side effects of the literacy factory model

Image courtesy of Creative Commons. Original image by User:Astrokey44;
new SVG version by User:Andrew_pmk

The side effects of the literacy factory model can be seen in the recent financial crisis where 98% of academically-trained economists were unable to see the meltdown. Peer orientation and conformity is guaranteed by a factory approach that is hierarchical and rank dependent in the extreme.

Mass schooling has brought good things to bear and many nations attribute much to their success at mass schooling. Others have documented the models used to develop the current compulsory attendance model of public schools within the US and elsewhere.  But the side effects of our compulsory literacy factories are only beginning to be understood and acknowledged.  A list will be easier here:

* Barring parents and families means no accountability or curb on institutional energy
* This means there are no real advocates for the students who are without legal standing  and thereby function as widgets on a line
* Acculturation to illegitimate authority and hierarchical social interactions
* Complementary lack of initiative and independence of thought and action (where's the outrage?); passivity
* This monoculture of experience within our society greatly weakens the actual practice of democratic social skills
* Dumbing down of all intellectual content by curricular architects who have no incentive to conserve human capital and the innate human intelligences
* Acceptance of the social violence of grading and sorting acclimates us to social dysfunction
* Entitlement and a false sense of accomplishment are generated in those who succeed; they will now feel the need to uphold what defined their success: bullies were always bullied themselves
* The diminishment of communities as the system becomes highly centralized and corporations use access for building profit-making schemes, like standardized tests. and now, for direct takeovers