Written by By: Stephanie Diana Wilson-Eubank
First I want to go on the record as going through dysfunction of COVID in the form of balancing work and being the stay at home parent now delegated to being the in-home teacher. I am blessed to have changed jobs to a position that allows more of a dynamic role that is flexibility to balance my family and career goals remotely. Further I am blessed that this company values my goals towards my Doctorate degree in Business Administration. And I needed to be able to work to provide for my family like most Americans.
All this said I have to say I have preferred my kids going to school remotely and how we have been safe. Honestly it has been easier for my boys especially when dealing with their disabilities. Such as we get to do more positive morning activities together before school starts with no traveling, last minute wardrobe changes, no dealing with the school giving my son milk when he is lactose intolerant.
Not to mention other parents I am friends with who have disabled children and those who are minorities are pushing to wait to send their kids back to school when as a nation we have reached closer to heard immunity and 80% and up vaccination rates nationally. Many schools are pushing to open ASAP when we are nationally only at 10% vaccination rates.
Which, is a bit hasty in my personal opinion, however, my mother sent me an article from the local KTVU news at https://www.ktvu.com/news/california-law-does-not-allow-for-virtual-learning-waiver-expires-at-end-of-june , (Fernandez, 2021); which speaks to laws about remote learning and push back rather than embracing the practice. Also, that the state is not budgeting for remote learning. Which, is not just short cited from the fact current attitudes nationally about COVID make the variants a real potential threat to go back to lockdown just as we got COVID-19 to some semblance of under control. However, to stay in my lane of business and the economy as those are the focuses of my doctoral program and the topic of remote work being my thesis focus I was inspired to focus on who school is being set up for an out dated economic thinking and needs to be changed.
Specifically what I am referencing is the topic of what is academically referred to as “Factory Model Schools”. Here is a list of articles on the topic:
- https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2015/10/10/american-schools-are-modeled-after-factories-and-treat-students-like-widgets-right-wrong/
- https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/factory-model-vs-21st-century-education-anne-shaw
- https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4020-6403-6_32
- https://www.researchgate.net/publication/247498643_Dismantling_the_factory_model_of_assessmentc
In lay terms the setup of public schools is formatted to familiarize students to a work life within a factory. Which, makes no economic logic since based on the monthly article put out by the US Department of Labor and Statistics at https://stats.bls.gov/opub/mlr/1984/04/art2full.pdf, (URQUHART, 1984); the US has been shifting out of an economy comprised primarily factory workforce to a service industry since 1984. With this in mind we need to redevelop the public school system to do two things.
One prepare those not on a university level life long quest to be competitive in the work scape that is now our economy. To do this online learning and hybrid learning need to become normalized. Not normalizing and making remote or hybrid learning a quintessential part of the educational formatting is a missed opportunity. This especially needs to become fundamental in the education process in California where we are the epicenter of the tech sector and the home of the tech Meca being Silicon Valley. Think about it one of the main issues noted in my dissertation on remote employment has been push back of companies and management. Even though remote employment not only saves the bottom line and adds to the diversity and organizational structure of a company there is still push back. What I hear most from management personally working remote for over seven years say things like, “remote work is difficult to manage”, and “I have always had face to face interaction and remote is just so foreign”. However, teaching kids to normalize remote work allows learning needed skills in project management (nothing prepares you for business like knowing how to organize people remotely), social networking, technology, data collection and data integrity, along with remote customer service skills among a myriad of other skills.
