The Industrial-Factory Model

A large part of what I've learned over the past year is that when it comes to education, we really really don't know what we're doing, but we can be pretty sure that it's not the right thing. Last week I saw the NY Times with Teachers - Will We Ever Learn? - NYTimes.com

Call it the industrial-factory model: power resides at the top, with state and district officials setting goals, providing money and holding teachers accountable for realizing predetermined ends. While rational on its face, in practice this system does not work well because teaching is a complex activity that is hard to direct and improve from afar. The factory model is appropriate to simple work that is easy to standardize; it is ill suited to disciplines like teaching that require considerable skill and discretion.

I'm not sure I agree with most of that essay, but the part I've quoted should go further...the factory model is ill-suited to teaching and to learning, and top-down direction and incentives are based on a theory of motivation which is not just unsupported but discredited by experimental data available since before I was born. (I'm 60.)