Dr. Paul A. RodriguezChapter 10

Education in colonial America was originally religious in orientation but differed in form according to geographical area. Schooling in colonial America was not universal; it was intended primarily for White malesDuring the 19th century, free public education became a reality. Common schools at the elementary level were supported by taxes & open to all children; their purpose was seen as cultivating a sense of American identity & loyalty19th century also saw the development of public high schools that were designed to prepare young people, within a single institution, for either vocations or collegePrivate education has always played an important role in America, particularly in the nation’s early daysEqual educational opportunities for minorities and women has been an uphill battle to gain educational rights & treatment equal to those given to White males

The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see--Winston Churchill, Prime Minster of Great Britain During World War II

Studying the history of education will help you appreciate its truly noble heritage. Knowing our educational history and gaining a historical perspective will help you live up to and extend this tradition

Themes in American Education1. Local control—state governments assumed the role of educational authorities

and then delegated substantial powers to local school boards2. Universal education—education for all children has been a developing theme

in American education3. Public education—today private education remains a small but important part

of the overall educational system, but nationhood for the United States brought the expansion of publicly supported education

4. Comprehensive education—the basic abilities to read, write, and do arithmetic were once sufficient to prepare most children for fulfilling their adult roles in society. Now, the comprehensive public high school, include both training for trades and preparation for college

5. Secular education—American education became increasingly secular, concerned with producing socially responsible citizens. Religious study has remained mainly in the private sector

6. Changing ideas of the basics—technical and scientific literacy were added to the basics in the computer-and space-age late 20th century

7. Expanding definitions of educational access and equality—focus on equality of educational opportunity has expanded. During the first decade of the 21st century, the emphasis on academic achievement has continued

Colonial Origins• Dame schools—girls learned basic household skills such as cooking and sewing.• Apprenticeships—throughout the colonies, poor children were often apprenticed

or indentured to local tradesmen or housewives• Town schools—as early as 1642, Massachusetts passed a law requiring parents to

educate their children. Old Deluder Satan Act, Satan assuredly would try to keep people from understanding the Scriptures, it was deemed important that all children be taught how to read

• In New England, town schools, set the precedent that if parents would not or could not educate their children, the government was obligated to take on that responsibility

• Moving schools—when settlers spread out, seeking better farmland, the town schools began to disappear. Moving school, is where the schoolmaster traveled from village to village, holding sessions in each place for several months before moving on

• District school—discontent with moving schools, led to the development of the district school

• New England Primer—after students learned the basics, the students graduated to an illustrated book composed of religious texts and other readings

Foolishness is bound up on the heart of the child; but the rod of correction shall drive it from him

--New England Primer• Private tutors—primarily in the South• Private Venture Schools—were licensed by the civil government but not

protected or financed by it, flourished, and the use of public funds to educate everyone’s children did not become customary

• Common school—referred to schools that provided education for the average person, although not necessarily at public expense or available to all

• Universal education—that some sort of elementary education should be provided free, at public expense and under public control, for everyone who could not afford or did not want private schooling

• Northwest Ordinances of 1785 and 1787—concerned with the sale of public lands in the Northwest Territory. Every township was divided into thirty-six sections, of which one was set aside for the maintenance of public school

If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization; it expects what never was and will never be

--Thomas Jefferson, 3rd U. S. President and Author of the Declaration of Independence

McGuffey Readers—emphasized morality and Americanism—it sold over 100 million copies between 1836 and 1906

The Common School is the greatest discovery ever made by man--Horace Mann, 19th century Promoter of the Common School

• Kindergarten—or “children’s garden”, where pleasant children’s activities such as songs and stories were used to lay a foundation before formal education began. Friedrich Froebel of Germany developed the first kindergarten in 1837

• John Pestalozzi—modeled his educational doctrines on a Swiss experimental school at the beginning of the 19th century. He attempted to educate the heads, hearts and hands of his pupils, relying on attitudes of acceptance and love of the individual student to reach large numbers of poor and handicapped children

• German educator Johann Friedrich Herbart, stressed that the primary purpose of education was moral development. This strongly influenced American teachers during the early part of the 20th century

• Less religious training—in the early and mid-nineteenth century, focus on obtaining functional knowledge for life after school

• Merging of districts—consolidation of one-room schools

Progressive principles1. The child should have freedom to develop naturally2. Natural interest is the best motive for work3. The teacher is a guide, not a taskmaster4. A student’s development must be measured scientifically, not jut by grades5. Students’ general health and physical development require attention6. The school and the home must work together to meet children’s needs7. The progressive school should be a leader in trying new educational ideasSpecial education receives attention—between 1948 and 1953, the number of

schools offering special education services increased by 83%New curriculum projects—during the 1950s and 1960s, projects emphasized

mathematics, science and social studiesEducation of gifted and disadvantaged—increase attention to this area of needBack to basics—today, academic rigor continues to be emphasized in the form of

content standards, but more programs have been developed to meet the needs of students who are at risk of dropping out

• Latin Grammar School—mean “college preparatory school”—preparing for entrance to college

• Emphasis on classical education—study of classical languages and thought

Corporate schools—these institutions were governed by a board of trustees or directors and were able to continue as a corporate endeavor beyond the tenure of any particular teacherCommercial subjects—English grammar schools, catered to the growing number of students who needed more than elementary instruction but were not interested in preparing for collegeGreater opportunities for girls—in the 1700s, private venture English grammar schools were more flexible than the Latin grammar schools and, as a result, were the first secondary institutions to accept female studentsAcademy—emerged during the second half of the 18th century. It was an attempt to combine Latin and English grammar schools through separate Latin and English departments within one school. Gradually the academy took the place of both types of school. Surge in education for females—first half of the 1800s, where many became colleges. Domestic skills were presented as practical applications of the more abstract traditional subjects. Second, women’s education was intended to prepare women for life as teachers

