"Taylorized" School Systems

“Taylorized” School Systems

                One of the things that stood out the most to me in this passage was the fact that the school systems in America have been gradually but efficiently turned into a corporate dominated, standardized education system. This pretty much goes hand in hand with what Professor Ken Robinson was saying in his video on changing education paradigms. It seems that students are being sent to school to learn in a sort of “assembly line” pattern. The article talks about how students in early elementary and middle school classes do very little learning of material and curriculum, but yet learn mostly to endure a “behavioral modification” that prepares them to enter the work force. The passage says it prepares them for “routinization and standardization.”   This also ties directly into what Mr. Robinson was saying about how most students who go through the routine of public education will wind up with un-skilled, dead end jobs.  It seems that most jobs nowadays require less and less formal education.

I also found the part in the passage about the children who attend the elite private schools across the nation and what kind of Americans they usually produce.  Schools that cost around thirty thousand dollars a year to attend and that serve as sort of a ‘red carpet’ into Ivy League schools.  It’s scary how the school systems are more corrupt then most people are aware of. The school systems around the country are beginning to show similarities to the job market in the sense that they show signs of increasing signs of inequality and degradation. 

                Another alarming idea pointed out in this passage was the comparison between the economy and the educational system.  This is yet another point that goes along with what Dr. Ken Robinson argued in his video on changing education paradigms.  Ever since the 70’s the nation’s real economic growth has dropped. Total government spending on education from grades K-12 had gradually risen every year up until the 1970’s, but every decade since then, government funding has gradually dropped.  Funding also became more centralized at the state level in the mid 80’s due to a wide-spread property tax revolt.  Also, the percentage of children living in poverty had rose to almost 30 percent by the early 90’s while the percentage of children living in extreme poverty rose to over 40 percent. With the increasing number of children living in poverty, more children are coming to public schools, bringing with them more pressing needs which leads to greater strains on already depleted public school resources. 

                This article as well as Dr. Ken Robinson’s video continue to prove just how crazy and screwed up our public education systems continue to become. It’s a scary topic that has been an issue for many decades now, but still has yet to be formally addressed and dealt with. Political and economic corruption have found their way into our schools and until there are some serious changes made, things aren’t looking any better for the future of our country.