is not an unqualified good that everyone should st have? Since the turn of the 21 century, critics have begun to attack institutions of higher education as inefficient, broken, biased, and/or a bad investment. The neoliberal The Economist recently called higher education a “declining value for the money” because of rising fees, outdated instructional practices, a subdued 463 labor market, and reports claiming college students are not learning much. More radical alarmists call higher education a “financial bubble” that will soon 464 burst, warning students to “rethink [going] to college entirely.” These critics basically argue that college is too expensive and it’s not worth the money so most people should not go; thus, governments are justified in giving these institutions less public money. While almost everyone can find something to criticize, reformists of all stripes want to fix these institutions, not abandon them. Most reformers think that higher education is a priceless good so most Americans should aspire to go 465 to college; thus, governments should increase public support. Reformers 462 Stanley Aronowitz, The knowledge factory: Dismantling the corporate university and creating true higher learning. (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2000), 10. 463 “Not what it used to be,” The Economist (Dec 2012), 29. 464 Glenn Harlan Reynolds, The Higher Education Bubble (New York, 2012), 28. 465 Johnathan R. Cole, The great American university: Its rise to preeminence, its indispensable national role, what it must be protected (New York: PublicAffairs, 2009); Jennifer L. Geddes (ed.), “What’s the university for?” The Hedgehog Review, 2.3 (Fall 2000); Lewis Menand, The marketplace of ideas: Reform and resistance in the American university (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2010); Chad Wellmon, “Knowledge, virtue, and the research university,” The Hedgehog Review, 15.2 (Summer 2013): 79-91.
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want to modify these institutions to meet new realities so they can work more efficiently and effectively. Former provost and dean of faculties at Columbia University, Jonathan R. Cole sees higher education as constantly “evolving” to meet the new needs of society, and he wants to find better ways to “integrate” 466 more coherent, unified, and effective institutions. Other reformers, like Leon Botstein, president of Bard College, want to go further. Botstein argued, the “current undergraduate system, in my view, is dead” because it is not working well for students or society. Botstein argued that a new college curriculum needs to be created, which would unify science, professional training, and 467 students’ “genuine need to know” answers to the big questions of life. Andrew Delbanco is another reformer who has recently published a 468 book adding to this debate. But unlike most of his colleagues, he sees the institution of higher education very differently, both its virtues and its faults. And further, unlike almost all of his colleagues, Delbanco sees no easy answers. He acknowledges that the “problems are big,” while “big solutions” are 469 “unlikely.” Delbanco defends higher education and offers an implausible solution, using what Wellmon calls the “collegiate argument:” Institutions of higher education “ought to reclaim a unique college model that formed students 470 into particular kinds of people.” Delbanco reaches far back into the past to focus on the evolution of the unique institution of “college,” which he mournfully notes is fading away. Delbanco historicizes, criticizes, and celebrates “the college idea,” while also lamenting its demise. Delbanco’s book is neither a public policy argument nor a polemic. It is a “funeral dirge,” sung by a true 471 believer who grieves for a dying institution. But what is college? As the subtitle invokes, answering this central question is the purpose of this book (“what it was, is, and should be”). The concept of “college” has become debased in our current lexicon, meaning everything and nothing about higher education. You would think that Delbanco would craft a careful definition of this concept, but he does not. Partly this is due to the structure and genesis of the book. It began as a series of lectures and academic articles, only later collated and edited into a loosely congealed book. This is not a monograph. This book lacks a traditional academic structure supporting a single thesis. Thus, readers who are not familiar with the creative flow of an historical essay may get lost by meandering course of this book. As his historical narrative unfolds, Delbanco’s critical and idealistic understanding of the concept of “college” emerges, though it is never well 466
Cole, The great American university , Ibid., 12, 44. Leon Botstein, “Resisting complacency, fear, and the Philistine: The university and its challenges.” The Hedgehog Review, 15.2 (Summer 2013), 75. 468 Andrew Delbanco and J. E. Davis, “A conversation with Andrew Delbanco,” The Hedgehog Review, 15.1 (Spring 2013): 60-67; Andrew Delbanco, College: What is was, is, and should be (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2012). 469 Delbanco, College, Ibid., 162. 470 Wellmon, “Knowledge, virtue, and the research university,” Ibid., 80; Delbanco and Davis, “A conversation with Andrew Delbanco,” Ibid., 64-65. 471 Delbanco, College, Ibid., 148, 150. 467
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defined. Delbanco makes a point to conceptually distinguish “college” from “university.” He spends a whole chapter on the history of higher education as a western institution, succinctly explaining the trajectory “from college to university.” He explains that a college is about “transmitting knowledge” from the past as a “living resource,” while a university is about “creating new knowledge in order to supersede the past.” The former institution is mostly focused on educating undergraduates and society at large, while the latter is mostly focused with the specialized training of professionals and furthering the practice of scientists. Delbanco makes it very clear throughout this book that these two institutions “come into competition if not conflict.” Delbanco’s critical focus on history is deliberate, as it marks the central theme and methodology of the book. He is critically analyzing the historical trajectory of how colleges became universities so as to critique the modern research university, while trying to preserve (and perhaps reclaim) some of the embattled and 472 disappearing features of the traditional western “college.” However, even after one gleans the central purpose of this book, which is unevenly embedded throughout a profound historical narrative, Delbanco’s topic and ultimate point is still confused. Delbanco uses the concept of “college” to refer to many different institutions of higher education. He seemingly wants to use concept of “college” as a catch-all term: “A college – any college.” And sure enough, the book discusses every type of institution of higher education, including newer for-profit schools and MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses). But in the introduction, he talks a lot about traditional liberal arts colleges, and the reader gets a false assurance that only this institution will be Delbanco’s real topic. He even goes so far as to say that the book’s core “focus is on the co-called elite colleges” of Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and the like. But while Delbanco does spend a majority of his time discussing the past, present, and future of the elite liberal arts college, he ranges far and wide, using the term “college” to refer to many other institutions of higher education. In one part of the book, Delbanco uses the term “public colleges” to refer to both the University of South Carolina and Norwalk Community College, 473 morphing two very disparate institutions into a conceptual muddle. Delbanco’s explicit focus on traditional liberal arts colleges is misleading for another reason. Most of these institutions transformed into th research universities during the 19 century, as he historically illustrates in the book. Thus, with Delbanco’s conceptual distinction between “colleges” and “universities,” it is hard to understand how Harvard University, to take one example, can be an exemplary “college” when it is, most assuredly, a preeminent modern research university. This is a paradox. And it creates needless confusion about the core purpose of Delbanco’s book, which is to explain the notion of “what a good college is or ought to be,” set against the contrasting purposes of a 474 university. 472
Ibid., 2-3. Ibid., 8, 6, 57. 474 Ibid., 2. 473
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In order to grasp Delbanco’s winding, koan-like point, one must first grasp his complex concept of “college,” but book itself does not provide a clear definition. The key, as any humanist will tell you, lies outside the text. Thus, one needs to know the background of the author, understanding his unique experience as a college professor. Delbanco is an award-winning, endowed professor in the humanities at Columbia University. His scholarly research focuses on literature and religious history, and in reading this book, one will be immersed in a masterful blending of these two fields of knowledge as they pertain to the history of higher education. As the reader is enveloped in Delbanco’s historical narrative, there are several, not so subtle reflexive clues that this is a very personal book. The reader slowly begins to understand that this book is really about Delbanco’s unique experience at Columbia College, a distinct undergraduate program at Columbia University. Despite being situated within a modern research university, Columbia College is a separate institution with its own mission. It has tried to preserve the ancient traditions and ideals of the western liberal arts college. This college has a tightly structured core curriculum delivered in small seminar classes that are taught by dedicated, and often award winning, faculty. In Delbanco’s mind, Columbia College represents the ideal concept and practice of what he means by the term “college.” It is a “church;” a sacred “community” of scholars and students; a “voluntary gathering of seekers who come together for mutual support.” In such an institution, professors are “ardent, even fanatic, in the service of [their] calling.” Their job is to “awaken” the “soul” of students so as to develop their “character.” In a college, students are “touched and inspired” and their lives are “transformed.” Quoting Max Weber, Delbanco explains that colleges “aid the novice to acquire a ‘new 475 soul’…and hence, to be reborn.” Delbanco reaches back in time to infuse his notion of “college” with an otherworldly aura of dedicated duty and sacred purpose, embodied by Columbia College and rare institutions like it that still exist. For Delbanco, “college” is not about vocational training. It is about higher education. He traces the history of this ancient institution back to its humanistic core: “college” is about exploring human potential and limitations, discovering the meaning of life, becoming a well-rounded, ethical person, and all in the service of a broader community. In short, college transfers the ancient wisdom, the “transhistorical truths,” of what 476 it means to be a human being. This central humanistic idea was also the subject of a previous book by Delbanco, in which he used literature to explain 477 how human beings can use ideas to “reimagin[e] the world” and “change it.” Once this core purpose is understood, the reader can then fully appreciate Delbanco’s scattered clues throughout the book where he references 475
Ibid., 53, 38, 66, 45, 42, 45, 49, 102. Ibid., 177, 101. Andrew Delbanco, Required reading: Why our American classics matter now (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1997), ix.
