What is education for? You may have different answers whether you are a parent, teacher, business owner, college student, but the answers are not merely based upon your role. Philosophy determines perspective, and ultimately, policy, when street-level bureaucrats implement policy through their philosophical lens. A recent article in The Week, “The value of education is not what you think” by Jeff Spross (2019) relates how two different philosophies of education, human capital and signaling, result in quite disparate national educational policy. The human capital theory argues that education increases earnings because it adds knowledge and skills to workers, making them more valuable as employees. Signaling theory counters that idea with research showing that education is much more valuable as degrees that signal employers the employee has what it takes in intelligence, perseverance, and economic and social resources. Human capital argues that education develops employees; signaling a
Grouped around tables at the Center for the Advancement of Reading in Sacramento, more than a decade ago, I had no idea that I was doing a process I would read about later in an education doctorate class on public policy formation (Zancanella & Moore, 2014). Nor did I guess that there would be over four million results criticizing our efforts in a Google search of “criticism of Common Core ELA” in 2019. At least, I’m still proud of the feedback that Expository Reading and Writing (ERWC) leaders gave on early documents that would become the ELA Common Core. I understand the ideas of tight and loose policy, but my life experience has not shown me examples of either working without long-term criticism. Tighter policies are criticized for being unnecessarily prescriptive and stakeholders rebel. Looser policies, like the ELA standards, are slammed for being too vague and not giving enough guidance. ERWC, co-written in the early 2000s by both English professors at the California Stat