The second task of schools is to set children who want to go on the academic journey of college and advanced degrees and research to prepare those students and that involves remote learning as this is a normative practice in college level education. (Also, do not think I am saying any one or group shouldn’t go to college. College is not for everyone and I believe that academic advancement is a life path not a make shift destination. It is a journey. With that said it should be a different paper to pick apart reformatting colleges. With a remote paradigm there should be a reformation to make junior/ community and state college have more programs available for people to get careers that is logical for our current economy not an economy almost forty years go. Trade schools are needed but targeted towards understanding engineering tasks and robotics. I firmly believe education is a key for success and not sharing all the forms of education is wrong and economically damaging). This all said many programs for college prep leave out a lot of kids. The groups who are especially vulnerable to this are the economically disadvantaged kids and those who are disabled. There is a level of questioning in public schools about inclusion. To that I say to remember that diversity matters and remote work and school place allows platform for these sorts of kids to flourish. Same with the kids trying hard to fit in remote schooling gives an opening for success on their own developmental terms.
There is another economic opportunity that being over looked by schools not pushing for remote and hybrid learning and instead fixating on a status quo. If students who are special needs can get paraprofessionals or one on one aide from the school to come to the home and help this would be a game changer. This solution which allows for the government creation of more jobs to stimulate the economy while investing in education. Per research on Salary.com and Indeed.com the average aide makes in California between $25k and $35k per year. It is not a high paying job but, it would still be job stimulation. Also, these jobs come with training and tend to only require a two year college degree or a specific amount of Early Childhood Education units of study.
Not to mention how teachers can benefit from a remote or hybrid class model. Teachers can afford to live where they want and maximize their spending. Also, with less facility expenses more materials can be purchased and doled out to students for use towards education. Making it so students in lower income families can afford to keep up with the academic Jones if you will.
There are so many upsides to implementing remote and hybrid school models to benefit all parties and encourage economic growth on the front and back end. It makes the article from KTVU that inspired me to write on this blog post aligning with my own academic research seem that the government is being short sighted. We need to plan to make a healthier and more creative economy. This planning starts with pushing back on old outdated design models that were meant for an economy that disappeared almost forty years ago rather than everyone trying so hard to go back to our previous so called, “normal” school and work life. Normal keeps our economy idolizing of days long gone of people working in factories and making American strong goods. The shift has happened and we need to embrace the idea of people working at home, in the library, local Starbucks or where ever they like creating Strong American services and technology. This is the idealism that will empower our economy and it starts with the restructuring of the educational system to give all students an even upward mobility into a more productive economy.
Work Cited
Fernandez, L. (2021, March 12). California law does not allow for virtual learning, waiver expires at end of June. KTVU FOX 2. https://www.ktvu.com/news/california-law-does-not-allow-for-virtual-learning-waiver-expires-at-end-of-june.
Strauss, V. (2019, April 18). American schools are modeled after factories and treat students like widgets. Right? Wrong. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2015/10/10/american-schools-are-modeled-after-factories-and-treat-students-like-widgets-right-wrong/.
Shaw, A. (2016, August 22). Factory Model vs 21st Century Model of Education. LinkedIn. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/factory-model-vs-21st-century-education-anne-shaw.
Serafini, F. W. (2002). DISMANTLING THE FACTORY MODEL OF ASSESSMENT. Reading & Writing Quarterly, 18(1), 67–85. https://doi.org/10.1080/105735602753386342
Found online at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/247498643_Dismantling_the_factory_model_of_assessment
Carl, J. (2009). Industrialization and Public Education: Social Cohesion and Social Stratification. International Handbook of Comparative Education, 503–518. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-6403-6_32
Accessed online at https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4020-6403-6_32
URQUHART, M. I. C. H. A. E. (1984, April). The employment shift to services : where did it come from? US Department of Labor and Statistics . https://stats.bls.gov/opub/mlr/1984/04/art2full.pdf.
MONTHLY LABOR REVIEW April 1984 9 Employment Shift to Services
Indeed.com. Home. Paraprofessional Salary in California. https://www.indeed.com/career/paraprofessional/salaries/CA.
Teacher Aide Salary in California. Salary.com. https://www.salary.com/research/salary/benchmark/teacher-aide-salary/ca.
Dr. Stephanie Diana Eubank DBA Remote Team Research (AKA Dr. Bear) 