476 477
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his idealized concept of “college.” When Delbanco uses this term, he means the humanistic higher education of undergraduates, wherever that education might take place, even within universities that are hostile to such a purpose. 478 Delbanco’s concept of college is similar to the notion of “general education,” but Delbanco focuses on more than just curriculum. He also focuses on the social and spiritual aspects of college, which have become largely lost in the research university. About halfway through the book, Delbanco uses the vague term “university-colleges” to seemingly indicate universities containing a “college” as a subordinated unit. This concept of “university-colleges” becomes clearer in chapters three and four. He explores the historical development of higher education and how the research university gradually eclipsed the idea of college. Universities displaced the older institutional focus of educating undergraduates in a community of scholars with a newer focus of vocational training and 479 scientific discovery conducted by isolated specialists. Delbanco is highly critical of the modern research university, and as such, he uses his critical analysis to reclaim the importance of “college” and the humanistic education of undergraduates. While Delbanco does not take issue with science and professional training, he does worry that such utilitarian purposes have needlessly and dangerously displaced the older virtues of the liberal arts college. The research university organized around the sciences became both the pinnacle and the standard by which all other institutions of higher education have become measured. As a result, colleges have been denigrated and defunded, their important work marginalized. At the beginning of chapter four, Delbanco asks what could be considered the central question of the book: “Where, in this house of many mansions [the modern research university], was the college? Did it – does it – still exist as a place of guided self480 discovery for young people in search of themselves”? Only at this point does the perceptive reader finally understand the subject of this book: the transformative education of undergraduates in the liberal arts, which has been eclipsed and disposed by vocational training in the modern research university. While Columbia College is a celebrated reality, there are many hints that it is an embattled reality that may soon disappear, as have other colleges, due to fiscal constraints driving hard choices between competing goods. Reaching back into the past, Delbanco is trying to carve out space in the present for institutional reform in order to politically position the liberal arts college firmly in the future. Or, to invoke an older vision, Delbanco seeks to defend and reclaim a sacred tradition. Delbanco is a prophet nailing his critical theses on the university door praying for a reformation, or at the very least, a concerted effort at conservation. Delbanco is not a radical, however, seeking to destroy or dismantle the modern research university. He quotes Max Weber to explain that the college 478
Menand, The marketplace of ideas, 23. Delbanco, College, Ibid., 84. 480 Ibid., 102. 479
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and the university, while two different institutions, “do not stand opposed.” Delbanco asserts, “They coexist – or at least they should – in a dynamic relation.” But within the imperial domain of the research university, which dominates and controls the future of the college, “American higher education has struggled to 481 maintain this dialectic.” Delbanco seems to want a more federated structure. He wants colleges to have more autonomy and resources so that this institution can preserve its important mission of disseminating truly higher education, which as other critics of the university have pointed out, is becoming a lost 482 art. It is not until the last chapter that Delbanco clearly lays out the purpose and structure of the book, situating it within the reformist debates over institutions of higher education: I have tried in this book to tell a story of ideas and institutions…I did not want to stick to any one of the genres to which such a story usually conforms – jeremiad (invoking the past to shame the present), elegy (gone are the greats of yesteryear), call to arms (do this or that and we will be saved) – so the result, no doubt, is a messy mixture of them all. In fact, if there is one form to which most recent writing about college belongs, it is none of the above, but, rather, the funeral dirge…By this I mean that the theme I’ve stressed – college as a community of learning – is, for many students, already an anachronism.483
While Delbanco celebrates the liberal arts and the “college idea,” he warns that “it’s easy to romanticize the past, it is harder to make the case that these principles are alive and well in the ‘best’ colleges of the present.” In the midst of an accountability movement measuring the “effectiveness” of higher education, Delbanco explains that the learning outcomes of a liberal education cannot be known, let alone measured: “The transformative power of a true education is ‘such a mystery.’” Delbanco passionately argues, “The best reason to care about college…is not what it does for society in economic terms but what it can do for individuals, in both calculable and incalculable ways.” Despite his idealistic tone, Delbanco is a realist. There is little hope that policy makers would ever invest the public resources needed to revitalize what are presently perceived to be “useless” ideas and practices. Delbanco concedes that conveying the “universal value” of liberal education to policy makers and the public at large is “the most daunting challenge” to reformers of higher 484 education. And while Delbanco is not optimistic about the future of the college idea, he does offer one deceptively simple policy that could help push higher 481
Ibid., 103. Aronowitz, The knowledge factory, Ibid., 2, 10. Delbanco, College, Ibid., 150-51. 484 Ibid., 148, 137, 28, 94, 100, 136, 171, 28, 148, 171. 482 483
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education closer to his ideal. One of the main problems, as Delbanco explains, “is not that universities are centers of research, but rather it’s the way they use college teaching to subsidize the training of researchers.” Instead of marginalizing the teaching of undergraduates, this mission should be prioritized and universities should focus on trying “to produce more teachers who care about teaching.” Delbanco argues that there is not and should not be “a clear dividing line” between research and teaching because “passion for learning lies at the heart of scholarly and scientific investigation,” as well as teaching: “At their best, in other words, research is a form of teaching, and teaching is a form 485 of research.” Delbanco’s book is a profound testament to the enduring idea and practice of the liberal arts education. While his conclusions are by now well486 worn truisms, his profound ideas deserve to be acknowledged in public debates over higher education. While discussion of big ideas can easily swell into pious idealism; nevertheless, ideals remain important touchstones reminding practitioners, policy makers, and the public at large about the intangible, contested, and dynamic meaning of education and the complex nature of being human.
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Ibid., 167, 166, 169, 170. Aronowitz, The knowledge factory, Ibid.; Menand, The marketplace of ideas, Ibid.; Jackson Lears, “The radicalism of tradition: Teaching the liberal arts in a managerial age,” The Hedgehog Review, 2.3 (Fall 2000): 7-23; Martha C. Nussbaum, Cultivating humanity: A classical defense of reform in liberal education (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997). 486
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Chapter 12 --21st Century Literacy
The pace of scientific discovery, technological invention, globalized economic integration, and cross-cultural interaction will continue to accelerate as we move into the 21st century. Never before has human society changed so dramatically in such a short period of time, and the pace of change seems to be quickening. America needs to accelerate not only the quantity of students gaining access to higher education, but also the quality of education students receive in college, as well as the quantity of successful students who graduate with degrees. There is a widespread sense of economic urgency around the world. More and more countries are trying to keep pace with 21st century technological innovation, global integration, and a "more demanding labor 487 market" created by these two recent trends. The old notion of a liberal education has become obsolete. Individuals, nations, and a globally integrated world can no longer survive and prosper based on simple textual literacy and an authoritative cannon of mono-cultural knowledge and values. There is also a growing need for more professionals in the STEM fields of science, technology, 488 engineering, and mathematics.
1. 21st Century Literacy 489
While a liberal education is still important, all higher education students need to be proficient in a new 21st century literacy. This new literacy 487 Jonathan R. Cole, The great American university: Its rise to preeminence, its indispensable national role, and why it must be protected ( New York: Public Affairs, 2009); Harvard Graduate School of Education, Pathways to prosperity: Meeting the challenge of preparing young Americans for the 21st century (Feb 2011), 2. 488 National Science Board, Diminishing funding and rising expectations: Trends and challenges for public research universities. National Science Foundation (2012), 4. Retrieved Dec. 3, 2012, from http://www.nsf.gov/nsb. 489 Andrew Delbanco, College: What it was, is, and should be (Princeton, NY: Princeton University Press, 2012); Victor E. Ferrall Jr., Liberal arts at the brink (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011); Martha C. Nussbaum, Cultivating humanity: A classical defense of reform in liberal education (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997).
