ranking

A link to an article on Ranking and Linking yet another case against the psychological effects of mass schooling.

The emphasis on ranking was far less when the public school system was begun.  The majority of people had strong communities and were not vocationally dependent on school rankings to make a life for themselves.  Agriculture and small business provided most of their vocations though schools began to make more and more workers for the industrialized state.  Early on, there was more situational padding for the pernicious effects of ranking on students than there is today when the majority now depend on schools for vocational training.  And efforts to make institutions that thrived within a social structure that has disappeared now concentrate on increased policing and a mistaken attempt to measure learning itself instead of providing a social service.