In 1837, the father of standard schooling, Horace Mann, established standardized education as part of the American curriculum. It was said that standardized testing promoted literacy, equality, and political and social stability. He believed that a republican government, which the US was at the time, had to have the decisions of an intelligent population to make the right decisions. For two centuries after his proposal, hundreds of millions of people had benefited from standardized education, receiving at least a fundamental mode of education, since before the proposal, education was primarily reserved for the wealthy.
The old education system may have worked out for millennia because it existed in an elitist society where everyone received specialized education of a specific sort for survival. For instance, farmers received education in planting, plucking, etc. Artisans had the skillsets that allowed them to be successful. They did not necessarily have to be educated with wisdom to ensure their survival. On the other hand, the rich could receive that education because they had ample time and were part of the ruling class, which may have needed comprehensive political and social skills to fulfill their role as rulers. Furthermore, education could not have happened in ancient societies because the liberal arts, once popularized within a large territory, would generate many problems that resulted in division and instability since communication and control were still limited to armies traveling on foot. Thus, ancient empires employed this model of “education.”
However, in modern times, people need a variety of skill sets to deal with daily problems and survive within society. As phones and devices facilitate communication, people can increasingly communicate ideas. Working under a new complex of jobs in the economic and social sector has generated multiple posts that require people’s ability to connect knowledge extensively across subjects. Thus, standardized education appeared to adapt to this changing society, equipping individuals with the new skills necessary for survival. The old type of education was still preserved in higher, maybe post-bachelorette degrees, where people can explore and specialize in specific areas that interest them.
Modern education has resulted in maximizing educational efficiency by educating individuals on STEM and business management.
Yet, there is one crucial thing about standardized education to be mindful of its receptibility to political change. Standardized education, more public education, depends on government funding because teachers are essentially organized in a bureaucratic manner and given salaries by the government. The neoliberal government can decide to cut down teacher salaries at any given moment, which is what they have been doing until reactionary politics came along. I will not be elaborating on reactionary politics. Still, I will say that during Bush and Clinton’s presidency, the funding in education experienced a significant decline and caused more public education to be privatized, forcing teachers to lose jobs and education to be underfunded. This privatization should not have happened because education is the guarantee for survival in modern society, and if educational rights are not secured, then so is the fundamental right to life uprooted. If anything, policies should only guarantee the equity of this right through increasing and balancing funding.
Yorumlar