EDUC 2050 Midterm exam

What are the 4 competing purposes of public education in the US?

1. Intellectual

2. Social

3. Economic

4. Political

Intellectual

To teach basic skills, content knowledge, and higher-order thinking

Social

To help solve social issues, ensure social cohesion and socialize students into the behaviors and values of society

Economic

To prepare students for future careers and prepare them to contribute work to society

Political

To prepare students to participate in the political order and assimilate children into the basic laws of society and patriotism.

Political perspectives toward US public education

1. Conservative

2. Progressive

3. Radical

Conservative

Focus on individual responsibility and competition

Example: Valdivitorian, Homework is important

Progressive

Focus on group dynamics and social problems

Radical

Focus on dismantling systems of inequality

Conservative in the role of school

• “traditional”

• Talent and hard work

• Morals

• Competition

• Maximize economic and social productivity

• Respect for authority

• Maintain social order

• *Cursive*

Progressive in the role of school

• “liberal”

• equal opportunity to succeed

• Respect diversity

• Citizenship and democratic participation

• develop creativity and sense of self to address societal needs

• expression and emotion

• *arts*

Radical in the role of school

• eliminate inequality

• schools reproduce economic, social, and political inequality

• systems are harmful

• *next common in the US*

Colonial era (1600-1700s) Before Public schools. What is happening?

Past- school was charged with assuming roles of family, church, and community

Present- school continues to be a focal point for societal needs/issues

Ongoing- No one agrees on what school reform should look like

Social class in the Colonial era (1600-1700s)

Only rich white men required education (ruling class; old world tradition). The creation of Ivy League universities

Puritans Colonial Era (1600-1700s)

Focus on literacy as a means of teaching Christian life, Massachusetts “Old Deluder” law 1647

Founding fathers

Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson

Ben Franklin

1749: education based on a secular (non-religious) course of study in reading, writing, public speaking, and art; process and creative expression. Self-improvement happens through education (progressive/liberal)

Thomas Jefferson

A literate population is the safeguard for democracy'; 1779 tried to create Virginia state schools but was denied (conservative and progressive)

US Schools in the colonial era

• Often taught by elder women/widows

• Focus entirely on memorization and copying

• No grades

• One room, all ages together

• Strict discipline

• Secondary education was only for male students (Greek, Latin)

• Dancing and music for girls (South)

Until____, the vast majority of the US population was ____

1820, illiterate

Horace Mann

• Established common schools: free, public-funded elementary schools

• Former Lawyer; created the Massachusetts Board of Education in 1837

• Created the 1st teacher training school in 1839

• Conservative and progressive view him as one of the 1st education reformers

problems with common schools

• Not religious

• Many catholics felt that they were protestant because of Horace Mann

Opposition to common schools

• TAXES

• Conflict between Catholic and Protestant moral values

• Industrialists: schools take away workers

• Radicals: common schools were a way to assimilate docile workers

when did congress pass the Morrill Act

1862

Morrill Act

• First publicly funded universities, making college education available to more than the upper class

• “land-grant” universities

• Mostly in the Midwest

what was happening during 1600s-1800s

During the colonial era, when public schools were first being suggested and formed, there were still large groups of people who were not being included in mass schooling efforts:

• Native Americans

• Black people and enslaved people

• Women

• recent immigrants

Native American Schooling in the US

Pre-colonial: Tribes educated young people according to community values and roles; varied among tribes

1600s-1800s: Emergence of boarding schools and formed assimilation; cherokee and choctav schools abolished

Ongoing: the lasting impacts of Indian Boarding Schools (PTSD, community suffering)

Virginia

Missionaries mostly focused on trying to “civilize” natives

Harvard

“Indian college” in 1653, focused on assimilating into European culture

Cherokee and Choctaw Tribes

Tribal run schools, newspapers own language; high literacy rates

1819 Indian Civilization Act

• Provided federal money for missionaries to “civilize” and “Christianize” native children at boarding schools

• Schools were located hundreds of miles from reservations to separate children from their families

• Modeled after Fort Marion prison camp

Native Boarding Schools

Taken- Children were sometimes taken with consent and other times forcefully removed from their families

Conditions- separation from all family, cut hair, changed names, uniforms, no privacy, malnourished, physical abuse, sexual abuse, death (mass graves)

Education- Boys: manual labor (industrial) Girls: domestic labor

The competing purposes of Native Americans in education in the US: Intellectual

Past- to teach English and industrial work skills (massive failure)

Recent- repair harm

Present- in contention due to partisanship

The competing purposes of Native Americans in education in the US: social

Past- assimilate into cultural “norms”

Recent- culturally sustaining

Present- in contention due to partisanship

The competing purposes of Native Americans in education in the US: Economic

Past- Federal access to land and resources

Recent- boost growth among native communities

Present- In contention due to partisanship

The competing purposes of Native Americans in education in the US: Political

Past- Control of native population

Recent- acknowledge harm

Present- in contention due to partiasanship

Underground schools

Vast networks of schools were taught by free black people (usually widows). Only 10% of enslaved persons in the South were illiterate

