ࡱ> jli5@ ]bjbj22 }XXU'TTTd,L/,|d" ,!.!.!.!Ky!y(y/$$1Rv3R///xxx0,!x,!xx   8B TP ,!/0/ 3@(3 .3 4x//dThTAmerica is a meritocracy in name only. While opportunity is more equal than in aristocracies, it is still far from merit-based. The last half-century has seen an assault on race, gender, and age-based barriers to equal opportunity, but the playing field upon which Americans compete is still a steep hill, not a level playing field. Robert Fuller, The Myth of Meritocracy,2003 In the U.S., cultural diversity and democracy will, to a degree, always be in conflict with each other. A democracy challenges diverse groups (Blacks, Latinos, Asians, women, homosexuals, et al.) within a society because it implies equality, common goals, and cooperation. Diversity, on the other hand, pushes a democracy to its limits of trust and forces it to honor its rhetoric by demanding an equal , social, political and economic voice while supporting separate cultural identities. Due to, as Wood (1988) described as"democracy's essentially fluid character"(p. 166), the United States will always struggle to find a balance between acceptance of the social order and the democratic empowerment which implies the freedom to recreate society. In The American School, Joel Spring (2001) advocates for a meritocratic society that is blind to rewarding or providing special attention to individuals based upon cultural diversity, but rather a society that is based on the idea that each individuals social and occupational position is determined by individual merit, not political or economic influence(Spring, pg.287). In the following, through a historical critique of the Social Efficiency movement, I will attempt to demonstrate how the concept of meritocracy is failing our schools sytem. Social Efficiency as Meritocratic From the Progressive theories of Dewey and Hall, to Counts and Social Meliorism, our educational system has shifted throughout the years and has undergone reformation, time and time again. During the heyday of Social Efficiency, schools were portrayed to produce students who were groomed for the work or better known as, the real world. During this era, students often heard teachers telling students that they must perform efficiently, in order succeed, in and out of the classroom. Currently, students are demanded to do the same. They are receiving a quantitative education, an abundance of material compressed into a small pedantic box. Students are being trained to produce economically, not academically. The state invests in ones education in order for one to become an efficiently productive individual, producing capital for the economy in exchange.. The Social Efficiency approach is blanketed by meritocratic tenets. Its primary goals are to produce the most efficient individuals and eliminate and educational waste. Lawson and Garrod (2003) state, "Social Efficiency and meritocracy are one in the same. They are inextricably linked .(p.87). They are social systems in which rewards and occupational positions are allocated justly on the basis of merit, rather than ascriptive factors such as class, gender, ethnic group or wealth. It is often claimed that modern industrial societies are more meritocratic than in the past, and that the education systems in such societies are also meritocratic. Educational waste is attainment of a subject one does not need in order to become an efficient and productive person in society. In other words it is felt to be morally and politically just to have a meritocracy and that industry could not afford wastage of talent. As argued in Kleibards (1995) The Struggle for the American Curriculum, the key ingredient in social efficiency was efficiency itself (pg. 81). Many of the founding fathers of social efficiency thought that efficiency was the correct way to promote social stability for social change and it had the backing of science to insure it. Edward A. Ross and Franklin Bobbitt were supporters of social efficiency. In The Curriculum, Bobbitt (1918) provided a concise definition of social efficiency: The central theory is simple. Human life, however varied, consists in the performance of specific activities. Education that prepares for life is one that prepares definitely and adequately for these specific activities. However numerous and diverse they may be for any social class, they can be discovered. This requires only that one go out into the world of affairs and discover the particulars of which these affairs consist. These will show the abilities, attitudes, habits, appreciations, and forms of knowledge that men need. These will be the objectives of the curriculum. They will be numerous, definite, and particularized. The curriculum will then be that series of experiences which children and youth must have by way of attaining those objectives (Kliebard p.99). Bobbitt's succinct definition made social efficiency clear to educators. Individuals are to perform a single task, but be great at it. Taylor uses the factories analogy to describe social efficiency. He asserts that the key to social efficiency is when performing any complex task, break it down and make it so simple for the workers that minimal error occurs and production increases. Similar to schools today through standardization and Open Court, are we not mimicking the Social