It’s interesting to see how the factory metaphor of schooling has been adopted in conservative circles. Unfortunately many of these folks have misapplied the factory comparison. Contrary to their talking point, schools are/were not designed to churn out line workers. Industrial Age factories manufactured products not people.
Progressive educators have used their interpretation of this metaphor for most of the last century to fend off various trends in education (e.g. Behaviorism or high stakes testing). Perhaps the progressive version of the metaphor misses the mark some, but it holds water better than the new conservative metaphor (which isn’t actually new). Conservatives stopped fighting against this metaphor (first in the 1980s and more recently circa 2015) and adopted their own version of the factory metaphor. This adaptation, however inaccurate, fits well with their effort to dismantle public schools in favor of private entitlement programs.
Oddly enough, if we peel back the politics, both sides seem to agree that the public education system needs a revamping to be more responsive and less top heavy. Unfortunately bipartisan collaboration is a thing of the past.
Let’s take a moment to compare both versions of the factory model of schooling metaphor. In the original (progressive) metaphor the student was the raw material to be added to as they moved down the line. Think of a car being put together piece by piece. In this metaphor of school as an assembly line, the teachers build the student as they move down the line grade by grade.
The conservative interpretation states that schools were designed to create factory workers. This does not hold water (see A Wolf At The Schoolhouse Door, Schneider & Berkshire, 2023). In fact this version of the metaphor obfuscates early 20th century conservative efforts to indoctrinate recent immigrants to the United States.
Early 20th century schools - those public schools that emerged as the 2nd Industrial Revolution coincided with waves of immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe - were used to Americanize immigrants. Conservatives in that time used schools to mold immigrant youth into good Americans. A secondary purpose of these schools (and one still used in schools today) was to filter out less successful students.
Like the auto chassis some students move down the line while others are moved off the line. Those that succeeded in school had access to better jobs than those who did not do well in school. In many ways this system of filtering students into specific tracks of possible socioeconomic futures is not so different from the filtering that results from high stakes testing (hey there No Child Left Behind).
While education does lag behind in their preparation of students, to say schools only want to create line workers is not accurate. Many schools do prepare students for outdated jobs. However this lag has been part of school for some time and perhaps exacerbated during the 1980s (when this conservative factory misrepresentation first emerged).
Reshape the education system. Don’t destroy it. Yes some conservatives will warn that I have progressive education beliefs. Yes I do. I also criticize the education system for its bloated inability to adapt meaningful change; overemphasis on middling administrations who can’t find their way out of a box; and the lack of respect for teachers (pay them). Education in the US must evolve and transform to better meet the needs of students. Many of us across numerous perspectives can agree on that.
Don’t fall for disingenuous plays by ultra right wing conservatives. Their methods are sophisticated and well funded, but their goal is clear. They have no interest in saving public education.