Why We Will Lose: Taylorism in America's High Schools

Author(s): Kenneth Gray

The new economic order requires all workers to be a part of the team, Mr. Gray reminds us.
Developing this point of view among our young people begins by making all of them feel a part
of the first large organization with which they are associated - namely, their school.
AMERICANS are competi
tive by nature. Most of us
share a distaste for losing.
Of course, the greatest hu
miliation is losing interna
tional competitions. Yet, despite our ob
session with being number one, we seem
to be losing the grandest and most im
portant of all world-class events. This
event has higher stakes than the Olym
pics. Admission tickets are not sold be
cause everyone is on the team. The out
come does not appear in the sports pages
but shows up on our paychecks. The
event being described is the internation
al competition for world markets. The
KENNETH GRAYis the professor in charge
of vocational and industrial education at
Pennsylvania State University, University
Park, Pa.
370 PHI DELTA KAPPAN Illustration by Mario Nche
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size of our trade deficit is our losing
score.
It may be inevitable that America will
lose the race for international markets;
at least, that is the prediction of Japa
nese industrialist Konosuke Matsushita.
"America will lose," says Matsushita, be
cause its people are infected with a dis
ease of the brain. He calls this disease
'Taylorism."' Embedded in the philoso
phy of social Darwinism, Taylorism is
the belief that both the preordained nat
ural order and the maximization of prof
its dictate that the fittest should man
age as benevolent dictators and that the
rest should work. The former should do
the thinking while the latter follow di
rections; consultations between the two
groups are discouraged, since these in
teractions threaten the authority (if not
the bloated paychecks) of the managing
class.
Is Matsushita correct? The literature on
Total Quality Management (TQM) sug
gests that he is. Phillip Richards argues,
for example, that in American industry
the worker and the customer are typical
ly the last to be considered.2 Despite
talk about participatory management, lit
tle has changed in most companies. The
question is whether anything can be done
about it. Can this disease that Matsushi
ta calls Taylorism be cured? The answer
to this question lies in the genesis of Tay
lorism. Where are the elitist attitudes of
Taylorism learned? For one possible an
swer, most of us need only remember our
own high school days and how we, as
students, treated one another.
IN WITH THE 'IN CROWIY
Many of the lasting attitudes and be
haviors learned in high school seem to
contradict the curriculum. For example,
teens are taught in class that rushing
through a meal is unhealthy. Yet even the
most recalcitrant students learn quickly
that they had better eat lunch in 20 min
utes or go hungry. Similarly, students are
taught that the U.S. was founded on the
principle that all individuals are created
equal. They learn from experience, how
ever, that at least in school some of their
peers are apparently more equal than
others.
One predictable characteristic of every
high school in the country is the existence
of an officially identified and certified
"in crowd" of students. This "in crowd,"
anointed and honored by teachers, school
administrators, school boards, school pol
icies, and the public, is made up of those
blessed with varying combinations of in
tellectual skills, interpersonal skills, ath
letic prowess, and middle-class values.
These students are elected by the faculty
to the National Honor Society. They are
honored at awards assemblies, where
they typically receive "all" the awards.
They can wander the corridors without
being harassed by teachers. They are en
rolled in honors courses, where they are
taught by the best teachers in the smallest
classes. Their status as superior is en
sured by special discriminatory policies
such as weighted grading systems, in
which courses taken by the in crowd
count more than other courses for class
standing. The in crowd is referred to as
the country's future leaders. Leaders of
whom? Those less blessed - the remain
ing students who are taught by the same
system that they are inferior, that their
opinions do not count, and that they are
destined to be subordinates.
The less blessed, the "out crowd," are
often given demeaning labels by their
loftier peers, and educators do little to
discourage the practice. Open hostility -
hostility that sometimes has class, racial,
and ethnic overtones - often erupts be
tween the two groups. The intellectually
blessed learn to look down on the less en
dowed, while the less gifted learn to de
spise the gifted and dream of chances to
get even with their "stuck-up" classmates.
The critical point is that both groups
carry these attitudes from high school in
to the work force. The relationships that
develop in high school between the in
tellectually and socially gifted students
and those less blessed mirror exactly the
Taylorist relationships that American
industries are seeking to eliminate. It
should come as no surprise that Ameri
can industrialists seem to have an uphill
battle ahead. If the Taylorist disease de
scribed by Matsushita is to be cured, the
remedy must begin in the schools.