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includes traditional literacy skills, such as reading, writing, and arguing, and also 490 new literacy skills, such as critical thinking and scientific reasoning. Like older forms, the new literacy requires both the "effective use" of language and "large amounts of specific information" that are deemed important by existing 491 curriculums. But 21st century literacy also includes training students in the concept and methods of science, which are developed and practiced in the research university. Higher education students need to learn both specific knowledge, and also how knowledge is actively created, especially how the most reliable knowledge is made by scientists. Thus, students should be exposed to not just one, but both of the traditional scientific methodologies because they have become the primary tools of the knowledge economy. Students need an understanding of both qualitative and quantitative literacy. And while knowledge of scientific methodology does require advanced mathematical literacy, students with only minimal mathematical knowledge can still be introduced to both qualitative and quantitative scientific methods through an understanding of key concepts, theories, and data. But in order to do introduce students to scientific methodology, they must first be introduced to the research university and the specific work of different scientific disciplines. Only then will they be able to concretely grasp how knowledge is created and refined through the scientific process.
Traditional Literacy
21st Century Literacy
Reading Writing Arithmetic Argument Authority & Dogma Mono-cultural Cannon Mono-cultural knowledge
Reading, Writing & Arithmetic Critical Thinking Scientific Reasoning & Methods Open Argument with Warrant Knowledgeable & Engaged Citizenship Multi-cultural Canon Multi-cultural Knowledge
Students need to know concepts and forms in order to understand content and master practice. What are these basic formal elements? Students need to be taught threshold concepts in order to theoretically understand the both purpose and practice of writing and thinking. Psychologists call this
490 National Council of Teachers of English, The NCTE definition of 21st century literacies (Nov 19 2008), Retrieved Dec. 3, 2012, from http://www.ncte.org/positions/ statements/21stcentframework; Tony Wagner, The global achievement gap (New York: Basic Books, 2008); W. Norton Grubb, The roles of tertiary colleges and institutes: Tradeoffs in restructuring postsecondary education, Education and Training Policy Division, OECD (June 2003), p. Retrieved Dec. 3, 2012, from http://www.oecd.org/edu/ highereducationandadultlearning/ 35971977.pdf; Carl Sagan, The demon-haunted world: Science as a candle in the dark (New York: Random House, 1996), 325. 491 E. D. Hirsch, Jr., Cultural literacy: What every American needs to know (New York: Vintage Books, 1988), 2-3.
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understanding “metacognition,” which is thinking-about-thinking and thinkingabout- doing so as to promote self-regulation and goal-oriented behavior. Students also need to learn concrete writing and thinking practices because, as Stanley Fish points out, “technical knowledge, divorced from what it is supposed 492 to be knowledge of, yields only the illusion of understanding.” Students need to be able to do and not just know. Finally, students need a conceptual framework that can help integrate threshold concepts and can help apply concepts within multiple contexts. And finally, 21st century literacy must also include political literacy. Students need background knowledge and training to become engaged citizens capable of fostering the public good. This important form of literacy will not be fully covered by this book, but the links between literacy, public schooling, democracy, and political freedom will be introduced and explained. In-depth political literacy requires specific knowledge of local and national political institutions and historical contexts, which are beyond the scope of this book. But this book will focus on the importance of debating contested knowledge in public spheres, which is the cornerstone of liberal democracy. I strongly believe that increased knowledge is the foundation for responsible public policy and political freedom. 21st century literacy is a collection of many higher order skills. Students need to be able to critically evaluate the reliability of diverse sources of knowledge in order to construct knowledge with scientific methods. It also entails openly arguing with diverse publics to explain and prove the truth. But these 21st century skills are built on the foundation of traditional literacy: reading, writing, and basic mathematics. Knowledge is the essential first step to good communication and effective action. Truth has to be actively constructed by critical thinkers through meticulous and rigorous scientific methods. And this truth needs to be effectively communicated to diverse audiences through arguments in order to direct collective action to solve real-world problems.
2. Re-Visioning Institutions of Higher Education Institutions of higher education across the globe need to educate wellrounded and fully literate students ready to face the future. But creating a coherent and interdisciplinary 21st century literacy across the university curriculum will not be easy. While institutions of higher education teach 21st century knowledge and methods, they are still circumscribed by a mix of medieval and modern traditions. It is essential to recognize that the 21st century university curriculum is not coherently organized. It was politically carved into overlapping and arbitrarily defined intellectual fiefdoms, what we call academic disciplines, most of which were created in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but some of
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Stanley Fish, How to write a sentence and how to read one (New York: Harper), 19. 144
which stem back to the middle ages. These traditional academic boundaries are guarded by restricted guilds, whose authority rests on the exclusive knowledge and the specialized skills found within the professional domains of these disciplines. In order to create the institutional space for a 21st century literacy, it will be imperative to re-negotiate these institutional orthodoxies and redraw the boundaries of the college curriculum along interdisciplinary lines in order to rethink how knowledge should be defined and used in this rapidly changing world. While reforming the higher education curriculum is very important, it will be difficult to get beyond the traditions on which the university was built. However, various new forms of higher education around the world point to diverse ways of restructuring. Globally, a large and increasing percentage of students are attending non-university institutions of higher education, such as colleges, community colleges, polytechnics, and trade schools. Re-visioning institutions of higher education is not the only obstacle to a 21st century literacy. College students around the world are “academically 493 adrift.” In the United States in particular, young adults are frighteningly 494 ignorant of the world around them. Many college graduates don’t have the skills needed to compete in the global labor market. Thus, The U.S. has been "increasingly dependent on the flow of foreign talent" to remain economically 495 competitive in this globalized world. A recent longitudinal empirical study of American universities found that "individual and institutional interests and incentives are not closely aligned with a focus on undergraduate academic 496 learning." Postsecondary students are spending less time on academic activities, especially studying, in part due to an institutional environment that does not expect much of students, nor challenge them to perform at high levels. While institutions of higher education acknowledge the importance of instituting 21st century literacy, many schools are not doing much about it. Nearly all professors and administrators praise critical thinking, analytical reasoning, problem solving, and writing, but "more as a matter of principle than 497 practice." Students are not getting the higher education they deserve – the education they need. The cost of higher education in the United States has increased dramatically, but institutions of higher education have not "delivered extra value to match the extra costs...indeed, the average student is studying for 498 fewer hours and learning less than in the past." Many students are not learning much, and there is evidence that institutions of higher education are exacerbating social and economic inequality. 493 Richard Arum and Josipa Roska, Academically adrift: Limited learning on college campuses (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011). 494 Rick Shenkman, Just how stupid are we? Facing the truth about the American voter (New York: Basic Books, 2008). 495 Cole, The great American university, Ibid., 453. 496 Arum and Roska, Academically adrift, Ibid., 2. 497 Arum and Roska, Academically adrift, Ibid., 35. 498 “The college-cost calamity,” The Economist (Aug 4 2012), Retrieved Dec. 3, 2012, from www.economist.com
