bureaucratic structure of the American educational system may be necessary to meet the massive educational needs of today's larger and more complex society, there is a price to be paid. One of the biggest complaints about school "systems," or "bureaucracies," is that students become passive products turned out by an insensitive, inflexible system which does not even attempt to reach the individual student. As Macionis (1989) asserts, "American cultural values are at work: we tend to believe that the most effective way to accomplish any task is to formulate a system, and for better or worse, that is precisely what secondary education is in the United States today" (p. 416).
Another complaint about the American school system is that it is inflexible. Teachers in each state must satisfy state requirements for their area of study. Elementary teachers are expected to have a general knowledge of all subjects, and high school teachers are expected to possess specific knowledge about their chosen discipline. Each state has its own credentialing requirements
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