Power
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PLAYERS IN THE SCHOOL GAME
FIRST CATEGORY: Government Agencies
1) State legislatures, particularly those
politicians known in-house to specialize in
educational matters
2) Ambitious politicians with high public
visibility
3)
Big-city school boards controlling lucrative contracts
4) The courts
5)
Big-city departments of education
6) State departments of education
8) Other government agencies (National Science
Foundation, National Training
Laboratories, Defense Department, HUD, Labor Department, Health and
Human Services, and many more)
SECOND
CATEGORY: Active Special Interests
1) Key
private foundations.
2.)
About a dozen of these curious entities have been the most important shapers of national education
policy in this century, particularly those of
Carnegie, Ford, and Rockefeller.
2) Giant corporations, acting through a private association called the
Business Roundtable (BR), latest
manifestation of a series of such associations dating back to the turn of the century. Some evidence of the
centrality of business in the school mix was the composition of the New American Schools
Development Corporation. Its makeup of
eighteen members (which the uninitiated might assume would be drawn from
a representative cross-section of
parties interested in the shape of American schooling) was heavily weighted as follows: CEO, RJR
Nabisco; CEO, Boeing; President, Exxon; CEO,
AT&T; CEO, Ashland Oil; CEO, Martin Marietta; CEO, AMEX; CEO,
Eastman Kodak; CEO, WARNACO; CEO,
Honeywell; CEO, Ralston; CEO, Arvin; Chairman, BF Goodrich; two ex-governors, two publishers, a
TV producer.
3) The United Nations through UNESCO, the
World Health Organization, UNICEF, etc.
4) Other private associations, National
Association of Manufacturers, Council on
Economic Development, the Advertising Council, Council on Foreign
Relations, Foreign Policy Association,
etc.
5)
Professional unions, National Education Association, American Federation
of Teachers, Council of Supervisory
Associations, etc.
6)
Private educational interest groups, Council on Basic Education,
Progressive Education Association,
etc.
7)
Single-interest groups: abortion activists, pro and con; other advocates
for specific interests.
THIRD
CATEGORY: The "Knowledge" Industry
1)
Colleges and universities
2)
Teacher training colleges
3)
Researchers
4)
Testing organizations
5)
Materials producers (other than print)
6) Text publishers
7)
"Knowledge" brokers, subsystem designers
Control of the educational enterprise is
distributed among at least these twenty-two
players, each of which can be subdivided into in-house warring factions
which further remove the decision-making
process from simple accessibility. The financial interests of these associational voices are served whether
children learn to read or not.
There is little accountability. No matter
how many assertions are made to the contrary,
few penalties exist past a certain level on the organizational chart —
unless a culprit runs afoul of the media
— an explanation for the bitter truth whistle-blowers regularly discover when they tell all. Which explains why
precious few experienced hands care to ruin
themselves to act the hero. This is not to say sensitive, intelligent,
moral, and concerned individuals aren't
distributed through each of the twenty-two categories, but the conflict of interest is so glaring between serving a
system loyally and serving the public that it is finally overwhelming. Indeed, it isn't hard
to see that in strictly economic terms this
edifice of competing and conflicting interests is better served by badly
performing schools than by successful
ones. On economic grounds alone a disincentive exists to improve schools. When schools are bad,
demands for increased funding and personnel,
and professional control removed from public oversight, can be pressed
by simply pointing to the perilous state
of the enterprise. But when things go well, getting an extra buck is like pulling teeth.
Some of this political impasse grew
naturally from a maze of competing interests, some grew from more cynical calculations with
exactly the end in mind we see, but whatever
the formative motives, the net result is virtually impervious to
democratically generated change. No
large change can occur in-system without a complicated coalition of
separate interests backing it, not one
of which can actually be a primary advocate for children and parents.
2. "Ellen Condliffe Lagemann's Private
Power for the Public Good (Wesleyan, 1986) is an excellent place to start to
experience what Bernard Bailyn meant
when he said that twentieth-century schooling troubled many high-minded people.
Miss Lagemann is a high-minded woman,
obviously troubled by what she discovered poking around one of the
Carnegie endowments, and director of Harvard's Graduate Education School.
The pages devoted to Rockefeller's General Education Board in Collier
and Horowitz's The Rockefellers: An American Dynasty make a good simple introduction to another private
endowment which ultimately will repay a deeper look; also, the pages on true
believer Frederick T. Gates, the man who
actually directed the spending of Rockefeller's money, bear close attention as
well. For a sharp look at how foundations
shape our ideology, I recommend Philanthropy and Cultural Imperialism: The
Foundations at Home and Abroad, and for
a hair-raising finale Rene Wormser's Foundations: Their Power and Influence is
essential. Wormser was a general counsel for
the House Committee which set out to investigate tax-exempt
organizations during the eighty-third Congress. Its stormy course and
hair-raising disclosures are guaranteed
to remove any lingering traces of innocence about the conduct of American
education, international affairs, or what
are called "the social sciences." Miss Lagemann's bibliography
will lead you further, if needed.
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