Because a main educational function is to prepare children for workplace roles, education's organizational forms and functions tend to correspond to those of the workplace. For instance, as the U.S. economy moved from agricultural through industrial to service bases, U.S. education moved from nonpublic schools to public schools to mass higher education. However, the relationship of education to workplace forms also has contradictions, such as the opposition between educational equal opportunity and workplace hierarchy. The major current contradiction is education's production of a workforce that is overeducated in relation to available job opportunities. Such workers are disgruntled and unproductive in factory jobs. These production problems are pushing workplaces toward greater democratization, which will in turn create more democratic educational organization. Democratic educational forms have been suggested in the past, by Pestalozzi, Neef, and Dewey, but since they did not correspond to workplace forms, they were never implemented. Workplace democratization will precede educational democratization, so researchers must examine types of workplace democracy, such as team assembly in factories, to predict their consequences for education. Team assembly will push education toward four changes, emphasizing participatory decision-making, individual problem-solving, minimum competencies, and peer tutoring. (RW)