Educational Goals and a Ranking System

David Gardner Blog Post 10/5/14 EPS 518

I appreciated the context for affordability provided by the Labaree article, which described three perspectives for the ‘purpose’ of education from several perspectives, democratic equality, social efficiency, and social mobility. I have seen elements of these perspectives at UW, in how the legislature funds UW System and approaches education.

I think the Labaree article tied very well to the discussion of autonomy and state level accountability (Dee 2006) for institutions, as well as the proposed ranking system and the ACE’s critique of that system. It seems across this policy discussion, the views of what education should be in society are evident. It is because of this that I am concerned with the ACE’s critique of President Obama’s proposal. I think absolutely valid points are raised about the extent to which rankings factor into applications, and whether this would be helping the groups that President Obama is hoping to support. However, I think it does not take into count the potential for larger reform along with the addition of a rankings system. Without the draft, it is difficult to say whether adding these rankings will also be coupled with more innovative ways to reach and inform low income students.

I think the ACE’s perspective is leaning on the ‘social mobility’ theory, which supports education as a commodity that is essentially for the ‘winners.’ Such drastic reforms as the ranking system, if done correctly, are a step in the right direction of valuing education for the ‘democratic equality’ perspective, which assures access and affordability for our society.

That said, I would be further interested in discussing how the ranking system would be structured, as I think doing it ‘correctly,’ is easier said than done, and would require thorough policy work to implement in an appropriate way.