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One study in the United States found that around 45 percent of university students had no statistically significant gains in core learning areas over the first 499 two years in college, albeit the validity of these measurements are debated, largely because it is not clear how seriously students take low-stakes assessment tests used by researchers to measure learning. Based on one study, not only did many students not learn much, but students with individual advantages, like high socio-economic status, demonstrate much more learning in college than 500 less advantaged students. Thus, higher education seems to not only preserve academic inequalities, but also intensify them. Arum and Roksa concluded: "We can expect higher-education experiences to contribute to - or even exacerbate, as opposed to eliminate - the observed patterns of social inequality." Their report recommends that universities "transform student's curricular experiences" in order to promote a "culture of learning." Institutions of higher education, especially the faculty, "need to take greater responsibility for shaping the developmental trajectories of students." Such work begins and ends with individual professors and academic advisers, but must be enhanced and 501 sustained by adequate institutional resources and support. In Student Success in College: Creating Conditions that Matter, Kuh, Kinzie, Schuh, Whitt, & Associates researched effective educational practices found at innovative universities. They found that effective education requires five basic components: (1) level of academic challenge (2) active and collaborative learning (3) student-faculty interaction (4) supportive campus environment 502 (5) enriching educational experiences Institutions of higher education need to more consciously design not only accurate, relevant and engaging curriculum, but instructional strategies, learning activities, and assessments also need to be more thoughtfully designed around the learning path of individual students. Lectures based on a state-of-the-art curriculum are not enough to teach students how to read, write, and critically think. Globally, most institutions of higher education have failed to fully assess and reform the quality of teaching. Traditional methods of poor teaching 503 is one of the most "persistent attacks" on these institutions. Faculty need to
499
Arum and Roska, Academically adrift, Ibid., 36. Ibid., 38-57. 501 Ibid., 53, 131, 127. 502 George D. Kuh, Jillian Kinzie, John H. Schuh, Elizabeth J. Whitt, and Associates, Student success in college: Creating conditions that matter (San Francisco: Jossey Bass, 2005), 174. 503 Grubb, The roles of tertiary colleges and institutes, Ibid., 30. 500
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realize that the "logic of the discipline" is very different from the "logic of the 504 learner." More must be done about teaching and learning in the specific context of college classrooms to meet the specific learning trajectories of individual students. Faculty need to structure teaching and learning activities that promote student engagement and active student learning experiences. Faculty need to combine traditional theory with practical “craftsmanship” so that students can 505 learn by doing. Students need to become more proactive and engaged. A curriculum focused on foundational concepts and skills must be combined with motivational teaching and active learning experiences, both in and outside of college classrooms. This academic work necessarily involves going beyond traditional instructional practices of lecture and standardized tests. Quality instructional strategies should include carefully planned course readings with reading comprehension activities, written reports and papers of varying length, and classroom activities that engage students actively in "analyzing, synthesizing, 506 applying theories, and making judgments." Finally, As Kuh et. al. have explained, faculty need to create conditions of "academic challenge" and "rigor" that will push students to engage with the curriculum more dynamically. Kuh et. al. state near the end of their study, "simply offering various programs and services does not foster student success. Programs and practices must be tailored to and resonate with the students they are intended to reach, be of reasonably high quality, and actually touch large 507 numbers of students in a meaningful way [author's emphasis]." This book seek to help learners and instructors by offering a high quality, active, and meaningful approach to teaching literacy, which I believe is the foundation of all other higher order skills. Unlike other textbooks on the subject, this book embodies a pedagogy of “thinking as doing” by attending to both “knowing that” 508 (information) and also “knowing how” (process). Instituting 21st century literacy will require restructuring the traditional university curriculum. Students need to be exposed to a wide range of epistemological methods and disciplinary knowledge within an interdisciplinary framework grounded upon learning trajectory based instruction. It will also require rethinking how to teach students to become active learners through self-directed problem solving and collaborative group work with diverse participants. To ensure that these core skills are equally available to all students across the curriculum, there will also need to be an organizational mechanism to consult with faculty about 21st century literacy and to teach faculty about new teaching methods. Some of this work is currently
504
Sztajn, Confrey, Wilson, and Edgington, “Learning trajectory based instruction: Toward a theory of teaching,” Educational Researcher, 41.5 (June/July 2012), 147. 505 Richard Sennett, The craftsman (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008), 133. 506 Kuh et. al., Student success in college, Ibid., 177. 507 Kuh et. al., Student success in college, Ibid., 177, 264. 508 Matthew B. Crawford, Shop class as soulcraft: An inquiry into the value of work (New York: Penguin, 2009), 161. 147
going on in special teaching and learning programs across the country. 21st century universities will need a new emphasis on teaching and learning. Institutions of higher education will need to develop, institute, monitor, and evaluate new curriculum and teaching methods across the university. This is a tall order, especially in a time of diminished budgets. 21st century universities and colleges are in a tough spot. They face "diminishing 509 funding and rising expectations." Instituting 21st century literacy in higher education will be a challenge, but I am confident that it can be accomplished.
509
National Science Board, Diminishing funding and rising expectations, Ibid., 1. 148
Chapter 13 --The Social Ecology of Teaching and Learning
The idea of education can be defined in many ways. The description of the parts, function, ends, and meaning of education will vary depending on the scope of the definition. I want to introduce a large, expansive definition of th education. The origins of my definition emerged in the 20 century out of the disciplines of philosophy, social psychology, sociology, and ecology. These academic fields helped shift social scientific understanding away from a narrow, positivistic, reductionist, product-oriented individual behavior toward a broader environmental, historical, social, and process-oriented view of human being. In order to understand and evaluate the means and ends of education, we must first understand the physical, historical, and social ecologies of which any educational endeavor is naturally a part. This broader conception of education, as an ecologically embedded institution, can help people better understand how education should be practiced and how educational practices should be evaluated. Like other biological beings on this planet, humans dwell in, and are largely constituted by, complexly interwoven social and physical 510 environments. All parts of an environment are connected, interrelated, and dependent upon each other. This dense, interrelated network of mutually 511 dependent living beings is called ecology. The concept of ecology was popularized in the early 20th century by Aldo Leopold, a social scientist at the University of Wisconsin. Leopold described an ecological system in terms of what has now become the familiar biota pyramid: “The pyramid is a tangle of chains so complex as to seem disorderly, yet the stability of the system proves it to be a highly organized structure. Its functioning depends on the co-operation and competition of its diverse parts.” Leopold also included humans in these ecological chains: “all individuals are interdependent members of a community, 510 This is an important insight in the philosophy of Martin Heidegger. See "Building Dwelling Thinking," In Poetry, Language, Thought (New York, 1971). For a more scientific explanation of this phenomenon see Jared Diamond, The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal (New York, 2006). 511 Fritjof Capra, The Web of Life: A New Scientific Understanding of Living Systems (New York, 1996); Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac (New York, 1970); Carolyn Merchant, Radical Ecology: The Search for a Livable World. (New York, 1992).
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be it human or non-human, and thus all members of an ecological system must understand their connection and responsibility to the communities they 512 inhabit.” Human activities, ideas, and values are shaped by surrounding ecological networks, especially by institutionalized social structures, social 513 practices, and ideas. Humans are culturally conditioned to behave according to various social norms, value certain ideas, and engage in particular social practices. Human have the freedom to act and think in new ways, but all human action and thought is constrained by existing social structures, conditioned by existing social practices, and shaped by existing ideas. Humans have the potential to transform existing social structures, practices, and ideas, but this potential is mediated by the historically determined social and physical ecology of which the individual is a part. The ecology of being human is constituted by individuals participating in physically, culturally, and historically situated social 514 practices. Participation in social practices brings identity and meaning as individuals negotiate, transmit, and co-construct existing social structures, 515 practices, and ideas. The philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre is one of the few contemporary philosophers who has recognized the importance of seeing social life not through abstract concepts but as lived practices that are reproduced and recreated through everyday life. MacIntyre defined a social “practice” as any coherent and complex form of socially established cooperative human activity through which goods internal to that form of activity are realized in the course of trying to achieve those standards of excellence which are appropriate to, and partially definitive of, that form of activity, with the result that human powers to achieve excellence, and human conceptions of the ends and goods 516 involved, are systematically extended.
