Category: Schooling

Schooling the Meritocracy: How Schools Came to Democratize Merit, Formalize Achievement, and Naturalize Privilege

by David Labaree, posted in Credentialing, Featured, Higher Education, Meritocracy, Schooling

This is an essay about the historical construction of the American meritocracy, which is to say the new American aristocracy based on academic credentials.  Here's a link to the original, which was published 2020 in Bildungsgeschichte: International Journal of the Historiography of Education.   An overview of the argument: Modern systems of public schooling have transformed … Continue reading Schooling the Meritocracy: How Schools Came to Democratize Merit, Formalize Achievement, and Naturalize Privilege

Levinson and Markovitz — The Biggest Disruption in the History of American Education

by David Labaree, posted in Inequality, Pandemic, Public Good, Schooling

This post is a piece by Meira Levinson and Daniel Markovitz that was published recently in Atlantic.  Here's a link to the original. It's an astute analysis of the harmful effects of the pandemic on American schooling.  They argue that only part of the damage was done by school closures.  A lot of the harm … Continue reading Levinson and Markovitz — The Biggest Disruption in the History of American Education

Educational Consumerism: Bad for Schools

by David Labaree, posted in Consumerism, Private good, Public Good, Schooling

This is an op-ed I published in the Detroit News way back in 1998.  It captures a key part of the argument about educational consumerism that I developed in my second book, How to Succeed in Schools Without Really Learning. Educational Consumerism: Bad for Schools  by David F. Labaree We hear a lot these days … Continue reading Educational Consumerism: Bad for Schools

Intrepid Middle-Class Parents Embark On Daring Search For Mythical Perfect School District

by David Labaree, posted in Family, Meritocracy, Schooling

This classic piece is from The Onion in 2014.  Here's a link to the original. Intrepid Middle-Class Parents Embark On Daring Search For Mythical Perfect School District 3/19/14 12:01PM The Lindens believe the school district of lore, which is said to prepare every pupil for college success and boast a state-of-the-art digital media lab, is … Continue reading Intrepid Middle-Class Parents Embark On Daring Search For Mythical Perfect School District

Public Schooling as Social Welfare

by David Labaree, posted in Democracy, History of education, Schooling, Welfare

Below is a piece I wrote for a book that was just published by Teachers College Press -- Public Education: Defending a Cornerstone of American Democracy, edited by David Berliner and Carl Hermanns.   Here’s a link to a pdf of my piece. Here's the book's table of contents, to give you an idea of its scope … Continue reading Public Schooling as Social Welfare

Two Cheers for School Bureaucracy

by David Labaree, posted in Featured, Inequality, Organization Theory, Schooling

This post is a piece I wrote for Kappan, published in the March 2020 edition.  Here’s a link to the PDF. Bureaucracies are often perceived as inflexible, impersonal, hierarchical, and too devoted to rules and red tape. But here I make a case for these characteristics being a positive in the world of public education. U.S. schools are … Continue reading Two Cheers for School Bureaucracy

Malcolm Gladwell on What an IQ Test Really Measures

by David Labaree, posted in Intelligence, Meritocracy, Modernity, Schooling

This post is a 2007 piece by Malcolm Gladwell published in the New Yorker.  Here's a link to the original. In this piece, the author does a full Gladwell.  He runs through the social science literature about a topic around an intriguing interpretive angle.  Here the issue is to figure out what IQ really measures. … Continue reading Malcolm Gladwell on What an IQ Test Really Measures

Karl Marx — The Fetishism of Commodities

by David Labaree, posted in Credentialing, Meritocracy, Schooling, Theory

This post is a classic piece by Karl Marx, "The Fetishism of Commodities and the Secret Thereof."  It's the last section of the first chapter in Capital, volume 1. This analysis had a big impact on me when I first read it in grad school, and it has shaped a lot of my own work.  … Continue reading Karl Marx — The Fetishism of Commodities