Cognitive skills explain little of education’s link to economic success.

Evidence

The major error in the technocratic school is its overemphasis on cognitive skills as the basic requirement of job adequacy. We shall show that cogni­ tive requirements are by no means determinate, and indeed, can account for little of the association of education and economic success. Had the technocratic school looked at the social rather than the technical relations of production, it might have been more circumspect in asserting the com­ patibility of the integrative, egalitarian, and developmental functions of schooling. Indeed, it might have found that the way in which the school system performs its integrative function— through its production of a strati­ fied labor force for the capitalist enterprise— is inconsistent with its per­ formance of either developmental or egalitarian functions. — Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America, 556

Similarly, the technocratic version of liberal educational theory suffers from an extremely partial characterization of the capitalist system. The major error in the technocratic school is its overemphasis on cognitive skills as the basic requirement of job adequacy. We shall show that cogni­ tive requirements are by no means determinate, and indeed, can account for little of the association of education and economic success. Had the technocratic school looked at the social rather than the technical relations of production, it might have been more circumspect in asserting the com­ patibility of the integrative, egalitarian, and developmental functions of schooling. Indeed, it might have found that the way in which the school system performs its integrative function— through its production of a strati­ fied labor force for the capitalist enterprise— is inconsistent with its per­ formance of either developmental or egalitarian functions. — Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America, 556

Categorization

• QUESTION: This anticipates the book’s own later empirical demonstration — the payoff claim sets up the chapter that must show the data.
• XREF: Connects to the correspondence principle literature this book develops and to critique of human capital theory. — connects to: Education’s economic function operates through personality formation, not skills — Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America:…, 214; Worker mental skills are productive but not scarce, so they pay no wage premium — Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America:…, 1031; Both meritocratic and Deweyan educational theories misread how schools serve the economy — Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America:…, 690 (+4 more)
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America:…, 556