TAYLORISM IN THE SCHOOLS
In all fairness to Frederick Winslow
Taylor (1856-1915), father of scientific
management, it should be stated that he
may have been one of the very first to
lecture that dictatorial managerial meth
Every high
school in America
has an officially
identified and
certified "in
crowd" of students.
ods were inefficient and that close co
operation between owners and workers
was the secret to greater profits and less
labor strife. Unfortunately -and perhaps
not surprisingly - the management ide
ology that developed later ignored this
important part of Taylor's message and
instead emphasized his view that scien
tific management required "men of brains
. . . to organize and direct the operation
of our enterprises, for without them civ
ilization would come crashing down."3
Managers were to assume "all burden of
gathering the traditional knowledge which
in the past has been possessed by the
workmen and then classifying, tabulating,
and reducing this knowledge to rules,
laws, and formulas."4 The message that
survived was that management was an in
creasingly complex science that required
managers of high intellect. Conversely,
it became less important for workers to
have any intellect at all; their role was
simply to follow the laws and rules es
tablished by the managers. Thus those of
high intellect would/should be managers
and were, therefore, inherently more im
portant to the economic well-being of the
country than those less blessed intellec
tually and socially.
The division of labor implied by scien
tific management quickly became a fun
damental paradigm that structured the ex
pectations educators had for the increas
ingly diverse student population that en
tered the schools at the turn of the cen
tury.5 Indeed, it is still a part of the con
ventional wisdom held by most educa
tors, school boards, and citizens and is
implicitly taught to the children in their
charge. The impact of this Taylorist point
of view has been documented by educa
JANUARY 1993 371
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Despite all
the rhetoric about
equality, high
schools teach
elitism, not
egalitarianism.
tional researchers.
How are students taught the social
hierarchy of Taylorism? How are the
brightest taught to feel superior to the
less endowed? Insight into this process
is provided by research such as that by
Jeannie Oakes, who studied the structur
ing of inequality within schools.6 While
the focus of Oakes' research was the
process of tracking, defined as the place
ment of students into unique programs of
study, such as college-preparatory and
vocational education, the most revealing
aspect of her work was her documenta
tion of teachers' opinions and treatment
of students with different intellectual abil
ities.
Oakes' evidence suggests that teach
ers (consciously or unconsciously) treat
bright students as future peers and the
less bright as future subordinates. When
teachers were asked to list the five most
important lessons to be learned by high
school students, the list for the bright
students was significantly different from
the list for the rest. Teachers hoped the
brightest would learn to think logically
and critically (important skills for future
leaders), while they hoped that the less
bright would learn good work habits, re
spect for authority, and practical or work
related skills (all important attributes for
future subordinates).
Not surprisingly, when students were
asked about lessons learned, the bright
students responded quite differently from
the less blessed. High-ability students
spoke about learning how to think criti
cally, while those of lower ability talked
about filling out job applications. The
long-run effect of the pervasive Taylorist
or elitist attitude of educators is evident.
When high school seniors were asked to
describe themselves, the bright showed
considerably higher self-concepts and
more positive expectations for the future
than the less bri~ght.7 In other research,
students in college-preparatory programs
stated that they viewed themselves as
both brighter and socially superior to stu
dents in other programs of study.8
It is worth adding at this point that it
is frequently asserted that the practice of
tracking is the cause of the unequal edu
cational experiences just described. But
tracking is a red herring that draws at
tention away from the pivotal problem
- namely, the Taylorist or elitist atti
tudes of teachers, administrators, school
boards, and the parents of bright teens.
If every student took the same program
of study in totally heterogeneous classes,
the social hierarchy of Taylorism would
still be covertly taught: some would be
taught that they are superior, while the
others would learn that they are inferior.
THE NATIONAL QUEST FOR
TOTAL QUALITY
The belief that schools are something
less than egalitarian is not new. Twenty
years ago social critics charged that
schools perpetuated the existing socio
economic structure and did not promote
opportunity. In Schooling in Capitalist
America, economists Samuel Bowles and
Herbert Gintis argued that the success of
capitalism depended on "minimal partic
ipation in decision-making by the majori
ty (the workers) and protecting a single
minority of managers."9 Corresponding
ly, they argued that the role of social in
stitutions, most notably the schools, was
to teach the social order required by cap
italism. Specifically, they charged that
the social relationships that encourage in
equality between types of students and
types of schoolwork given (academic ver
sus vocational) replicated the hierarchi
cal division of industrial labor. In the
Nineties, competition among world econ
omies and the resultant need to improve
product quality have given a new signif
icance to the observations of Bowles and
Gintis.
