Schools’ main economic function is not cognitive skill production

Evidence

This assertion may strike some as curious. Many commentators on the educational scene- social scientists, educators, and employers among them - have mistakenly attributed overarching importance to the intellectual role of schooling. A mid-nineteenth-century industrialist, for example, wrote: Whenever a mill or a room should fail to give the proper amount of work, my first inquiry . — Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America, 996

While our more general claim— that the primary economic function of schooling is not the production or selection of intellectual skills— can be verified through a wide variety of data sources, our major illustration will be drawn from an extensive sample which we have subjected to close statistical analysis. — Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America, 1000

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the Birmingham curriculum/credentialing debates and to the widespread observation that literacy did not predict work performance in many early industrial settings. — connects to: Both meritocratic and Deweyan educational theories misread how schools serve the economy — Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America:…, 690; Education’s economic function operates through personality formation, not skills — Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America:…, 214; Cognitive skills explain little of education’s link to economic success. — Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America:…, 556 (+4 more)
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America:…, 996; Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America:…, 1000

Broader Connections

• Education’s economic function operates through personality formation, not skills #corroborates (0.95) — Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America, 214
• Cognitive skills explain little of education’s link to economic success. #corroborates (0.93) — Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America, 556
• Income correlates with education independent of measured cognitive skill #corroborates (0.90) — Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America, 1010
• Controlling for IQ barely weakens the link between education and income #corroborates (0.90) — Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America, 1028
• Education’s economic payoff has little to do with measured IQ for most people #corroborates (0.88) — Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America, 213
• Rightward education policy advanced by reframing schooling as industrial productivity #complicates (0.75)