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Leopold, A Sand County Almanac, 252-53, 239. For an overview of institutionalism see my Preface to A Gateway to Opportunity? A History of the Community College in the United States (Sterling, VA, 2011). For a selected introduction to institutions see Vincent Ostrom and Elinor Ostrom, “Rethinking Institutional Analysis: An Interview with Vincent and Elinor Ostrom,” Mercatus Center, George Mason University (Nov 7, 2003); Anthony Giddens, Capitalism and Modern Social Theory: An Analysis of the Writing of Marx, Durkheim, and Max Weber (Cambridge, UK, 1971); Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge (New York, 1966); The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis, Paul J. DiMaggio and Walter W. Powell, eds. (Chicago, 1991); Douglas C. North, Structure and Change in Economic History (New York, 1981); John R. Searle, The Construction of Social Reality (New York, 1995). 514 Urie Bronfenbrenner, The Ecology of Human Development: Experiments by Nature and Design (Cambridge, MA, 1979); Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays by Clifford Geertz (New York, 2000); Clifford Geertz, Local Knowledge: Further Essays in Interpretive Anthropology (New York, 2000); Lars Bo Kaspersen, Anthony Giddens: An Introduction to a Social Theorist (Oxford, 2000). 515 Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures; Geertz, Local Knowledge; Etienne Wenger, Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity (Cambridge, UK 1998). 516 Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue (London, 1981), 175. 513
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In reading this passage by MacIntyre, David Bridges argues that there are three conditions that must be met in order to define a particular activity as “practice.” First, the activity must be “socially established, cooperative, coherent, and complex.” Second, there are “goods internal to that form of activity which are realized through standards of excellence that are partially definitive of that activity.” Third, the activity must involve human standards of excellence defined in terms of “human goodness or virtue” embodied in the ends or goods of the 517 practice. Most scholars of education now recognize the centrality of social practices in human development and education. The educational philosophers Paul Smeyers and Nicholas C. Burbules argue that “human life begins in doing, 518 not in thinking.” Humans are trained in rule-governed and normative practices, but individuals negotiate and transform those practices through an 519 individualized experience (“doing”) of the practice. Smeyers and Burbules suggest that conceptually separating how one learns a practice from how one enacts a practice might foreground the bounded freedom that individuals have in negotiating and reformulating normative social practices. They argue that “interpretation and adaptation is always a potential” within the “doing” or 520 enacting of a social practice. But is there a clear difference between learning and enacting a social practice? The computer scientist and educational theorist Etienne Wenger argues that learning must be understood as a process. Individuals learn by participating in social practices, by negotiating social boundaries, by personally enacting the practice within embedded social contexts, and by internalizing the practice, making it part of the individual's identity and behavioral repertoire. Learning is an emerging and continuous activity that is a byproduct of physical and mental participation in an activity. Wenger argues that leaning is socially situated and constituted in several ways: through community (learning as belonging), through identity (learning as becoming), through meaning (learning as experience), and through practice (learning as doing). We should not think of education in terms of finished products. The end of learning should not be a disembodied collection of abstract information. However, for thousands of years memorization of abstract information has been exactly how many societies approached the institution of 521 schooling. Instead of creating an end product, learning should produce social interactions and structured experiences, which constitute the identity and 517 David Bridges, "The Practice of Higher Education: In Pursuit of Excellence and of Equity,” Educational Theory 56, no. 4 (2006), 371-72. 518 Paul Smeyers & Nicholas C. Burbules, "Education as Initiation into Practices," Educational Theory 56, no. 4 (2006), 440-42. 519 Ibid.; C. Winch, "Rules, Technique, and Practical Knowledge: A Wittgensteinian Exploration of Vocational Learning," Educational Theory 56, no. 4 (2006), 407-21. 520 Smeyers & Burbules, "Education as Initiation into Practices," 447. 521 Paul Ricoeur, Memory, History, Forgetting, Trans. Kathleen Blamey and David Pellauer (Chicago, 2004), 60; Norm Friesen, "The Lecture as a Transmedial Pedagogical Form: A Historical Analysis," Educational Researcher 40, no. 3: 95-102.
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development of both an individual and a social group, bringing meaning and 522 purpose to one's individual and collective life. While Urie Bronfenbrenner applied the concept of ecology to human 523 development in the late 1970s, it wasn't until the late 1980s that the concept of ecology was seriously applied to education and school reform. In an Yearbook edited by John I. Goodlad, he explained how previous educators and reformers had "all failed to understand the history and complexity of the problems they sought to solve." The key, Goodlad argued, was to understand education and schooling as an "ecosystem" or an "ecological community": "A healthy school ecology is one that is critically attuned to both its social context and the knowledge most relevant to the development and maintenance of sound 524 educational practices." The president of the American Educational Research Association reiterated the importance of the concept of ecology for education in her 2010 Presidential Address. She argued that education and schooling need to be understood as "a complex and dynamic ecological system" that varies "across human communities" and "material contexts." The central issue facing educators and researchers in the 21st century will be understanding education as a living "system" of social practices, not as a series of abstract isolated parts 525 leading to an end product. In its most expansive definition education can be any experience that 526 promotes student learning and personal growth, but most people associate education with a formalized social process called "schooling," which includes various scholastic practices such as reading books, listening to lectures, taking tests, and writing papers. Ideally schools should be thought of as institutions designed to preserve and transmit the traditions, activities, relationships, knowledge, and values of a society, which should be communicated and conveyed to students in experientially relevant ways through a conducive milieu and a rigorous curriculum. Schools are institutions designed to establish social relationships between students and students, students and teachers, and students and the larger society which is represented by various established 522
Wenger, Communities of Practice, 141, 226. See also Jerome Bruner, The Process of Education (Cambridge, MA, 1977); S. N. Nasir & V. M. Hand, "Exploring Sociocultural Perspectives on Race, Culture, and Learning." Review of Educational Research 76, no. 4 (Winter 2006), 449-75. 523 Bronfenbrenner, The Ecology of Human Development. 524 John I. Goodlad, "Structure, Process, and an Agenda" and "Toward a Healthy Ecosystem," in The Ecology of School Renewal, Eighty-Sixth Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education, ed. by John I Goodlad (Chicago, 1987), 3, 211, 17. See also John I. Goodlad, In Praise of Education (New York, 1997), 65. 525 Carol D. Lee, "Soaring Above the Clouds, Delving the Ocean's Depths: Understanding the Ecologies of Human Learning and the Challenge for Education Science," Educational Researcher 39, no. 9 (Dec 2010), 643-655. 526 John Dewey, Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education (New York, 1916); John Dewey, Experience and Education (New York, 1938); Carl R. Rogers, Freedom to Learn (Columbus, OH, 1969); Herbert A. Thelen, Education and the Human Quest (Chicago, 1972). 152
knowledge, traditions and rituals cherished by a particular culture. Education in schools should be the situated meeting of a student, peers, teacher, curriculum, and a structured milieu whereby learning is enacted and co-produced by all participants who are actively involved in doing various social practices. However, it is important to remember that "there is nothing about school as a system or school as a place that automatically imbues it with 527 education." Much of the time schooling is devoid of any relevant social practices and it becomes an authoritarian prison, wherein students are drilled in abstract concepts and alienating rituals. When schools impose tradition and ritual in this way, we can say that students are being socialized rather than educated, although the distinction is separated by a fine line. It is important to understand that education is part of the larger process of socialization, but it is a distinct practice. Socialization is about the mandatory or obligatory reproduction of traditional social practices and ideas. Socialization is usually forced by authoritarian gatekeepers onto the young with the threat of punishment. Socialization also usually is enacted without critical reflection or active participation by the student. Unlike socialization, education is about helping students understand, experience, and transform inherited social practices and ideas. It is a process of negotiating, critiquing and co-constructing the social structures of which students are a part and the ideas that will define 528 their lives. Both socialization and education take place inside and outside of schools. Both represent the reproduction of society through the transmission of various social practices. A student learns through both processes, although the lessons and outcomes are substantially different. Learning arises naturally through any experience whereby an individual engages in a social practice, and as such learning is not something that can be “designed.” As Etienne Wegner has argued, “Learning happens, design or no design…it can only be designed for – that is, facilitated or frustrated.” We learn through socialization and education. We learn through just experiencing and acting in the objective world. But if one wants to consciously and deliberately 529 initiate learning, one must “design social infrastructures that foster learning,” 530 which should be ideal mission of a school. Hence, schooling should foster 527
Goodlad, In Praise of Education, 83. Jerome Bruner, The Culture of Education (Cambridge, MA, 1996); John Dewey, Democracy and Education (New York, 1966); John Dewey, Experience & Education (New York, 1997); Nasir & Hand, "Exploring Sociocultural Perspectives on Race, Culture, and Learning." 529 Wenger, Communities of Practice, 225, 229. Wenger encourages educators to question the assumption that teaching “causes learning.” Instead, learning happens in “response to the pedagogical intentions of the setting:” “Instruction does not cause learning; it creates a context in which learning takes place, as do other contexts” (p. 266). And because learning through practice is so important to Wenger, he conceptualizes the role of educators as more than the deliverers of information or the creators of educational infrastructures. He points out that educators “constitute learning resources” through their “own membership in relevant communities of practice” (p. 276). See also Rogers, Freedom to Learn, 105. 530 Sztajn, Confrey, Wilson, & Edgington, "Learning Trajectory Based Instruction: Toward a Theory of Teaching." Educational Researcher, 41, no. 5 (2012, June/July): 147-156. 528
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Instructional Tasks (Learning Modes)
Knowledge of Teaching
Evidence
Assessment
of Students
Learning Trajectories
Feedback
Classroom Discourse & Interaction
Knowledge of Discipline
Source: Sztajn, Confrey, Wilson, & Edgington. (2012, June/July). Learning trajectory based instruction: Toward a theory of teaching. Educational Researcher , 41(5): 147-156.
