By 1920: 1. The Common School movement has succeeded
in making education accessible for nearly everyone, though not exactly
as Mann and others had envisioned. 2. Approximately 32 % of eligible students
are enrolled in high school (@ 2,200,000+) 3. Schools are graded 8-4, though there are
still lots of one-room ("multi-age") schools in rural areas. 4. Curriculum has been pretty much standardized
and reflects the recommendations of the various NEA committees.
Curriculum for secondary schools is "departmentalized." In 1893-95, the NEA Committee of Ten on Secondary School Studies
and the Committee of Fifteen on elementary school studies issued a
series of reports that recommended the standardization of public high
school and elementary school curricula. 5. Teacher training, though still pretty
minimal -- basically 6 weeks of "institute" training --
is moving toward normal school training. 6. Curriculum is split into tracks -- college
preparatory, general, and vocational -- abetted by the Smith-Hughes
Act of 1917 which provided federal matching funds for vocational education
in public high schools, provided
federal funds for the salaries of teachers of agriculture, trades,
industry, and home economics in secondary schools and stipulated in
detail the vocational character of the courses to be taught. 7. "Professional Educators" (Superintendents
and Principals), whose sympathies are with corporate leaders rather
than the common people, have replaced "Headmasters," who
were people who both taught classes and administered a school, and
have effectively snatched power away from local school boards. 8. Thanks to the "social efficiency"
/ industrial model, also, schools are getting much larger -- especially
in urban areas -- and more bureaucratic. (Standardized grade reports, etc.) 9. Promotion and placement are both largely
on the basis of tests -- the "Scientific Measurement" and
Educational Psychology people are pretty much in charge of education. 10. In 1896, in Plessy v. Ferguson, the U. S. Supreme
Court ruled that states can provide racially separated public facilities,
as long as they are equal, including schools. This ruling legalized racial segregation and established the
legal doctrine of "separate but equal." That doctrine remained the law of the land until it was overturned
in 1954 (Brown v. Board
of Education, Topeka, KS).
Except for a few tribally-operated schools in the Indian Nations
(Oklahoma), Native American education is almost exclusively in boarding
schools practicing deculturization. 11. The U. S. has become
an industrialized and largely urbanized society with an increasing
gulf between the rich and the poor. 12. In 1916, the American Federation of Teachers
was formed as a labor union for classroom teachers. It was affiliated with the AFL-CIO. 13. In 1874, a Kalamazoo, Michigan, case established
that states may establish and support public high schools with tax
funds. 14. In 1901, the first public junior college
was established in Joliet, Illinois. 15. In 1905, the first junior high schools
were established in New York.
These were 7th & 8th grade "intermediate schools." 16. In 1918, Mississippi passed a compulsory
attendance law; all states (46) now had compulsory attendance. 17. In 1919, the Progressive Education Association was established to promote the educational philosophy of John Dewey |