Religion in Black American education 1800s

Strong focus on teaching the written word and especially analyzing the bible for support against injustice

Illegal in Black American education 1800s

Literacy was viewed as a threat to slavery, so most slave-holding states had anti-education las for black Americans

1831 Nat Turners Rebellion

• virginia

• uprising that resulted in the death of 55 white people and the execution and beating of hundreds of black people

• resulted in even tighter restrictions against the education and assembly of black people in the USU

Fight for literacy abolitionists

Northern abolitionists encouraged literacy as a tool for emancipation pre-Civil War

The fight for literacy slave owners

While many were anti-literacy, some did educate their slaves in order

Literacy in the fight for literacy

Strong focus on reading, writing, and critical thinking-all things which dismantle power structures

Black schools

• Virginia 1861

• As emancipation came, formerly enslaved people opened black schools staffed with black teachers and white Northerners

• Literacy rates among Black Americans climbed from 20% in 1870 to 70% by 1910

Schooling of women in the US

• Pre-colonial 1800s- Homemaking skills; academic education for women viewed as “biologically harmful/too stressful”

• 1800s- emergence of elementary schools and private academies for women

• Ongoing- Traditionally feminized professions/education; discrepancies between men and women in schools

Education of Women

• Unlike enslaved people and native americans in that, white women did not face legal restrictions on education

• More of a social and economic purpose than political

• Troy Female Seminary in NY was the first institution modeled to provide a traditional education to women

• U of I became the first state university to admit women in 1856

High school attendance in the US: Before 1875

Fewer than 25,000 students were enrolled in US public high schools

High school attendance in the US: 1880-1920

• 2,382,542 students enrolled in public schools

• During this time an average of one new high school per day was opened in the US

High school attendance in the US: by 1940

6.5 million students enrolled in public high schools

Compulsory school attendance laws: Massachusetts 1852

required parents to send children to school “for at least 12 weeks…6weeks of which shall be consecutive,” largely unenforced and unsuccessful

Compulsory school attendance laws: 1890

27 states now have compulsory education laws “for those 16 and under, compulsory and unselective”

Compulsory school attendance laws: by 1918

All states have compulsory attendance laws, but they vary greatly and are unenforceable

Compulsory Laws

• Required attendance officers

• Got rid of exemptions

• Increased days of school from 86 to 143

• Age requirement varied from 14 to 18

• Schools begin to replace work for children

  • Many people are unhappy about this

Main issues in education 1880s- 1920s: Traditional VS. Modern

Tensions between classical subjects (Greek, Latin) and modern subjects (science, literature, foreign literature)

Main issues in education 1880s- 1920s: College

All colleges required different courses of study, so schools did not have participation requirement

Main issues in education 1880s- 1920s: Life skills

Teachers believed it was more important to learn life skills than traditional academic subjects

Main issues in education 1880s- 1920s: Choice

Should all students learn the same thing? Should interests and abilities be part of education?

The Committee of Ten, 1893

• The purpose of school is intellectual/academic

• There should be no differentiation of curricula

• The purpose of 2nd education is to prepare students for “duties of life”

• Modern subjects should be equal to traditional ones

• Proposed 5 curricular areas: classical and modern languages, English, math, history, and science

• Students should be taught in the same manner

• No mention of vocational (career) education

• Quickly adopted by colleges as entrance requirements

Commission on the reorganization of secondary schools, 1918

• Progressive response to the committee of ten

• known as the Cardinal principles of secondary education

• considered less academically demanding and more utilitarian (life-focused)

The main goals of secondary education are:

• Health

• Command of fundamental processes

• Worthy home membership

• Vocation

• Citizenship

• Worthy use of leisure

• Ethical character

1860-1920s: political

• 14th and 15th amendment

• Plessy V. Ferguson

• Heavy political upheaval in the reconstruction era

1860-1920s: Economic

• westward expansion

• Industrial revolution

• Child labor

1860-1920s: Social

• Women's suffrage

• “The melting pot”

• “The wild west”

14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (1868)

• Guarantees the rights of citizenship, due process, and equal protection under the law to all citizens

• Granted citizenship to “all persons born or naturalized in the United States,” thereby granting citizenship to formerly enslaved people

• failed to extend the bill of rights to the states; it also failed to protect the rights of black citizens

15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (1870)

• Granted African American men the right to vote; the right of male U.S. citizens to vote shall not be denied or abridged “on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”

• didn’t grant the right to vote to all citizens regardless of race- it barred states from denying suffrage based on race, opening a loophole for literacy, land ownership, or other requirements

• Voting Rights Act didn’t pass until 1965

Sumner Civil Rights Bill and Civil Rights Act of 1875

• One proposed part would have racially integrated schools, but it was removed before the bill passed into law in 1875