Students
Teaching
Curriculum
Connect
Select & Sequence
Monitor
Anticipate
education by artificially organizing various relevant and meaningful social experiences that the student can learn through active participation and critical reflection. Of course a new practice must be first shown and explained to the student, but real learning does not take place until that practice can be learned, negotiated, and mastered through the willing and deliberate action of the student. With such a conception of learning one might inquire, what is the role of a teacher? If learning is done only by the student, how can a teacher help? While it is important to understand the effects of teaching on student 531 learning, teaching is only one part of the complex ecology of education. Too often policy makers and the media focus solely on the teacher, as if the teacher was the sole factor in complete control of the student's learning process or 532 experience. This is utter nonsense. A central focus on the teacher is not only a gross reduction of a complex phenomenon, it is also a falsification of how learning actually works. As Ralph W. Taylor noted over a half century ago, "Learning takes place through the active behavior of the student; it is what he does that he learns, not what the 533 teacher does." But of course this concept of learning does not negate the fact that teachers do influence (not control) student learning. Teachers play an important part in the learning process, albeit they are more or less important for different types of students. However, it is important to keep in mind that any narrow focus on a singular part of the complex ecology of education distorts the multifaceted reality of learning. As Norm Friesen points out, "knowledge is inextricably merged with pedagogical forms, and the nature of these forms is a much about culture as it is about informational function...knowledge is enacted 534 and performed." Teachers embody a culture, they demonstrate social practices, they choose pedagogical forms that will be conducive to student learning, and they help facilitate the students learning, largely through analysis, feedback, and providing motivation. All educational processes, including the actions of teachers and parents, are enmeshed within a larger social ecology that can help or hinder 535 individual student learning and the performance of that learning. People need 531 See for example T. L. Good & D. A. Grouws, "Teaching Effects: A Process-Product Study in Fourth-Grade Mathematics Classrooms," Journal of Teacher Education 28, no. 3 (May-June 1977), 49-54; W. Norton Grubb, Honored But Invisible: An Inside Look at Teaching in Community Colleges (New York, 1999); K. R. Wentzel, "Are Effective Teachers Like Good Parents? Teaching Styles and Student Adjustment in Early Adolescence," Child Development 73, no. 1 (Jan/Feb 2002), 287-301. 532 Look at any article on school reform over the last few years in Time, The Economist, The Los Angeles Times, or The New York Times and you will see teachers attributed as the major cause of student learning and teachers' unions protecting "bad teachers" as the major obstacle in the way of school reform. 533 Ralph, W. Tyler, Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction (Chicago, 1949), 63. 534 Norm Friesen, "The Lecture as a Transmedial Pedagogical Form: A Historical Analysis," 97. 535 For an application of Bronfenbrenner to education see M. J. Zimmer-Gembeck & J. T.
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to understand that education goes far beyond the narrow rolls of student and teacher. Larger social structures outside the classroom, as well as social factors inside the classroom, also affect a student’s learning and achievement in school. Research on the larger social context of schooling, especially at the primary level in relation to human development, has demonstrated the importance of various social factors beyond the teacher and the student, such as 536 the socioeconomic status of the student, the ethnicity and culture of the 537 538 539 student, the gender of the student, the social environments of schools, 540 the social and curricular structure of the classroom, the social networking of 541 542 peer groups, vocational aspirations and adolescent development, and also larger socio-political processes, like labor markets, corporate business practices, 543 political policies, and globalization. Psychologists Richard M. Ryan and Jerome D. Stiller have argued that the subtler social contexts and “affective lessons” of schooling often get neglected by researchers and policy makers in their rush to focus on only one Mortimer, "Adolescent Work, Vocational Development, and Education," Review of Educational Research 76, no. 4 Winter 2006), 537-66. 536 V. C. McLoyd, "Socioeconomic Disadvantage and Child Development," American Psychologist 53, no. 2 (Feb 1998), 185-204. 537 Nasir & Hand, "Exploring Sociocultural Perspectives on Race, Culture, and Learning"; L. Steinberg, S. M. Dornbusch, & B. B. Brown, "Ethnic Differences in Adolescent Achievement: An Ecological Perspective," American Psychologist 47, no. 6 (June 1992), 723-29. 538 S. Harter, P. L. Waters & N. Whitesell, "Lack of Voice as a Manifestation of False SelfBehavior Among Adolescents: The School Setting as a Stage Upon which the Drama of Authenticity is Enacted," Educational Psychologist 32, no. 3 (1997), 153-173; E. M. Pomerantz, E. R. Altermatt & J. L. Saxon, "Making the Grade but Feeling Distressed: Gender Differences in Academic Performance and Internal Distress," Journal of Educational Psychology 94, no. 2 (2002), 396-404. 539 Goodlad, In Praise of Education , 103; J. S. Eccles, C. Midgley, A. Wigfield, C. MillerBuchanan, D. Reuman, C. Flanagan & D. MacIver, "Development during Adolescence: The Impact of Stage-Environment Fit on Young Adolescents’ Experiences in Schools and in Families," American Psychologist 48, no. 2 (Feb 1993), 90-101; Harter, Waters & Whitesell, "Lack of Voice as a Manifestation of False Self-Behavior Among Adolescents," Ibid. 540 A. M. Ryan, M. H. Gheen & C. Midgley, "Why Do Some Students Avoid Asking for Help? An Examination of the Interplay among Students’ Academic Efficacy, Teachers’ Social-Emotional Role, and the Classroom Goal Structure," Journal of Educational Psychology 90, no. 3 (1998), 528-35. 541 A. E. Grills & T. H. Ollendick, "Peer Victimization, Global Self-Worth, & Anxiety in Middle School Children," Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology 31, no. 1 (2002), 59-68; C. Hudley & S. Graham, "An Attributional Intervention to Reduce PeerDirected Aggression among African-American Boys," Child Development 64 (1993), 12438. 542 M. J. Zimmer-Gembeck & J. T. Mortimer, "Adolescent Work, Vocational Development, and Education," Review of Educational Research 76, no. 4 (Winter 2006), 537-66. 543 J. M. Beach, A Gateway to Opportunity? A History of the Community College in the United States (Sterling, VA, 2011); Raymond E. Callahan, Education and the Cult of Efficiency (Chicago, 1962); W. Norton Grubb and Martin Lazerson, The Education Gospel: The Economic Power of Schooling (Cambridge, MA, 2004); John S. Levin, Globalizing the Community College (New York, 2001). 156
aspect of the educational ecology – often the singular preoccupation is student achievement. Ryan and Stiller argue that educational experiences and the learning of students cannot be controlled from without by standards or directives. Learning is subtly “emanated from within” the social-psychology of 544 the student coming into contact with the larger educational ecology. Education is internalized by students who experience and engage with an activity that is mediated by and through the surrounding educational ecology. Researchers and policy makers examining the process of education must be mindful of the less visible psychological and social processes affecting more visible markers like student achievement on tests. School reformers are too preoccupied on trying to find "what works," often packaged as some sexy silver bullet that will quickly fix any broken classroom. We must get away from such simplistic nonsense. In order to recognize a promising educational practice, educational researchers must develop a nuanced understanding of the complex situatedness of the whole process of learning, not just some isolated part of that process. In order to understand promising education practice, it is essential not to oversimplify the ecological complexity of the larger educational environment. Researchers also must be aware of and try to predict how certain promising practices might substantially change given the constraints and possibilities of different educational environment. Promising practices must be transplanted, not just transported, and that entails situating transplanted practices in host cites that will approximate a compatible educational ecology. And even then, a promising host cite is not enough to guarantee student learning or student achievement. Constance Weaver, a distinguished professor of reading and writing, has explained how educational environments demand “ongoing experimentation.” Every year, actively engaged teachers must continually monitor, assess, and revise educational settings to promote the individualized learning of new groups of students. Weaver writes, “Adaptations will usually be necessary as well as desirable” because “we must all to some extent reinvent the 545 wheel of effective instruction.” There is no silver bullet, only hard work, dedication, and a proper understanding of how learning actually works. Quality education and effective schooling require motivating teachers with expansive vision and creative flexibility. Also required are the resources teachers need to facilitate the individualized learning of diverse groups of students. The focus of quality education is the unique needs of the student. They have all been shaped, for better or worse, by various socio-economical contexts that enable or constrain their natural abilities. The teacher tries to patiently, and not always successfully, to coax out that ability, so the student can practice into full bloom. 544 R. M. Ryan & J. Stiller, "The Social Contexts of Internalization: Parent and Teacher Influences on Autonomy, Motivation, and Learning," Advances in Motivation and Achievement 7 (1991), 115-149. 545 Constance Weaver, "Teaching Grammar in Context" In Teaching Developmental Writing: Background Readings, 3rd ed. (Boston, 2007), 154-55.