Efficiency approach? Is todays academic climate not reminiscent of social efficiency with its political thrust of standardization and Open Court imbedded in our failing public school systems? According to the Social Efficiency approach, schools should educate individuals in certain areas and that would be their specific areas of expertise. They would become efficient in their own field. To learn anything else would be a waste. In J. Abner Peddiwells (1939) article The Saber-Tooth Curriculum, "the children of the tribe would practiced systematically in the three fundamentals; the tribe prospered and was happy" (p.8). This is very evocative of social efficiency and meritocracy provided in their theories everything is systematic and everyone performs and is solely responsible for his or her own duty. It is a team of interdependence. They rely on one another to do the best they can and produce adequate consumption for the group. Concerning todays organization of schools, another question comes to mind. If the state is relying on our children to produce adequate consumption for the group, who then, is truly benefitting from the production state, schools, mega-corporations, etc? Although social efficiency may appear as a great way to educate the mass, theoretical speaking, other schools of thought has contrasting views and witnessed flaws in its theory. Social Meliorist George S. Counts labeled social efficiency as, an efficiency without purpose, and efficiency of motion(Kliebard p. 162). Social efficiency does not and has not promoted any social purpose. However, social efficiency believes in generating efficient human beings. This school of thought has a contrastive view than Dewey and social meliorism. The different schools of thought all have a different approach when it concerns the concept of the social. Social efficiency advocates for social change, but in a different way than social meliorism. Bobbitt never gave any thought to how the social efficiency curriculum can help social progress. According to Bobbitt (1918), As agencies of social progress, schools should give efficient service. And efficient service, we are nowadays coming to know, is service directed, not by guess or whim or special self-interest, but by science" (Kliebard p. 101). This is apparent in present public schools today, where as teachers, we are forced to simplify our lessons and pedagogy, all in the name of efficiency, focusing on the group and not the individual student. Every subject is not a science, as asserted by Bobbitt. What about subjects inclusive of topics concerning race class, gender, sexual orientation that may arise during courses? There are some issues that may be approximated and may not be known facts; So should schools only depend on scientific analysis in their curriculum? With Social Efficiency, one is only concerned with performing efficiently whether it has potential for social change or not(Kliebard, p103). Nevertheless, Social Efficiency did believe in some form of social control. For Ross, he welcomed the idea that the child is in the hands of the teacher, "because it's a way to curb any anti-social tendencies" (Kliebard p. 81). He was not the first to use school as a form of social control. On the other hand, the social meliorist curriculum wanted new content, directly out of the problems, issues and characteristics of our changing society. Social meliorists believed that education could be used as an instrument for social progress. Similar to the critical pedagogy and multicultural approach of today, individuals needed to become more aware of the social vices that bound them by developing critical thinking. Social meliorists also advocated for social planning. They wanted some way to mediate the social evils such as capitalism and social institutions that created inequality. Meliorists wanted to curb inequality and raise social consciousness. One of KliebardS (1995) critiques of efficiency education was that it never questioned social issues, such as race, class, and gender inequalities. Furthermore, this theory never questioned how race and culture further created inequalities among different ethnicities of people. Oppositions to Meritocracy In 2001, President George W. Bush signed into law the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, better known as No Child Left Behind (NCLB). Since then, high-stakes testing has been officially embraced by many and positioned to be the panacea of academic under-achievement in public schools throughout the United States. The NCLB begets an unheard of transfer of power to federal and state governments, granting them the rights to largely determine the goals and outcomes of these educational institutions. It is ironic, to say the least, that this social movement has emanated from a political party that in the not so distant past called for dismantling the federal Department of Education altogether. As a direct result of this new conservative agenda, school administrators, teachers, communities, and parents are stripped of any substantive decision-making power in the nation's public schools. Under pressure to produce results on these standardized tests, or face the consequences of cuts in federal resources and funding, school closure, and in some cases law suits, many school administrators have been