Remodel Public Schools into Knowledge Factories
By John Merrow

Politicians sometimes characterize public schools as factories, grim places where students are mere objects moving along an assembly line as teachers attempt to pour knowledge into them. This metaphor assumes that factories are the antithesis of quality. In fact, the opposite often is true.

Public schools would do well to emulate today's most modern factories: efficient, clean, productive and accountable. In contrast to many schools:
• Industries know workers are more productive in clean, safe, modern facilities.

The average public school is 42 years old. A National Education Association study in 2000 estimated it would cost $268.2 billion to repair our schools.
• Factories stress accuracy.

Schools have trouble measuring student progress accurately and have a long history of promoting students based on their age and "seat time" instead of their academic accomplishments.
• Modern factories emphasize teamwork.

Employees often need training in team building; however, because cooperation isn't taught in school, when students "cooperate," it's called cheating. Teachers also rarely cooperate. They work alone, and their work - teaching - is hidden from their peers.
• Today's factory workers are held accountable.

By contrast, teachers and administrators are rarely held accountable. In a practice known cynically as "passing the trash," some teachers pass failing students, making them some other teacher's problem next year.
• Factories - old and new - actually make things.

Many schools can't make that claim. Instead, they're more like old-fashioned egg-grading plants: places that exist to sort, classify and reject -but do not take responsibility for the rejects.

Our old-style schools look and act that way by design. They were set up to sort children into "winners" and "losers" at a time when an industrial-age economy needed an efficient way of differentiating between those who would dig ditches or work the fields and those who would sit behind desks and give orders. This sorting continues, with standardized tests intended to make the decisions appear to be "objective."

Our information-age economy cannot afford such "winners" and "losers." It needs an ever-increasing number of workers who can access and process information, work in teams, communicate easily and learn new skills. Unfortunately, the ongoing national effort to raise educational standards focuses largely on test scores, not these necessary skills. That's why the shortest route to better public schools would be to emulate the modern factory - with two crucial differences.

Factories use the same materials and the same processes to produce identical, interchangeable parts, because the aim is uniformity. Of course, that is not what we want for our children. Schools should emulate the modern factory's reliance on clear standards and its low tolerance for failure - but not its concern for uniformity.

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The second key difference involves what's being produced. In my "school as factory" metaphor, students are the workers, and knowledge the product. Students learn and constantly evaluate their work with the help and supervision of teachers, the "factory foremen" whose job is to maximize output - learning - and see that all workers achieve to the best of their abilities.

Like factories, schools should be held responsible for outcomes, which requires clear goals and standards. If a chip-production plant fails to achieve its goals, the management doesn't blame the chips or make the employees work longer hours, the way some push for more schooling. Instead, the managers examine the factory's procedures and make necessary corrections.

Our economy can no longer afford schools that pick winners and losers. What we need is to produce highly educated, well-rounded students based on the standards and approaches used by our most modern and effective factories.