Considerations for establishing and maintaining a public school system

1
Considerations for establishing and maintaining a
public school system
History of Education

• Purpose of public schools?
• Who should be educated?
• What should be taught?
• What role should religion play?

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The History of Education

• Colonial Era
• Common School Era
• Progressive Movement
• Post World-War II Era
• Reform Era

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Colonial Era

• Education did not begin with colonists
• Even then there was concern over demise of
  education in family
• Education only for upper-class,
  white, boys of land-owners

Why?
4
Harvard University 1636
1st institute of higher ed in New World

• Before 1650 schools were voluntary and church
  supported
• 1650 Code - each town was to have schoolmaster
• Funds raised by taxes!!

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Thomas Jefferson

• What is the purpose of public schools?
• I think by far the most important bill in our
  whole code, is that for the diffusion of
  knowledge among the people. No other sure
  foundation can be devised for the preservation of
  freedom and happinessThe tax which will be paid
  for this purpose is not more than the thousandth
  part of what will be paid to kings, priests and
  nobles who will rise up among us if we leave the
  people in ignorance. (1786)

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Thomas Jefferson

• Who should be educated?
• Elementary schools for all children, rich and
  poor, male and female.
• District colleges for white
  males who can pay.
  Scholarships for other
  deserving students.
• University for most able
• the laboring the learned

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Thomas Jefferson

• What should be taught?
• Primary schools reading, writing, arithmetic
• District colleges grammar, history,logarithms,
  arithmetic, trigonometry, geography, navigation,
  natural philosophy, Greek and Latin
• University continuation of District College
  curriculum all other useful sciences shall be
  taught in their highest degree

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Thomas Jefferson

• What is role of religion in public education?
• should be completely separate from government, as
  well as from curriculum of schools. Students
  should study science and history, through which
  they would learn secular morality and civic duty.

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Normal School

• 1823
• Reverend Samuel Hall
• Trained teachers
• Horace Mann establishes state-supported
• 1900s primarily female profession

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Common School Era

• Early to mid 1800s-rise of populist movement A
  Jackson president
• Beginning of Industrial Revolution
• Rise of those calling for free and public
  education

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Horace Mann

• Advocated state board of education and became
  first Secretary in 1837
• Started states first school for teacher training
• Advocated for free, public educationwould
  provide good bases for citizenship and equality
  of opportunity
• Schools can change society
• Education can foster social mobility

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1836 - William Holmes McGuffey's Readers
1856 1st kindergarten started in Watertown,
Wisconsin
1911 - first Montessori school in
Tarrytown, New York.
1913 - Edward Lee Thorndike's book, Educational
Psychology The
Psychology of Learning,
1919 - All states have laws funding
transportation of children to school.
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Margaret Haley

• America is on trial NEA speech 1904
• Encouraged unionization/consistency among
  teachers
• Lady Labor Slugger nickname

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During Progressive Era trend began toward
compulsory school laws

• By 1918 all states had such laws

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Progressive Movement

• Continued rise of social reform movements
• Second Industrial Revolution (late 1800s-early
  1900s)
• Rise of immigration to US from Eastern and
  Southern Europe

• Government needs to take on education in
  deliberate/systematic way
• Schools can preserve and promote democratic
  principles
• Emergence of High School
• Continued rise in numbers of pupils attending
  school

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1926 - Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT)
is first administered
1929 - Jean Piaget's The Child's Conception of
the World is published.
1953 - Burrhus Frederic (B.F.) Skinner's Science
and Human Behavior is published.
1954 - Brown v. Board. of Education of Topeka,
ruling that "separate educational facilities are
inherently unequal,"
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John Dewey

• 1859-1952
• Philosopher--School of Pragmatism
• Psychologist
• Educational Reformer
• Connection between education and social action
• Believed that schools did not always meet social,
  emotional, and intellectual needs of children
  and, thus, needs of society.

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John Dewey

• Purpose of public schools?
• Democracy has to be born anew every generation,
  and education is its midwife.(School and
  Society, 1889)
• the school is the primary and most effective
  instrument of social progress and reform (My
  Pedagogic Creed, 1897)

1854
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John Dewey

• Who should be educated?
• All citizens of the democracy

• What should be taught?
• - Schools should teach problem solving and
  learning,how to think rather than simply learning
  discrete pieces of information.
• I believe, therefore, that the true centre of
  correlation of the school subjects is not
  science, nor literature, nor history, nor
  geography, but the childs own social
  activitiesI believe that there isno succession
  of studies in the ideal school curriculum. If
  education is life, all life hasa scientific
  aspect an aspect of art and culture and an
  aspect of communication. My Pedagogic Creed,
  1897

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John Dewey

• What role should religion play?
• Our public schools, in bringing together those
  of different nationalities, languages,
  traditions, and creeds, in assimilating them
  together upon the basis of what is common and
  public in endeavour and achievement, are
  performing an infinitely significant religious
  work. They are promoting the social unity out of
  which in the end genuine religious unity must
  grow. Religion in Our Schools, 1908

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Education Associations

• 1857 NEA
• 1916 AFT
• 1970 PAGE

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Post World War II Era

• Continued debate over goals of education
• Education for whom?
• Purposes of education?
• Calls for expansion of educational opportunities,
  especially post high school-GI Bill
• Tensions between equity and excellence
• Sputnik 1962 a watershed

• Elementary and Secondary Education Act 1965
• Continued debate between liberal/progressives and
  conservatives over nature and purposes of
  schooling

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Post World War II Era

• Social unrest of 60s was coupled with rising
  awareness of educational inequities between
  classes and ethnicities/races
• Exponential rise of politicization of education
  due to stresses upon system

• Brown vs. Board of Education 1954
• Continued debate between progressives and
  traditionalists over aims and methods
• Contention over means of equal access

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• 1963 - Samuel A. Kirk uses the term "learning
  disability" at Chicago conference on children
  with perceptual disorders
• 1965 - National Teachers Corp
• Project Head Start
• 1966 Coleman Report sets stage for busing
• 1972 -Title IX of the Education Amendments

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1975 - The Education of All Handicapped Children
Act (PL 94-142)
1990 - Public Law 101-476, the Individuals with
Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), renames and
amends Public Law 94-142.
1990 - Teach for America is formed
1992 - City Academy High School, nation's first
charter school, opens in St. Paul, Minnesota.
2001 - No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) is
approved by Congress/signed by President
George W. Bush
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Reforming Teaching Profession

• 1980s
• Holmes Group Tomorrows Teachers (1986)
• Carnegie Forum A Nation Prepared (1986)
• 1990s
• NBPTS board-certified teachers

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Educational Reform 1980-present

• Blame assigned for lowering of standards and
  decline of authority and discipline
• 1983-Nation at Risk published by National
  Commission on Excellence in Education
• Set stage for
• No Child Left Behind

• Other Reform Measures
• School based management
• Teacher empowerment
• School choice

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Conclusion

• More and more students have
  entered system
• Increased demand for access
  and equality of opportunity
• Continued conflict over goals and
  purposes of education
• We still have not resolved sticky issues
  associated with social class and education
• Do we educate for common, American culture or
  toward pluralistic view of culture?
• Do we educate toward excellence or toward
  inclusion of all?