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Ron Burk: Education is an Industry
Apr. 2nd, 2011 09:46 amHe's not saying anything terribly original here (education, after all, is just a token example of his overall rant that government is unproductive), just expressing what is now the winning framing of the problem of public education. This framing wins in the popular mind because it promises simple answers to complex problems and appeals to common sense. To grasp what's wrong with it, you have to take a step back and look at how the problem is being framed, which is a hard mental step for many.
To break out of framing, it's best to first locate an absurdity. For example, it sounds real reasonable when he says that if education had undergone a "productivity revolution" we would have half as many educators. OK, so instead of "half as many educators", why didn't he conclude that all our students would be completing high school at the age of 12? Or that our students would all be speaking twice as many languages when they graduated high school? Why does "half as many educators" sound reasonable, while learning twice as fast does not? It's because my absurd examples remind you that we're talking about real human kids, not industrial products.
It's hard to see how there could be any improvement in U.S. education while the problem is framed as it is. Note the framing implicit in the phrase "standardized achievement test scores". I could replace this phrase with "arbitrary test scores" and factually be talking about the same tests as him. You see, these standardized tests are indeed standardized, they're just not particularly rational tests. What do these tests measure? Well, to find out what a test measures, you have to have some (hopefully more objective) measure to compare it with. For example, you could compare the results of these tests with how much money the test taker earned later in life, how likely they were to never be in jail, how much taxes they paid, etc. If you could agree on what the goal of education is (which Moore implicitly assumes to be simply manufacturing a product -- a student with high test score), you could try to measure outcomes later in life, compare them to the test scores, and then start to learn whether the test had any relevance to those goals whatsoever. But you can't even have that conversation, since the problem is framed to assume that everyone agrees that "standardized achievement test scores" are objective and desirable measures of education.
Ron Burk: Education is an Industry
To break out of framing, it's best to first locate an absurdity. For example, it sounds real reasonable when he says that if education had undergone a "productivity revolution" we would have half as many educators. OK, so instead of "half as many educators", why didn't he conclude that all our students would be completing high school at the age of 12? Or that our students would all be speaking twice as many languages when they graduated high school? Why does "half as many educators" sound reasonable, while learning twice as fast does not? It's because my absurd examples remind you that we're talking about real human kids, not industrial products.
It's hard to see how there could be any improvement in U.S. education while the problem is framed as it is. Note the framing implicit in the phrase "standardized achievement test scores". I could replace this phrase with "arbitrary test scores" and factually be talking about the same tests as him. You see, these standardized tests are indeed standardized, they're just not particularly rational tests. What do these tests measure? Well, to find out what a test measures, you have to have some (hopefully more objective) measure to compare it with. For example, you could compare the results of these tests with how much money the test taker earned later in life, how likely they were to never be in jail, how much taxes they paid, etc. If you could agree on what the goal of education is (which Moore implicitly assumes to be simply manufacturing a product -- a student with high test score), you could try to measure outcomes later in life, compare them to the test scores, and then start to learn whether the test had any relevance to those goals whatsoever. But you can't even have that conversation, since the problem is framed to assume that everyone agrees that "standardized achievement test scores" are objective and desirable measures of education.
Ron Burk: Education is an Industry
It also badly frames the problems against the upper echelon of academic achievement. "No Child Left Behind" is often translated (especially by teachers) as "No Child Gets Ahead". The emphasis on the standardized test scores means in inherent lack of interest for the more intelligent kids out there because, well, they "ace" those tests without having to even think.
and so they stop working, out of sheer boredom. and then stop thinking.
and then they become serious problem underachievers (who still ace standardized tests), or worse, get incorrectly diagnosed with ADD when the reality is they're just bored shitless.
but that's beause "industry" doesn't create smart kids or great products. industry creates mass-reproducible products. *Craftsmanship* creates great products, and in the case of the intelligent, educated, child, it's a one-off. It can't be replicated a zillion times once it's done. It will cost the same amount for the next one.
But if you don't pay for the next one, there won't be a next one, because they'll have been lost in the hamburger grinder of Pink Floyd's The Wall.