The ability to secure an independent livelihood and honorable employ suited to her education and capacities is the only true foundation of the social

elevation of woman--Catharine Beecher, 19th century Champion of Female Academies

The ladder was there, “from the gutter to the university,” and for those stalwart enough to ascend it, the schools were a boon and a path out of poverty

--Diane Ravitch, Educational HistorianKalamazoo case—1874, ruled that school districts could tax the public to support

both high schools and elementary schools.Public comprehensive high school—embodies the notion of comprehensive

education, another of the key themes of American education1909-1910—a separate program was established for the intermediate grades

seven, eight and nine. This was called junior high schoolMiddle school—include grades six, seven and eight rather than a junior high

schoolEmphasis on personal growth—to encourage this kind of personal growth,

middle schools often use interdisciplinary team teaching, block scheduling, advisory homerooms and exploratory activities and courses

Criticisms of middle schools—show that the majority of eighth-graders fail to reach proficiency in mathematics, reading and science

Teaching in the middle schools—the RAND study points out that only 12% to 25% of teachers have specialized training in middle-grades education

High school structure has resisted change for many years.

Catholic school growth—about 2.3 million students attend, compared to an estimated 1.84 million students in other religious schools

Education of minorities• Great struggle for change• Schools for free African Americans in the North• Education of African Americans prohibited in the South• After Reconstruction—separate schools in the South• Booker T. Washington—called to start an African American normal school in

Tuskegee, Alabama, in 1881. Tuskegee Institute—practical educationEducation must not simply teach work—it must teach life

--W.E.B Du Bois, African American Civil-Rights Activist1862, U. S. Congress passed the Morrill Act. Granted each state a minimum of

30,000 acres of federal land with the proviso that the income from the rent or sale of these lands must be used to establish colleges for the study of agriculture and mechanical arts

1890 institutions—were created for the higher education of African Americans. Separate but Equal—1896, case of Plessy v. Ferguson, U. S. Supreme Court

upheld the constitutionality of “separate but equal” accommodations for African Americans

De jure school segregation—that is, segregation by law. The crowding of African Americans into isolated neighborhoods often resulted in de facto segregation—that is, segregation resulting primarily from residential patterns.

• Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 1954, ruled that separate educational facilities are inherently unequal and that laws requiring White and non-White students to go to different schools were illegal

• In Brown v. The Board of Education, the Supreme Court concluded that de jure school segregation violated the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution

• Busing—court ordered busing, was prime mover in ordering school districts to employ busing in the desegregation process

• Mixed success—attempts to desegregate the schools by busing met with tremendous community resistance

• Big-City Desegregation—resulted in the “White flight”—the exodus of White residents as parents have chosen to move to the suburbs or place their children in private schools

• Metropolitan-area strategies—children would be bused over the entire metropolitan area

• Supreme Court reverses direction—Court essentially conceded that practical limits exist as to what a federal court can do to remedy prior discrimination

Recent developments—increasingly segregated residential patterns and the slackening of legal pressure to desegregate during the 1980s and 1990s have led to a phenomenon known as resegregation , in which school are becoming more segregated again

Segregation was wrong when it was forced by white people, and I believe it is still wrong when it is requested by black people

--Coretta Scott King, Wife of Martin Luther King and Civil Rights Leader• Desegregation does not always lead to integrationas early as 1622, in an ominous foreshadowing of future policies, one colonist

wrote back to England that it was easier to conquer the Indians than to civilize them. The people who had been American Indians for 20,000 years finally became American citizens in 1924.

My son, Wind Wolf, is not an empty glass coming into your class to be filled. He is a full basket coming into a different environment and society with

something special to share. Please let him share his knowledge, heritage and culture with you and his peers

--Robert Lake-Thom, Author and Native HealerThe American Indian population in the U. S. is still plagued by problems such as

poverty, parental alcoholism, underachievement, absenteeism, overage students and a high dropout rate

Discrimination against Hispanics—Hispanic children tended to receive lower scores than White children on English-language intelligence quotient (IQ) tests, which not only were written in a language that was not their own, but reflected White middle-class values. These factors combined to reinforce an image of Hispanic American children as intellectually inferior to their White counterpartsSince the 1940s, the courts have acknowledged that de facto segregation exists between White and Hispanic American school children and have required corrective integration plans. High dropout rates, low academic achievement—still persist, the public schools have not served these students well, and the cost of this failure in human economic terms is enormousHispanic American youth represent the fastest-growing segment of the U. S. population; about one in five children younger than age eighteen is Hispanic

Education of Asian Americans• The three largest groups of Asian Americans are individuals of Chinese, Filipino

and Japanese heritage• School segregation of Chinese American children in California lasted until at

least 1946• Stereotype misleading—the success levels achieved by more recent Asian

immigrants have varied because of the range of educational levels & previous socioeconomic circumstances associated with these new Americans

Impediments to parental involvement—in part because of the respect traditionally accorded to educators in their native countries, parents of Asian American students often hesitate to intervene when they are dissatisfied with their children’s educational progress, instead deferring to the educational system’s authority

Also, a high proportion of Asian American families have two parents employed, a situation that makes attendance at traditional teacher conferences or parent-teacher organizations (PTO)

Key TermsAcademy Latin grammar school Brown v. Board of Education of

TopekaMcGuffey Readers common school middle schoolDame school Morrill Act de facto school segregationNew England Primer de jure school segregation Northwest OrdinancesDistrict school Old Deluder Satan Act 1890 institutions Plessy v. Ferguson English grammar school private venture schoolEquality of educational opportunity public comprehensive high schoolJunior high school resegregation Kalamazoo caseTown school kindergarten universal education