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Chapter 14 --What Is Education? Learning is Doing, Knowing is Being
John Dewey concluded almost a century ago that a new type of education was the only way to peacefully change human society. He wanted an education that could prepare people to continually meet the evolving challenges 546 of the boundless present. Dewey conceived education as the facilitation of social practices that would not only develop the individuality of the student, but would also help sustain and reform the society. I have never personally encountered a teacher who really lived up to Dewey's ideal of education. Even Dewey himself didn't always practice what he preached. Some have paid lipservice to his philosophy, but rarely have they acted upon it. I have tried to live up to Dewey's philosophy in both word and deed. I've also looked up to others who have tried to practice Dewey's philosophy, like Paulo Freire. My understanding of education and teaching are grounded on both practice and on research in various disciplines: education, developmental psychology, cognitive science, and evolutionary biology, among other social scientific and humanistic fields. But I have also been profoundly affected by the teachings of the Buddha and the practice of Zen Buddhism. In fact, there is actually a lot of research in modern biology and cognitive science that supports basic principles and practices of Buddhism as an epistemological and educational 547 philosophy. Although I would not call myself a Buddhist in any sense of the word, I find the tradition of Zen Buddhism to be a profoundly wise and practical guide to learning and knowing. There is a famous Buddhist myth, told and retold over the ages, which I think captures a foundational insight into human learning. One night a young seeker asks a wizened old monk about the true nature of the Buddha so as to attain the spiritual peak of enlightenment. The monk sat silently. Then, after a long pause, he took his finger and pointed towards the bright, full moon in the
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John Dewey, Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education (New York, 1916); John Dewey, Experience and Education (New York, 1938); Robert B. Westbrook, John Dewey and American Democracy (Ithica, 1993). 547 Owen Flanagan, The Bodhisattva's Brain: Buddhism Naturalized (Cambridge, MA, 2011); James H. Austen, Zen and the Brain (Cambridge, MA, 2001); Sam Harris, The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason (New York, 2005), ch 7. 158
sky above. "There is the Buddha," he said. The student sat for a very, very long time but failed to understand the teacher's meaning. He asked again. The monk replied, "Any principles or practices that I might share about the Buddha would be like my finger pointing to the moon." The original versions of this story are much more cryptic, but what the monk had a simple message. A teacher is only a guide on the student's path to learning. A teacher can only point to the truth, metaphorically pictured as the moon, but the student must experience and internalize that truth individually for it to be a source of enlightenment. The great Zen master D. T. Suzuki warned, “To point at the moon a finger is needed, 548 but woe to those who take the finger for the moon.” It is always the student's responsibility to take action, learning experientially, so as to apprehend reality directly, deeply, fully. If the student cannot take this ultimate step of experiential, self-directed learning then there is no real enlightenment, and the 549 attempt at learning has failed. I like this story because it emphasizes a more humble role for teachers. Teachers are not gods and should not be authority figures. Teachers are simply tools. The purpose of education is not to focus on the teacher, nor on the curriculum, which is just another tool. Both teacher and curriculum must be transcended and left behind for the student to truly be learned by doing. Education is not about stroking the ego of the student, putting on a show for outside observers, or handing out pieces of paper that confer social status. 550 Instead, education is about perceiving, practicing, and perfecting an action. "The central task of education," writes Martha C. Nussbaum, "is to confront the passivity of the pupil, challenging the mind to take charge of its own thought," 551 which produces reasoned and deliberate action. This notion of education is very old, but it is also, in social scientific circles, very new. There is an emerging social scientific field of study called "practice theory," which focuses on human learning in terms of action and as an 552 individual and social practice. For education to be truly effective, all educative
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D. T. Suzuki, “The Sense of Zen,” In Zen Buddhism: Selected Writings of D. T. Suzuki. (New York, 1996), 8. On self-directed student learning as the center of educational practice see Carl R. Rogers, Freedom to Learn (Columbus, OH, 1969), 52; A. S. Neil, Summerhill School: A New View of Childhood (New York, 1992). 550 Ralph, W. Tyler, Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction (Chicago, 1949), 5-6; Jerome Bruner, The Process of Education (Cambridge, MA, 1977), 11; Neil Postman and Charles Weingartner, Teaching as a Subversive Activity (New York, 1969), 19. Postman and Weingartner explain, "The critical content of any learning experience is the method or process through which the learning occurs...It is not what you say to people that counts; it is what you have them do." 551 Martha C. Nussbaum, Cultivating Humanity: A Classical Defense of Reform in Liberal Education (Cambridge, MA, 1997), 28. 552 One of the founders of practice theory was the French philosopher and sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. See Outline of a Theory of Practice (Cambridge, UK, 2010) and The Logic of Practice (Stanford, 1992). See also Sherry B. Ortner, Anthropology and Social Theory: Culture, Power, and the Acting Subject (Durham, 2006) and Etienne Wenger, Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity (Cambridge, UK, 1998). 549
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endeavors should be centered on the act, the process of learning itself. The 553 purpose of learning is to do. In the field of psychology, specifically neuroscience, researchers now know that educators need to design experiences that not only enhance student learning, but “ultimately change student’s 554 brains.” The best educational method is doing by doing. The anthropologist Christina Toren explains that "our cognitive processes are constituted through 555 our embodied engagement in the world and predicated on inter-subjectivity." Education is a social process whereby teacher and student(s) engage in a particular activity through disciplined practice. The teacher's role, in the words of one social scientist, "is getting most students to use the higher cognitive level 556 processes" that more gifted learners "use spontaneously." The focus of any educational endeavor should be on getting the student to act and to focus on 557 the creative possibilities of the practice itself. As Ralph W. Tyler perceptively noted, "Learning takes place through the active behavior of the student; it is 558 what he does that he learns, not what the teacher does." The purpose of education should be training a student to ultimately perfect the activity according to their own ethos and incorporate the learning process into their life so that it becomes second nature and part of their being. The end of education should not be narrowly focused on the transference of 559 tradition or mere information. Instead, the end of any true educational experience should be the transformation of a human being who has gained not only new knowledge and skill, but also a more profound sense of self, an 560 561 ethos. And speaking from experience, this process is both painful and profoundly empowering.
