Characteristics of American Education System

A. Education as a Conserving Force

1. The avowed function of schools is to teach the attitudes, values, roles, information, and training necessary for the maintenance of society.
2. There is an explicit or implicit assumption in U.S. schools that the American way is the only right way.
3. School texts rarely discuss internal struggles or the racist history of the U.S.

B. Mass Education

1. People in the U.S. have a basic faith in education.
2. A democratic society requires an educated citizenry so that individuals can participate in the decisions of public policy.
3. As a result of the goal of mass education, an increasing proportion of people have received an education throughout U.S. history.

C. Local Control of Education

1. The majority of money and control for education comes from local communities.
2. There is a general fear of centralization of education.
3. Local school boards believe they know best the special needs of their children.
4. There are several problems within having a system of local boards:

---a. Local tax monies that finance schools are dependent on local tax bases that vary by class.
---b. People who are dissatisfied with high taxes will vote down taxes to help schools.
---c. Typically local school boards do not represent all segments of their community.
---d. School boards may be controlled by the religious views of the majority.
---e. There is a lack of curriculum standardization across the nation’s 15,367 school districts.

------1) This leads to a wide variation in the preparation of students.
------2) There is also a wide variation of requirements when a child moves from one school district to another. On average, people move once every five years.

---f. Vouchers are also a problem because they set up an educational “free market” that creates competition for students.

D. Competitive Nature of U.S. Education

1. Schools in a highly competitive society are likely to be highly competitive themselves.
2. Throughout different aspects of school, such as academics, clubs, and sports, students learns two lessons:

---a. Your classmates are enemies because if they succeed, it is at your expense.
---b. You had better not fail. Fear of failure becomes a greater motivator than intellectual curiosity or love of knowledge.

E. “Sifting and Sorting” Functions of Schools

1. School performance sorts out those who will occupy the higher and lower rungs in the occupational-prestige ladder.
2. Sorting is done with respect to two criteria: a child’s ability and her/his social class background.
3. “Tracking” is the placing of students in curricula consistent with expectations for occupations

F. Preoccupation with Order and Control

1. Schools are organized around constraints of individual freedom.
2. The clock regiments the school day.
3. Some schools demand conformity in dress codes.
4. Teachers are rated on how quiet and orderly their classrooms are.
5. Some profound paradoxes are created based on order and control in education

---a. Formal education encourages creativity but curbs creative individuals
---b. Formal education encourages the open mind but teaches dogma.
---c. Formal education talks of meeting individual needs but encourages conformity.
---d. Formal education wants students to reach their potential, but fosters competition that causes some students to be labeled as failures.
---e. Formal education is based on a meritocracy but systematically benefits certain groups of people regardless of their talent.

G. Hidden Curriculum

1. Non-academic values, norms, beliefs, and attitudes.
2. Teaches children discipline, order, cooperativeness, and conformity.
3. Skills thought necessary to assist students to fit into modern bureaucratic society.
4. Children learning “their place” in the larger work-a-day world.