Concern over Capabilities

When discussing the capability approach, Amartya Sen argues that education is important on its own, not just as a commodity for production. This reminds me of David Labaree’s article “How Dewey Lost: The victory of David Snedden” where he contemplates how the beliefs of popular Dewey lost out to the view of the wild card David Snedden. It seems to me that Sen’s beliefs share some of the “romantic and naturalistic” vision of education that Dewey had. Both Sen and Labaree point to the economic incentives and social mobility goals tied into the American education system today, which aligns with Snedden’s desire for a “socially useful school curriculum”. I wonder if the ideologies of Sen and other supporters of the capability approach will fall to the background, just as Dewey’s did. I know this is just a small fraction of the capability approach, but the almost romantic vision of the education system reminded me of the analysis of Dewey’s beliefs. My understanding of the capability approach so far is that the authors believe that education has the ability to influence social change at the individual level, and not because of the economic incentives tied into the human capital approach.

From my readings thus far, this approach to education seems to contradict the support for standardized testing. Standardized testing tries to make the material taught in schools uniform from school to school, and rates achievements off of test scores. Although the capability approach is concerned with egalitarian goals via schooling, standardized testing places too much concern on testing scores as a means of competition and mobility. Instead, the capability approach emphasizes the interactions in schools and the relationship between not only knowledge and skills, but also options and opportunity. Focusing on standardized testing and scores further draws the emphasis away from democratic morality and equality and towards economic efficiency and social mobility.