Why Schools Need to Change

The Tyranny of the Efficient

Carisa: I remember a few years ago, long before the pandemic, you and I had a conversation about efficiency. I had used the word in explaining something school related. You quickly came back with, “Efficiency is the opposite of love.”

I disagreed. Sometimes efficiency can be love, if the time saved is used to do things you love, especially when we're navigating such complex systems. If I can figure out how to do a task more efficiently, and I get to spend the time saved how I want, or even better, give someone else the gift of time, I thought we should lean in.

And now I'm thinking this whole concept of “government efficiency” that is being used to dismantle our entire system is actually quite evil. In my scenario, efficiency is intentionally used to free up time, but in our system how often is that the case? Do we actually end up using that time, or does something else just fill the void?

Gary: That saying, “Efficiency is the opposite of love,” was quoted in Peter Block’s book, The Answer to How Is Yes. In his case he was using it to make the point that our obsession with efficiency leads organizations to turn their backs on the human values that make a society worth having. We strive for quantitative improvements—more! faster!—and completely disregard qualitative benefits—wholeness, personhood, love.

In schools you see this in the quest for test scores and the drive for earlier “achievement.” It was thought that if kids could read sooner then they should read sooner and possibly get further. Play was taken out of kindergarten in order to make time for early reading activities, and, in some cases, even pre-K. I haven’t seen any evidence that this has led to people being “better” at reading, or more successful as adults, while we have seen evidence of spiking mental health crises.

“Efficiency is the opposite of love” is a rhetorical overstatement deployed to make a point. Of course actual efficiency—i.e., a favorable balance of resources to output—is desirable. But there are two problems with efficiency in education. 1.) We aren’t agreed on what we want for outputs. Some folks really are okay seeing test scores represent school achievement. Others want something broader and more human. And, 2.) If increased efficiency frees up some resources (time, talent, stuff), then what do we do with the now-available resources? Are they funneled back to help kids? Returned to the tax payers? Or plundered and put in the pockets of oligarchs?

Finally, let’s not forget those who disingenuously use the battle cry of efficiency as a cover for corruption, malfeasance, or ideology. All three of which seem to be coming at our schools from the new Lords of D.C.

Carisa: Ah yes, the DOGE. The concept of efficiency has a positive connotation which is why so many folks have been willing to back the Lords. It's something to strive for. That's what I remember most about Henry Ford anyway.

In school, I think about memorizing math facts. For most everyday real life math, it's generally a whole lot faster to memorize those facts than to drag out a calculator to figure 25% off that $89.99 coat that's on sale, or to know how many pizzas to buy if you've got to feed the entire softball team.

So, we leave school thinking efficiency is good. That saving time is good, because in essence it's cheaper. Time is money, right?

But what can we get when we don't value efficiency, but instead value the process or the learning? That's one reason why I think competency-based learning has had such a slow start in U.S. education, it's not efficient. It takes time and our schools are not set up to take time.

So maybe, competency-based education is love!

Gary: That is an amazing sentence! I agree with your opening sentiment. Also: the way efficiency is being deployed this month in D.C. is evil.

Our current world, unfortunately, divides itself into two parts. One part is the arts, emotion, religion, society, ethics, philosophy, etc., or what some people refer to as “that touchy-feely stuff.” The other part is those things that can be counted and accumulated, that can be equated with money, and can be measured with precision (if not accuracy), or what some people call “the real world.”

This division has bedeviled me since I began working in education, and I don’t think such a division is actually possible. All of the soft stuff mentioned above—which, in some recent writing I refer to as the Poetics of Education—is as real as the countable stuff. All of the “real” stuff affects who we are, has a language to it, an art, or, in other words, a “poetics.” Both are tangible in their effect on the world. Both live in the realm of SEL (social-emotional learning) and affect how we move emotionally through the world.

The impossibility of the division can be seen in the over-engineered clumsiness of new methods we come up with to include SEL-type stuff in schools. Or, strike that, to officially take notice of SEL-type stuff that has been going on in schools all the time.

The perniciousness of the division can be seen in how effectively the evocation of efficiency allows DOGE to rip apart our institutions while the rest of us stand around, seemingly defenseless (at least psychologically) against the Tyranny of the Efficient.

Carisa: So, what do we do? Which is a question a lot of us are asking. We can't just stand around. How can our efforts best be used? What will make the most impact, without bankrupting our spirits?

(Feeling a little jaded as I tried to give some ideas for action, I pulled in Educating for Good friend Judith Kurtz to provide some feedback. Her response was so lovely, it deserves to just be part of the post.)

Judith: Perhaps the key is leveraging the idea of efficiency in areas that are bogged down in measuring the “real world” so that we have more time to devote to the “Poetics of Education”—not to wholesale eliminate either. Can we use the appeal of efficiency with those who desire it to eliminate time and energy spent teaching to the test or renaming and quantifying practices already in existence, so that we can reallocate that time to stewarding our students with love? Let’s axe the busy work of beancounting and level up our time on creative spaces that nurture whole humans, capable of holding a balance between the real and the soft. In short, let’s establish an Efficiency of Love!

Carisa: I love this and although I’m not too excited about the destruction of the Department of Education at the federal level, this time that we’re going through might be an opportunity for others to recognize the problem with using efficiency as a gold standard, especially when it comes to learning and other human(e) endeavors.

Image at top: Graduate People by Vecteezy