Education + Capitalism = …

In the United States, one is obligated to go to school until you are 18. After about 12 years of school, most of the young adults are told and/or suggested to continue and attend a university for a better future. Therefore, we can all agree that school takes a big part of our lives. Our government surely does. By regulations and standards, schools are shaped to give us the highest form of education available. Yet, when you look a little further than just words on a page, you notice there’s a significant difference in the funding of schools, their actual educational results, and the success of their students. We try to find a reason why.

Religion has been identified as one of the reasons our education system has had problems in the past. At one point, creationism was taught in all the classrooms while evolution was seen as a problem, especially in the southern states. However, thanks to cases such as that of Epperson v. Arkansas in 1968, a separation started. The United States Supreme Court ruled that the prohibition of evolution was “ unconstitutional on the grounds that the first amendment to the U. S. Constitution does not permit a state to require that teaching and learning… be tailored to the principles or prohibitions of any particular religious sect or doctrine” (Matsumura & Mead 2001). Religion was no longer able to mold and shape some of the school curriculum like before.

Yet, religion is not the only reason why a school has been shaped differently, it also depends on the influence of the state and the people who are in control. If one reflects on the educational system in the United States, one can see how Capitalism has actually shaped the current education system to aid the powerful for profit and the protection of their status.

Karl Marx in “The Communist Manifesto” (1948) , wrote about how the richer and powerful ruling class , known as the bourgeoisie, have changed many aspects of the society to receive a monetary profit. The lower class, the proletariat, then become part of what Marx describes as “the machine”, which is the labor force. If the proletariat is considered “the machine” that drives not only themselves but the bourgeoisie, then education becomes a tool and a weapon for them. They get just enough to continue their work, but not enough to advance.

The concept of education seems pretty straight forward, right? It’s the whole principle this country has been based on; in a way, it’s become a reflection of the american dream. Go to school, get good grades, and you’ll be able to climb the social ladder and be successful. Well, that’s not quite true for the lower strata of people. For them, education functions more as an attack; it becomes a way to train them to be in the bottom. How this happens is pretty simple, educational institutions teach the lower classes from a very early age discipline. How can this be a setback, one might ask, well in In “The Structure of Schooling: Readings in the Sociology of Education” (2014), Emile Durkheim suggests the need of discipline. If we think about it we see that Durkheim, even if he was alive nearly a century ago, wasn’t all that far off. In modern day schools, especially those with lower budgets and overcrowded rooms, education translates into memorization. It’s more about following a routine and memorizing certain concepts and behavior rather than truly learning. Develop a workforce rather than individuals with critical thinking; the reflection of a controlled workplace rather than a future with many possibilities.

Another area where we see the effects of capitalism are on the funding of schools. Depending on the surrounding socioeconomic status, schools can either receive less or more funding. This leads the people affected to put the blame on the students or staff of the school because of the ingrained idea that all schools are equal and that we all start in the same place, an idea sociologists would call the functionalist theory, leaving the ones who are truly at fault in the margins. Due to less funding, students may not receive the same assistance or course teachings, making them fall behind on test scores, grades, and other achievement categories. This creates an achievement gap, which has been assessed by many governmental programs like the 2001 No Child Left Behind or the Common Core programs. Jonathan Kozol in his book “The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America” (2005), writes how these programs have the opposite effect in low socioeconomic neighborhoods. Instead of helping, it creates more problems for schools that could barely provide the materials, more work for the student that can barely understand the material taught, and more ways to measure the achievement of students, creating more gaps.

Finally, not only has Capitalism greatly affected the grade school years, but also Universities, a place we credit as an institution for higher learning. The article “How The American University was Killed, in Five Easy Steps” by the Homeless Adjunct describes how this image was taken down. The goal of the powerful is to take away the critical thinking mindset and reduce it to nothing. Professors don’t receive proper salaries, benefits, healthcare or even securities. It’s difficult to imagine that a professor, who has gone through graduate school and has even received a doctorate, is going through stress of the possible poverty they may go through. In taking down the professors, they also take down the students. The article says that this is achieved by “[dumbing] down and [destroying] the quality of the education so no one on campus is really learning how to think… they are learning to obey”. Students are made to think of their majors as something that can bring the best profit and better the economy, rather than for their enlightenment and learning of philosophy. Nowadays, students take longer to graduate because of the major requirements. College then becomes unaffordable for the common person, and makes them take out loans which take years to pay off. Leaving you with a degree, but possibly leaving you in the same status you started off in. Therefore, even as you are reaching through to get yourself to the top, the capitalist influence in the education system drowns you back down.