Today it seems to be impossible to pick
up a popular periodical without running
across an article whose author argues that
product quality is the key to domestic and
foreign market share, that product qual
ity requires TQM, and that the one key
ingredient of TQM is the "all one team"
attitude of managers and workers. 10 Thus,
if Bowles and Gintis were correct, the
real dilemma is not just the injustices
of the social hierarchy students learn in
school, but also its detrimental effect on
current efforts to improve the nation's in
ternational economic position through
TQM. While changing industry's Tay
lorist attitude will be difficult, that task
pales in comparison to the job of chang
ing this attitude in the schools, since most
educators believe the existing system of
student recognition to be fair and natural.
THE IDEOLOGY OF MERIT
It is preposterous to assert that Ameri
can educators, many of whom are first
generation college graduates from work
ing-class families, consciously set out
to teach the social relationships implied
by Taylorism and scientific management.
Nonetheless, Taylorism is inherent in
school policy, in school routines, and in
the actions of administrators and teach
ers. Why? Because educators and the
public believe that the present system -
the system that teaches Taylorist values
- is fair and just because it rewards mer
it. The fact that it leads to the alienation
of successful students from less success
ful ones, if recognized at all, is viewed
as a troublesome but unavoidable side ef
fect. Educators reason that good students
are superior because they work hard; thus
they naturally do not associate with those
who, in their view, do not work hard.
The problem is that this philosophy of
merit has rationalized a system that gives
some students delusions of grandeur and
leaves the rest with feelings of alienation
and resentment. These results are coun
terproductive. Educating and honoring
those who are blessed in a way that alien
ates them from other students is no longer
acceptable. The new economic order re
quires mutual respect, not elitism and al
ienation. It is time to move beyond Tay
lorism in our high schools.
MOVING BEYOND TAYLORISM
While shortages are common in Ameri
can schools, there has never been a short
age of critics and advice givers; thus I
am reluctant to add more fuel to what has
lately become a firestorm of criticism and
372 PHI DELTA KAPPAN
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advice. Yet, if industrial concerns about
the division between managers and work
ers and about the need to implement
TQM are sincere, attention must be paid
to institutions that teach the old ways.
One such institution is the schools, par
ticularly the high schools. Widespread
worker/manager collaboration and har
mony will not develop unless high school
educators begin to value and communi
cate mutual respect instead of elitism.
Thus it is time for educators to rethink
the message they overfly or covertly com
municate to the intellectually and socially
gifted and, by default, to the less blessed.
Toward this end it seems timely to re
member the teachings of John Dewey.
Dewey believed that the central purpose
of education is to promote the "growth"
of those being educated. The most impor
tant goal of this growth and thus the
"point" of the education system and of
the teaching profession is to help children
discover the mutual value of democratic
equality - namely, that individuals may
have different roles to play but that all
roles are equally important and interde
pendent. I maintain that educators do not
convey Dewey's message to students. De
spite all the rhetoric about equality, the
message conveyed to students by the re
ality of our high schools is something
different. High schools teach elitism, not
egalitarianism.
MONDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL
While lip service is paid to meeting all
children's needs, high schools actually
run more like Monday night football
games: in order for some to win, the rest
must lose. In fact, a close examination
of high schools suggests that their real
purpose is not educating but rank order
ing the graduating class. Even the most
ineffective high schools are successful
in certifying the relative superiority of
some students. The signs are everywhere
- class standings, weighted grading sys
tems that favor the intellectually blessed,
honors classes, advanced placement. Even
the grading systems used by most teach
ers are designed first and foremost to
differentiate students, not to evaluate
what they have learned. Marking on a
curve is evaluation for the sake of vari
ance, not competence; in order for a few
to be designated as superior, the rest must
be designated as something less - a de
cidedly Taylorist point of view.
My intent here is not to argue that high
schools should stop rewarding merit. In
fact, a strong argument can be made that
another fundamental problem with the
schools is that, except for the rough
ly 27 % of students who aspire to attend
competitive colleges and universities, suc
cess in school or lack thereof has little
consequence at all. What I am arguing
is that secondary school educators need
first to become sensitive to the alienation
that the present reward system breeds
among students and to stop accepting it
as inevitable. While we must continue to
reward merit, we must also seek ways to
combat this alienation. One way is to start
evaluating students' learning against in
dependent standards of competence, in
New York Times ...
Now a report by The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement
of Teaching puts choice in proper perspective: It is only one
tool for reform, and unless managed carefully, risks harm...
The Carnegie researchers conclude that attention ought to be
refocused on improving the quality of all schools That means
shifting from top-down management to school-based decision
making, giving teachers more say in the design of programs
and strengthening families. In short, school choice by itself
risks becoming more of a slogan, not to be confused with
honest commitment to education reform.
Washington Post ...
