Teresa Makar

Paper 7: Callahan
In his book, Education and the Cult of Efficiency, Raymond Callahan describes the
efficiency movement of the early twentieth century and the process to reach maximum
efficiency, which attempts to discover and implement the single best method of completing a
task. Frederick Taylor, the inventor of scientific management, promised that his methods could
be utilized to increase the efficiency and economy of not only factory labor and business
practice, but every aspect of American life. Through scientific measurement and calculation, the
most efficient method of production could be determined and widely implemented. It was not
long before the desire for increased efficiency reached the education system. Beginning in 1911,
the American public increased its criticism of the public school system to include complaints of
the inefficiency of administrators and superintendents, the failure of the system to produce young
adults prepared to enter the workforce, and the low standards for teaching both morals and
academics. The advancement of scientific management led to a widespread movement to make
schools more efficient, to standardize teaching methods, to increase graduation rates, and to
prepare young people to enter society as productive citizens. The increasing demand for
tangible, measurable results proved difficult to fulfill; nonetheless, many teachers continued to
embrace the efficiency movement and attempted to adopt its methods in their own classrooms.
Scientific management cannot be successfully applied to public schooling. One of the
largest incompatibilities of scientific management and the education system is that the former
attempts to standardize production based on the capabilities of a first-class individual; that is,
one who is considered hardworking and possesses sufficient talent in the required field. Taylors
process measures the output of a first-class individual and then uses that level of output as a
production standard for every other worker. Anyone who cannot produce at that level is simply
cut. No allowances are made for variation in personal capabilities. This method cannot be
applied to the public school system. Creating academic standards based on the performance of a
top student is absurd, because the majority of students would fail as a result of not meeting those
standards. Even if a student who is performing at an average level were chosen to represent the
standard, all those below that level would be condemned to failure if they fell behind. While this
method may be utilized in university courses in which a professor grades on a curve, we should
not encourage the same kind of stringent competition in a public primary or secondary school
setting.
Scientific management stifles critical thinking and creativity, as well. Applied to public
education, it encourages rote memorization, teaching to the test, and passiveness in learning.
Students should not be treated the same way as the mechanic who was told that he was not
supposed to think, there are other people paid for thinking around here. Education is more than
simply memorizing the periodic table or the constitution. It requires thoughtful dialogue,
reflection, and analysis. Taylors system is not designed to encourage critical analysis on the part
of the dumb laborers who are so stupid and so phlegmatic, and who are certainly not paid to
think. Taylors scientific management aims to industrialize the public education system and turn
schools into assembly lines that manufacture identical products with the same basic skill sets.
Although the goal of most educators is to equip all students with a set of basic skills needed for
success, few argue for a complete standardization of curricula in the public school system.
Public school teachers engage with students who come to class with diverse skill sets and
varying levels of prior knowledge. Teachers seek to help students of all backgrounds succeed.

State or federally mandated standardized tests are a way of standardizing the expected amount
and type of knowledge a student is meant to obtain. This concept is much in line with scientific
management, as it encourages educators to teach to the test and neglect subjects that will not be
tested. It produces students with adequate knowledge of the basic subjects that were tested, but
few critical thinking skills. In this way, the efficiency movement still lives on today. We
struggle to produce tangible, measurable results of the education provided through our public
school system in an attempt to discover where our tax dollars are going and how they can be
used most effectively if they are not used so already. Though the same verbiage may not be used
today (amount of output and quality of product to describe pupils), the goal is still to
increase the amount our students learn and provide all students with basic knowledge and a
standard skill set. As professor Soder mentioned in class, we will always compare our education
system with that of other countries in a jealous battle to maintain the best and most effective
education system in the world. For this reason, we will continue to be highly critical of our
education system and seek ways to make it more efficient, effective, and of the highest quality.