forced to drastically narrow their curriculum and cut back on anything and everything that is perceived as not contributing to raising test scores. In many cases, this includes the elimination of "two-way bilingual education programs, critical thinking, reading for enjoyment, cross-disciplinary studies, art, music, citizenship and community service programs, physical and health education, and last, but not least, multicultural curricula" (Berlak, 2003, pp. 7-8). Within this One size fits all' standards approach to schooling, the multifarious voices and needs of culturally diverse, low-income, racially subordinated, and linguistic-minority students are simply neglected. Embracing what is in fact an old neo-liberal approach dressed up as innovative reform, proponents of this meritocratic, economic-driven educational model make use of words and phrases like equity, efficiency, and the enhancement of global competitiveness, to continue to sell to the public its agenda, without considering race, class, or gender. In California, Governor Arnold Schwartzenegger is currently following the meritocratic trend of conservative policymakers by proposing The Excellence in Teaching Act which challenges current educational programs and argues for an end to tenure and merit pay for California teachers. In his State of the State address Schwartzenegger (2004) argued: ADVANCE \d4We must financially reward good teachers and expel those who are not. The more we reward excellent teachers, the more our teachers will be excellent. The more we tolerate ineffective teachers, the more our teachers will be ineffective. So, in the special session, I propose that teacher pay be tied to merit, not tenure. And I propose that teacher employment be tied to performance, not to just showing up (2004). Mirroring meritocracy, Schwarzeneggers proposal is extremely detrimental, not only to the teachers, but students of urban public schools as well. However, the concern that motivates this paper is that the architects of the new educational standards and high-stakes tests have not simultaneously held state and local school systems accountable to ensuring that traditionally disenfranchised populations receive the support they need to make passing the tests as likely as it is for their more fortunate white counterparts. Equality of opportunity is typically mentioned in the reform documents that have framed the excellence movement, but in the absence of sustained attention one can conclude that it is mainly lip-service. ADVANCE \d4 In The Tyranny of the Majority, Lani Guinier (1998) poses these questions, Who do we think we're socially and academically benefitting using these alleged "merit" assessments of student.teacher performance? On what basis do we consider this "merit"? What happened to the ideals of education as an right, not a reward? Guinier asks all the right questions on this big, complicated, and all-too-easily-misunderstood issue of meritocracy in schools. She further explains some myths associated with meritocracy in schools. Guiner (1998) explains: ADVANCE \d4There are many myths about meritocracy floating about our nation. Lies interwoven in the hegemonic ideologies of conservative minds. Some of these myths include the following; 1) attachment to merit as objective, separate idea; it's connected to individual effort; 2) diversity is opposed to and departed from merit -- so we don't want to talk about it, or related categories: geography, class, gender- so race gets used to explain class, because talking class runs counter to "American Dream"(p77). Race has been, and remains, one of the more intriguing paradoxes of American society. As a nation, the United States has explicitly and implicitly subscribed to racial hierarchies for the past four centuries (Horsman, 1981; Omi & Winant, 1986). DuBois (1903) notions that the preeminent problem of the 20th century would be the color line, and that is more evident today. An examination of school achievement along racial lines underscores clear racial divisions about who is truly benefiting from meritocracy in schools and who is not. For example, African American and Latino students. The two groups represent the largest ethnic minority groups in U.S. schools. Yet the academic underachievement and drop out rate of many African American and Latino students has been abysmal for decades. Academically, a majority of African American students fall behind grade-level competence in core subject areas such as reading, math, science, and social studies (NCES, 1998, 2000). Latino students fare slightly better than African American students, but they have an unacceptable dropout rate that has remained near 30% over the past three decades and shows, no sign of improving (NCES, 1998, 2000). The persistent school failure of an increasing number of racially diverse students should prompt mainstream educators to ask the difficult, yet obvious question: What role, if any, does meritocracys repudiation of race, class, and gender have to do with the widespread underachievement of non-mainstream students? Thus, the need to rethink pedagogical practices is critical if underachieving student populations are to have improved chances for academic success. Educators need to understand that racially diverse students frequently bring cultural capital to