The public school in the United States is a subsystem of the corporate infrastructure of American society and has four functions: socialization, selection, stabilization, and surplus absorption. Education, as a socializing institution, has become reified to the extent that a system of educational prerogatives embodies a reality which is separate and distinct from teachers. Because a bureaucratic structure develops a self-perpetuating institutional ethos, teachers become objects that are fitted into a school program to serve delineated purposes. This diminishes their opportunity to remain vital, compassionate, and professional. The public school teacher is an alienated worker; by altering the basic premises of the bureaucratic structure in the schools, teachers can avoid the debilitating effect of occupational sterility. (Author/HMD)