How to Succeed in School Without Really Learning: The Credentials Race in American Education

David F. Labaree

Published by Yale University Press 1997

How to Succeed in School Without Really Learning

The Credentials Race in American Education

David F. Labaree

https://doi.org/10.12987/9780300159448

Overview
Contents

About this book

Getting ahead and getting an education are inseparable in the minds of most Americans. David Labaree argues, however, that the connection between schooling and social mobility may be doing more harm than good, for the pursuit of educational credentials has come to take precedence over the acquisition of knowledge.

Labaree examines the competing intellectual and ideological traditions that have fought for dominance in our public schools from the nineteenth century to the present. He claims that by thinking of education primarily as the route to individual advancement, we are defining it as a private gooda means of gaining a competitive advantage over other people. He endorses an alternative vision, one that sees education as a public good, providing society with benefits that can be collectively sharedfor example, by producing citizens who are politically responsible and workers who are economically productive. He points out that when education is seen primarily as a private consumer good, a number of consequences follow. Formal characteristics of schoolinggrades, credits, and degreescome to assume greater weight than substantive characteristics, such as actually learning something. Grading becomes more important for its social consequences than for its pedagogical uses. For these and other reasons, the pursuit of certification and degrees takes precedence over the goals of learning, and the private benefits of schooling take precedence over its democratic and civic functions.

Author / Editor information

Labaree David F. :

David F. Labaree, associate professor of education at Michigan State University, is also the author of The Making of an American High School.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
1 Public Schools for Private Advantage: Conflicting Goals and the Impact on Education Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	15
2 The Social Meaning of Student Promotion and Retention Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	53
3 Raising Standards in the American High School: Why the Good Old Days Are Not Much Help Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	75
4 The Middle Class and the High School Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	92
5 The Carnegie Cult of Social Efficiency: An Exceptional Report That Proves the Rule Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	110
6 Rethinking the Movement to Professionalize Teaching Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	129
7 Career Ladders and the Early Schoolteacher Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	160
8 The Rise of the Community College: Markets and the Limits of Educational Opportunity Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	190
9 The Lowly Status of Education Schools Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	223
10 Schooling Consumers and Consuming the School Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	250
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	263
References Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	293
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	313

Language: English
Publisher: Yale University Press
Pages
- Main content: 334

eBook

Published: October 1, 2008
ISBN: 9780300159448