Imprecise definitions confuse this long-running education debate;
a scarcity of information confounds it. What are these plans and
just how do they influence neighborhood schools and student
_ Ace agoag ce 2 i_ achievement? The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of
Teaching set out to answer these questions... This report has
been branded anti-choice. It's nothng of the sort. It's a reality
check for those who think allowing families to ick their schools
Available Fro : *will, in and of itself, change all schools for the getter. As Ernest Boyer, former
education commissioner and Carnegie president,
California/Princeton Fulfillment Services says, choice is an enrichment strategy, not a
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S12FI _ 19 373
JANUARY 1993 373
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The less intel
lectually blessed
need to know that
they are a crit
ical part of the
new economic team.
stead of against the performance of their
classmates.
A colleague, John Bishop of Cornell
University, recently related an interest
ing story about education in Ireland that
is relevant here. In Ireland there are
national educational standards against
which all students are evaluated. Ireland
considered changing this policy and leav
ing evaluation criteria to local educational
units and teachers. When teachers were
polled to assess their reaction, they op
posed the change. Why? Because they
felt the proposed change would pit them
against their students and their students
against one another. When there is a
common standard, it is the goal of every
teacher to have all students achieve this
standard, and it is a common goal of all
students to help their classmates make
the grade. The competition is against the
standard, not against one another.
Contrast this with our system, in which
any teacher who dared to give the whole
class grades of A because all students had
reached mastery would at best be criti
cized for lacking standards and contribut
ing to grade inflation. Contrast this with
our system, in which the principal of
an affluent suburban Philadelphia high
school recently remarked that group learn
ing activities were difficult to arrange in
his school because students could not get
beyond worrying about how they were to
be graded in comparison to others in their
group; the idea that they could all excel
together was alien to them - again, a de
cidedly Taylorist point of view. While
common independent educational standards
may still be on the distant horizon, that
does not mean that we cannot start now
to send a new message to students in our
charge.
A NEW 'TEAM' MESSAGE FOR STUDENTS
A young friend of mine is a potential
world-class swimmer. She is so good that
she gets invited regularly to the Olympi
an development camp. She and the other
young girls who attend this camp are the
elite of what most would view as a decid
edly individual sport, a sport that is domi
nated by the U.S. Thus something can be
learned from what these future Olympi
ans are taught at this camp. Humility is
valued, and arrogance is not tolerated.
The young girls are not told that they are
special or better than others. Instead, they
are taught that they are only as good as
the team they compete for. They are re
minded of Wayne Gretzky's observation
that the better the team plays, the better
he is able to play. Their training materi
als contain a quote from Vince Lombardi:
"Individual commitment to a group ef
fort: this is what makes a team work, a
company work, a society work, and a
civilization work." John Dewey would
agree, I think. Perhaps secondary school
educators should send the same-message
to their "best" students.
Equally important, a new message must
be conveyed to those less intellectually
blessed. The message is that they are a
critical part of the new economic team,
their skills are essential, and their input
of ideas is important. Before they can be
taught this message, the teaching profes
sion must realize that it is not rhetoric but
economic reality. The new economic or
der requires all workers to be a part of
the team. Developing this point of view
among our young people begins by mak
ing all of them feel a part of the first
large organization with which they are as
sociated - namely, their school.
FROM THE qN CROWD' TO ONE CROWD
Most high schools begin the day with
something called homeroom period.
Homeroom is truly a unique phenom
enon because it is probably the only cir
cumstance, other than lining up for grad
uation, in which students are thrown together on a purely random basis - independent of course
selection, intellectual ability, athletic prowess, family income, or race. High schools need more
opportunities of this type. One promising trend is the federal call for the integration of
curricula.The influence of tracking has been widely examined, criticized, and lambasted.
As those who work in high schools know, however, the solution typically offered -having all
students take the same curriculum (undoubtedly the college-preparatory program) - is not the
answer. For example, making all students take a foreign language, as some districts have done,
does not achieve the goal of creating mutual respect but produces just the opposite result. The
intellectually blessed are successful, while those less so are certified as inferior in their
classmates' eyes.
A more realistic way of achieving curricular integration is to create opportunities for interaction
between students in various existing programs of study. This goal can be accomplished by
driving all students higher in the core academic curriculum, by making academic education more
applied (meaning that academic students would participate in vocational education courses), or
by requiring that, in order to graduate, all students participate in a team project involving
students from different programs of study. The desired end of all these activities is to ensure
interaction between various groups of students, regardless of course selection. Then students will
discover from experience the truth of Kipling's observation that "the Strength of the Wolf is in
the Pack."