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Tyler, Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction, 5-6; Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice, 18-19; Matthew B. Crawford, Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work (New York, 2009), ch 2 & 7. 554 Janet M. Dubinsky, Gillian Roehrig, and Sashank Varma, “Infusing Neuroscience into Teacher Professional Development,” Educational Researcher 42, no. 6 (Aug/Sept 2013): 318. 555 Christina Toren, "Making History: The Significance of Childhood Cognition for a Comparative Anthropology of Mind," quoted in Trevor H.J. Marchand, "Making Knowledge: Explorations of the Indissoluble Relation between Minds, Bodies, and Environment," Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (2010): S1-S21. See also Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger, Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation (Cambridge, UK, 1991). 556 John Biggs, "What the Student Does: Teaching for Enhanced Learning," Higher Education Research & Development, 18, no. 1 (1999), 58; Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice, 18-19. 557 Wenger, Communities of Practice, 225, 229, 266; Crawford, Shop Class as Soulcraft, ch 7. 558 Tyler, Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction, 63. 559 Nussbaum, Cultivating Humanity, 34. 560 David K. Cohen, Teaching and Its Predicaments (Cambridge, MA, 2011); Crawford, Shop Class as Soulcraft, ch 7. 561 Mark E. Jonas, "When Teachers Must Let Education Hurt," Journal of Philosophy of Education 44, no. 1 (2010): 45-60. 160
The role of the teacher in this process is simple - yet, extremely difficult. A good teacher must first master the art of a particular practice so completely that it can be effortlessly demonstrated and explained. Then the teacher must enact that practice continually in order to guide the student through ignorance into self-mastery, patiently allowing the student to flail, fall, and often fail. Ultimately, the teacher must step away from the learning process and encourage the student to practice, motivating the student to persevere through failure, until the student has perfected the act through their own 562 endeavor. I believe that the most accurate conception of the true teacher is embodied in the Buddhist concept of Bodhisattva, which in Sanskrit means "enlightenment being." In certain Buddhist traditions, the Bodhisattva is a person who has spent an immense amount of time and energy becoming enlightened through a particular spiritual practice. But instead of attaining the final peak of nirvana, the Bodhisattva turns back to help others on their own paths to enlightenment. The enlightenment being shares their personal way of learning enlightenment, while guiding others towards their own unique paths. Ultimately, education should be focused on the content of the craft of learning, and thereby, initiating the student into its proper practice. Both education and enlightenment must be experienced and perfected by the student on their own 563 terms in their own way. This brings me to a second Buddhist story. When a novice monk asked his spiritual master how he might attain the final level of enlightenment, the master curtly replied, “Kill the Buddha.” There is deep meaning in this cryptic line. The master wanted to emphasize that every teacher, every philosophical principle, and every spiritual practice are all incomplete. Each one of these aides to learning eventually keeps us from focusing on the here and now of our own enlightenment and the focused doing of a particular activity. Thus, teachers and texts and traditions must be overcome so that the student may practice and perfect a unique art on personal terms. The point is not to live someone else’s life, embody someone else's principles, or follow someone else's practices. No, the point is to develop your own principles and practices: Discover your own enlightenment, live your own life, perfect your own art. As A. S. Neill once wrote, "The function of the [student] is to live his own life - not the life that his anxious parents think he should live, nor a life according to the purpose of the 564 educator who things he knows what is best." Thus at some point the teacher must be left behind so that the student can practice and perfect their own enlightenment. So as I teacher, I've always tried to make myself readily available, but dispensable. I try never to be the center of instruction. I wander at the periphery, sometimes in the center when I am needed, but often not. I am not afraid to let my students fail, for failure is 562
Cohen, Teaching and Its Predicaments. Owen Flanagan, The Bodhisattva's Brain: Buddhism Naturalized (Cambridge, MA, 2011), 118-119. 564 Neil, Summerhill School, 15. 563
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often the most powerful form of learning. By focusing on the practice at hand, I try to learn and experience with the student. I help coax the subject's inner secrets, while coaching the student towards success. The teacher plays an important initial role in the student's learning process, but the influence of teaching is hard to quantify because it infuses a larger endeavor that is beyond the teacher's control. The 19th century autodidact Henry Adams once wrote, "A teacher 565 affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops." For many students the teacher is the catalyst that sets off a learning reaction, but the teacher can no more control how or what a student learns than a match controls the contours of a flame or the resulting scope of the fire. The good teacher takes the materials at hand and lights a spark. Who’s to say if the spark catches fire, how hard the tinder will burn, and how far the flames will range? Teachers must keep their own fire burning as brightly as possible, hoping their radiance sparks students on towards enlightenment - learning by doing because knowing is being.
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Henry Adams, The Education of Henry Adams (Boston, 1961), 300. 162
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Acknowledgements
I’ve been researching and writing about education for most of my adult life. This book is a collection of essays, which were first presented at various academic conferences and then published in various articles and books. Many of the essays have been revised successively over the years, and in this volume some have been rearranged and integrated together into larger essays.
Conference Papers Josh M. Beach. “21st Century Literacy & the Rhetoric of Science: Constructing and Debating Knowledge in Multicultural Societies.” Paper presented at 65th Annual Convention of the Conference on College Composition and Communication, Indianapolis, IN, March 19-22, 2014. Josh M. Beach. “21st Century Literacy: Re-Visioning College Composition & Critical Thinking.” Paper presented at Two-Year College English Association Southwest Conference, Austin, TX, Nov 1-2, 2013. Josh M. Beach. "'Children Dying Inside:' An Analysis of South Korea's 'Education Fever.'" Paper presented at American Educational Research Association Conference, New Orleans, LA, April 8-12, 2011. Josh M. Beach. "Why Education Policy Makers Continue to Reinvent the Broken Wheel: Re-Grounding the Ontological and Epistemological Foundations of Educational Policy on Historical and Institutional Analysis." Paper presented at Association for the Study of Higher Education Conference, Indianapolis, IN, November 18-20, 2010. Josh M. Beach. “Race and the History of the American Junior College, with a Case Study of the California Junior College.” Paper presented at Council for the Study of Community Colleges, Seattle, WA, April 16 2010. Josh M. Beach. “The Community College as Structurally Limited Opportunity.” Paper presented at Sociology Week, California State University at Fullerton, Fullerton, CA, March 17 2010.
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Josh M. Beach. “The California Postsecondary Educational Commission and Institutional and Assessment, 1965 – 2002.” Paper presented at Council for the Study of Community Colleges, Annual Conference, Phoenix, AZ, April 2-4 2009. Josh M. Beach. “Institutional Assessment in California Community Colleges: A Historical Perspective.” Paper presented at Midwest History of Education Society Annual Conference, Chicago, IL, October 10-11, 2008.
Essays Josh M. Beach. “Requiem for the “College Idea”: Andrew Delbanco’s Beleaguered Defense of Liberal Arts Education.” The Journal of College Student Retention. In press 2014. Beth McMurtrie & Lara Farrar. (January 14, 2013). "Chinese Summer Schools Sell Quick Credits." Chronicle of Higher Education. (supporting research & main source for this article). J. M. Beach. “A Critique of Human Capital Formation in the U.S. and The Economic Returns to Sub-Baccalaureate Credentials.” Educational Studies: A Journal of the American Educational Studies Association, 45, no. 1 (2009): 24-38. J. M. Beach. “Ideology of the American Dream: Two Competing Philosophies in Education, 1776 – 2006,” Educational Studies: A Journal of the American Educational Studies Association, 41, no. 2 (2007): 148-64.
Books J. M. Beach. 21st Century Literacy: Reading, Writing & Critical Thinking. West by Southwest Press, 2013. Also published as interactive website www.21centurylit.org J. M. Beach. Academic Capitalism in China: Higher Education or Fraud? Southwest Press, 2013.
West by
J. M. Beach. Gateway to Opportunity? A History of the Community College in the United States. Sterling, VA: Stylus, 2011. J. M. Beach. Children Dying Inside: A Critical Analysis of Education in South Korea. Austin: West by Southwest Press, 2011. J. M. Beach. The Paradox of Progressivism, and Other Essays on History. Austin: West by Southwest Press, 2011. J. M. Beach. Dare to Know: A Philosophical Autobiography. Austin: West by Southwest Press, 2012.
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About the Author
J. M. Beach is currently a lecturer at the University of Texas, San Antonio and at Austin Community College. He has advanced degrees in English, History, Philosophy, and Education. He has been a teacher and educational administrator for over fifteen years. Beach has taught many subjects in the Humanities to a broad range of students, from preschool all the way to university, in public and private schools, in the U.S., South Korea, and China. Previously Beach was a Lecturer at Oregon State University, the University of California, Jinan University in Guangzhou, China, and at several community colleges in Southern California and Central Texas. As a social entrepreneur, Beach is engaged in educational reform by re-imagining the text st book. Besides his 21 Century Literacy project, he is currently working on other interactive textbooks that will be freely available on the web. Beach's scholarly research focuses on several distinct, but interrelated subjects: The philosophy of knowledge, the science of culture and social institutions, the history and philosophy of education, and literature. He is a member of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) and the National Council for the Teachers of English (NCTE), among other scholarly associations. Beach is also a published poet. Links to his books, articles, and conference papers can be found at his website at www.jmbeach.com. Follow his blogs at jmbeach.blogspot.com and st 21stcenturycanon.blogspot.com. View his open and interactive textbook 21 Century Literacy at www.21centurylit.org
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