I think that, in his article about conflicting goals in our educational system, David Labaree does a good job in describing the historical and social forces that are pushing and pulling at our school systems. Going on personal experience, I think that I have seen democratic equality and social efficiency play a part in what and how students are taught in public schools. I myself feel that I also used my high school career as an opportunity for social mobility. Not that it was, by any means, an elite school from which a diploma would mean something extra. However, while I was in high school, I used classes not so much as a means for gaining information but for getting good grades to put on college applications. According to Labaree, this could possibly mean that I didn’t get as much out of my time at school than I could have. But, is social mobility really the main problem for our schools? I think it is worth it to look over Labaree’s claims and evaluate this argument.
I have already mentioned one of the points Labaree makes, which is that a focus on social mobility decreases the value students actually put on learning. I think that this is a fairly accurate description of the effects of social mobility, since it does indeed promote extrinsic instead of intrinsic rewards. Not that the presence of a grading system will necessarily erase any and all intrinsic motivation for learning, but the presence of the other rewards, such as entrance into a certain college, certainly might. I don’t think that social mobility is the one and only reason for outside motivations to take over a learning experience- parental pressure or peer groups can also have an effect. However, these pressures could also come from social mobility goals on the part of others as well.
Labaree also blames the lower standards that have come to be the norm in our schools on the presence of social mobility goals. He says that schools are now promoting “an educational system that is willing to reward students with formal compliance with modest performance requirements rather than for demonstrating operational mastery of skills deemed politically and socially useful” (p. 56). Again, I would say that if people are merely using schools to get high grades that will reflect well on them, then this could definitely lead to lower standards as teachers struggle more and more with the low motivation to actually master content. There are other reasons, in my opinion, that could also add to this effect. One example would be standardized testing, since teachers may need to change what is expected of students so that they will score higher on tests. This brings the argument full circle, then, because standardized test scores are also a means through which students can gain access to more opportunities.
