1. Lesson 02: Are schools learning organizations?
2. Lesson Road Map
3. Are Schools Learning Organizations?
4. Industrial Age Thinking
5. The Learning Organization
6. Characteristics of a Learning Organization
7. Lesson Activities

Industrial Age Thinking

There were theories and processes that supported the Industrial Age economic engines of the U.S. and the growth of factories to produce goods efficiently. These included:

• Centralization
• Standardization
• Hierarchical management
• A rigid sense of time
• Accountability based on adherence to the system ¹

United States Department of Education

The application of those principles to schooling resulted in the development of the system we still see in most of our communities. In fact, with the advent of “No Child Left Behind,” we are seeing an increase in centralization and standardization at the national level. States have constitutional authority to govern public education, with a heavy delegation of governance to local school districts. In most communities, the centralization and standardization occur at the school district level. Schools and districts function within a management hierarchy with principals and superintendents respectively charged with the responsibility and delegated the authority to ensure that the system of education is operating satisfactorily. Accountability is determined largely by the policies and procedures adopted by the local school board, as well as applicable federal and state laws and regulations.

Perhaps the most visible and most difficult element to change is the rigid allocation of time. Time is money, as the business saying goes, and that is what resulted in the innovative practice of its time, the factory assembly line. Not only was production standardized, but also the time required to produce the product. It is not difficult to see how educators adopted this concept; it resulted in rigid daily schedules, number of annual school days, standardized curricula and pace of instruction. Students were seen as the product, produced by the work of a succession of worker/teachers, each responsible for one part of the K-12 system. Students who could not learn at the pace of the “line” routinely failed and often dropped out.

As Senge points out there is ample indication that this model is no longer functional:

• Unprecedented signs of breakdown in the assembly line school concept and process
• Many of the historic conditions upon which the industrial age school was built no longer exist
• Elimination of the school’s monopoly on the provision of information
• The working world no longer needs Industrial Age workers ²

This century has brought a dramatic change in expectations for public education to have all children master rigorous studies, to prepare all children for a productive future, to foster resiliency through learning to learn, and to enable them to compete in the global economy. As a result, researchers and educators now advocate a different approach to our system of education. That model is not the school/district as factory, but the school/district as a learning organization.

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¹ DuFour, R & Eaker, R. (1998). A new model: The pressional learning community, Professional learning communities at work: Best practices for enhancing student achievement. (p. 20). Indiana: Solution Tree Press.
² Senge, P. (2000). The industrial age system of education, Schools that learn: A fifth discipline fieldbook for educators, parents, and everyone who cares about education (pp. 50-51). New York: Doubleday.