the classroom that is oftentimes drastically different from mainstream norms and worldviews. Bourdieu (1973) discusses cultural capital as a form of cultural transmission that individuals acquire from their given social structure. Cultural capital embodies the norms, social practices, ideologies, language, and behavior that are part of a given context. Thus, if students come from a home or social structure in which the cultural capital places a high value on their non-English, native language, they may be at an extreme disadvantage in many U.S. schools that frequently give considerable privilege to students whose primary language is English. Bourdieu argues that many times education systems institute "pedagogic action," which requires a familiarization with the dominant culture and all its beliefs, behaviors, and ideals. Conclusion The schism that exists between students who are familiar with dominant or mainstream cultural capital and those who are not may explain some of the academic discrepancy among students from diverse backgrounds. The racial and cultural incongruence between students and mainstream educators may be another factor that explains the extremely elevated school failure of students of color. Along with meritocracy, mainstream teaching practices and thought must be re-conceptualized in a manner that recognizes and respects the intricacies of cultural, racial, class and gender difference. Educators must construct critical pedagogical practices in ways that are culturally relevant, racially affirming, and socially meaningful for their students. In summary, it should be clear that race, class and gender have always and continue to matter in an increasingly racially diverse society. More importantly, many patterns of success and failure in U.S. schools have obvious racial ramifications based on based on the impossibility of meritocracy in schools, that cannot and should not be ignored. Thus, it is crucial that educators challenge the meritocratic approach by beginning to think critically about their perceptions of racially and economically diverse students. Bibliography ADVANCE \d4Amrein, A.L. & Berliner, D.C. (2002, March 28). High-stakes testing, uncertainty, and student learning Education Policy Analysis Archives, 10(18). Retrieved [date] from http://epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v10n18/ ADVANCE \d4Berlak, H (2003) Race and the achievement gap: Using standardized tests to measure achievement perpetuates a system of institutionalized racism and lends the cloak of science to discriminatory practices. Rethinking Schools Online. Retrieved on April 20, 2005 ADVANCE \d4Bobbitt, F. (1918) The Curriculum, Boston: Houghton Mifflin Dewey, J. (1938). Experience and Education. New York: Macmillan Dewey, J. (1916). Democracy and Education. New York: The Free Press, a division of Macmillan. Du Bois, W. E. B. (1989) The souls of black folk. New York: Penguin Books. Fuller, R. (2003). The Myth of Meritocracy. New York: Praeger Press. Kliebard, H. (1995). The struggle for the American curriculum 1893-1958. 2nd edition. Boston And London; Routledge and Kegan Paul. ADVANCE \d4Kliebard , . (1997). Forging the American Curriculum. New York: Routledge. Kozol, J. (1991). Savage inequalities. New York: Harper Perrenial. ADVANCE \d4Lawson, T. & Garrod, J. (2003). A-Z: A Sociology Workbook. London: Hougton and Sloughter. Leonardo, Z. (2003). Ideology, discourse, and school reform. Westport, CT: Praeger. ADVANCE \d4Louis, K.B., & Miles, M.B. (1990). Improving the urban high school: What works and why. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Madsen, J. (1992) Educational Reform at the State Level: The Politics and Problems of Implementation. London: Falmer. McLaren, P. (1989). On ideology and education. In H. Giroux and P. McLaren (Eds.), Critical pedagogy, the state, and cultural struggle (pp. 174-202). New York: SUNY Press. McLaren, P. (1991). Critical pedagogy: Constructing an arch of social dreaming and a doorway to hope. The Sociology of Education in Canada, 173(1), 137-160. McLaren, P. (1991). Culture or canon? Critical pedagogy and the politics of literacy. Harvard Educational Review, 58(2), 213-234. McLaren, P. (1998). Life in schools. New York, Reading, MA, Menlo Park, CA, Harlow, England, Don Mills, Ontario, Sydney, Mexico City, Madrid, Amsterdam: Longman. McLaren, P. and Farahmandpur, R. (2000). Critical multiculturalism and globalization: Transgressive pedagogues in Gringolandia, cueste lo que cueste. Introduction to C. Tejeda, C. Martinez, and Z. Leonardo (Eds.), Charting new terrains of Chicana(o)/Latina(o) education (pp. 1-31). Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press. Pediwell, J.A. (1939). Saber tooth curriculum. New York: Mcgraw-Hill ADVANCE \d4Omi, M. & Winant, H. (1994). Racial Formation in the United States New York: Routledge. Sleeter, C. (1995). Reflections on my use of multicultural and critical pedagogy when students are white. In C. Sleeter and P. McLaren (Eds.), Multicultural education, critical pedagogy, and the politics of difference (pp. 415-437). Albany: SUNY Press. Spring, J. (2001). The American School, 5th ed. White Plains: Longman Inc. Schwartzeneggers State of the State address. (2004). Excellence in Teaching Act. 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