• Still considered ‘revolutionary’ or ‘racial’ to integrated schools

• The Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional in 1883 due to pressure from segregation

Plessy V. Ferguson

• Response to the Civil Rights Act

  • Gave states control over segregation

  • Allowed “separate but equal” and Jim Crow laws

Lynchings

• “Mob justice”

• Prevalent in many southern states

• Often used to scare Black educators and students, despite the legality of education

Economic 1880s-1920s (westward expansion: Inventions

• Trains

• planes

• cars

• bicycles

• telephones

• camera

• windmills

• barbed wire

Economic 1880s-1920s (westward expansion: Mining and agriculture

• Nevada, California, black hills

• Climate for growing row crops in the plains cattle industry (cowboys)

Economic 1880s-1920s (westward expansion: Industrial revolution

• Jobs, jobs, jobs

• Factories

• Assembly lines

• Immigrant workers

Women’s suffrage

• strong debate over women’s roles now that education is available

• suffragettes work for the right for women to vote

“The melting pot”

• Mass migration from Europe between 1850-1920

• Schools become places of assimilation

• By 1890 of 1/3 of New Yorkers were non-English-speaking immigrants

• In Chicago, CPC quadrupled its population of Polish, German, Swedish, Norwegian, and Czech-speaking students during this time

• Where the US once used the metaphor of “melting pot” to be a positve pf bringing differenct people together, the new influx of immigration led to mistrust and fear

“wild west”

• Post indian removal act

• Frontier life with cheap land from the Homestead Act

19th amendment to the US constitution (1920)

• “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation”

• Many women still unable to vote because of discriminatory state voting laws

US Child labor (late 1800s and early 1900s)

• Child labor appealed to business owners as necessary after enslaved people were emancipated

  • Since they were being paid, it was viewed as a way to bring children out of poverty and teach them “honest jobs”

• Often immigrants children taken from their families to work (today we call this human trafficking)

US Child labor (1870)

In a census 1 out of every 8 children in the US were employed

US Child labor (1900)

1 out of every 5 children were employed in the US (Over 2 million)

US Child labor (1890-1910)

• 18% of all children in the US ages 10-15 had full-time jobs

  • “big enough to work” was based on size

• Poor families often had more children because they could become and income source

Anti-child labor laws would not pass until_____

1938

1860s-1920s Immigration

• The economic boom and Industrial Revolution brought larger waves of workers from southern europe and Asia to the US, mostly in Urban areas or port cities

• Many immigrants came to work in mass industries like building railroads, factories, mining, and agriculture.

Immigration education

• Focus on assimilation

  • not as violent as native american education, but similar goals to “Americanize” through

    • American history

    • civics

    • english

• Many immigrant groups fought for the right for children to continue ti speak their native language

  • Some groups opened their own school, i.e. Greek language schools

California

• San Franscco, 1858 editorial: “let us keep our public schools free from the integration of inferior races” and “teaching them separately from our Caucasian pure blood”

• Chinatown segregation (Chinese Exclusion Act 1882)

• 1859 Chinese schools at the Chinese Presbyterian Mission Church were created

  • Attendance was low because of the focus on religion

• 1860 California legislature made a law that no other races could attend school with white children

• By 1874 black and indian students had schools but Chinese students no longer had any

• The Chinese American community argued it was unfair that they paid taxes and yet were denied the right to send their children to school

Religious Conflicts

• Many immigrants felt American public schools were “heavily steeped in Protestant tradition” and would assimilate their children to protestant religions

• Catholic and jewish immigrant groups created their own schools to preserve their cultures and religions

Religious universities

• The first Jewish universities were then created to cater to Jewish American students but open to all (Yeshiva and Brandeis)

• The first catholic universities included Georgetown, Notre Dame, Fordham, and St. Louis University

• Loyola and DePaul in Chicago were both Catholic universities to specifically serve immigrant students

NEA (National Education Association)

• 1891: children should only be instructed in English in US public schools

• Permitting foreign languages “undermines americansim “”

• “Language reform is one of the leading events of the last quarter of the 19th century”

Immigration act of 1924

• Expanded on previous legislation like the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882

• Set strict limits on immigration from asian and African countries and from Southern and Eastern Europe

• Immigration slowed down dramatically due to the great depression

The competing purpose of immigrant education in the US: Intellectual

What do immigrant students and families most need to know to be successful in American society?

The competing purpose of immigrant education in the US: Social

Public schools are places where people are brought together

• assimilation versus celebration of diversity

The competing purpose of immigrant education in the US: Economic

Immigrants currently fill positions across industries, especially agriculture, healthcare, higher education, and construction

The competing purpose of immigrant education in the US: Political

This is currently a highly politically charged topic based on partisan beliefs; children of immigrants in schools are caught in the middle