Education

The modern educational system in the United States took shape during the period from 1900 to 1930. As part of the Progressive reaction to the growth of cities, the effects of industrial society, and the new immigration, educators reformed school curricula from kindergarten to universities. They created the modern school system, in which the state mandates schooling to a certain age and education beyond elementary schools is tracked according to assumptions about a student’s future occupation. The ideas of John Dewey, which emphasized learning through practical application, were influential in the emerging education reform. Most importantly, American universities became the site for the production of knowledge and training of experts.

The educators who reformed the schools during the first three decades of the 20th century were reacting to social, economic, and cultural changes in American society. In the eyes of many reformers, American society had begun to disintegrate due to the pressures brought to bear by modern industry, mass immigration, and rapid urbanization. In response, reformers embraced the doctrine of efficiency as the means for saving American society. Social efficiency was the belief that all the different parts of society could be formed into an efficient functioning whole. Educators believed that they could use the schools to prepare each student for his or her place in society, thus making America socially efficient and ending the threat to the social order. These beliefs steered educators as they modernized schools during the early part of the century.

Although school systems chose to modernize in different ways, the educational changes across the country shared certain characteristics. First, educators extended schooling to include a much larger proportion of children. Second, schools expanded and differentiated their curricula. Third, educators sought to use the schools to solve social and economic problems. Fourth, schools sought to individualize the school program. Educational institutions from grade school to the university based their modernization efforts on these principles.

During this period, the most significant change in American schools was the tremendous increase in the number of students attending school, particularly high school. Between 1900 and 1930, the proportion of 14- to 17-year-olds enrolled in high school grew from 10.6 percent to 54.9 percent. Total enrollment increased almost 700 percent. In comparison, the total population of 14- to 17-year-olds increased by just over 50 percent. The increase in high school enrollment far outstripped the growth of the high school-aged population. The percentage of 17-year-olds who graduated from high school increased from 6.4 percent in 1900 to 32.1 percent in 1930. A variety of factors contributed to these increases. The most significant were compulsory education laws and the fact that high school education had become more valuable.

State legislatures across the United States passed compulsory education laws in reaction to changes occurring in the economy. By the 20th century, the apprentice system for learning a trade was all but nonexistent. In addition, many of the jobs in large factories that dominated American industry did not offer opportunities for advancement. Educators feared that the young men and women entering factory work faced a life of toil without the hope of advancing to better-paid positions. Educators also feared that the immigrants streaming into the United States would not adopt American ways and values if they did not receive an education. To counteract these threats, educators undertook efforts to bring more children into school. Compulsory education laws were favorite tools in their efforts. Most states passed compulsory education laws in the late 19th century and expanded the targeted ages early in the 20th century. By the end of the first decade, many states had passed laws that mandated education up to at least 14 years of age. Many of these laws exempted youths aged 15 and 16 only if they proved that they could read and write at a satisfactory level

High school also became more valuable as a path to a career. Many large manufacturers began to require a high school education for new employees. High schools also began to offer practical courses that prepared students for jobs immediately upon graduation. These changes helped increase the high school enrollments throughout the country by making high school beneficial for a larger number of teenagers.

The growth in the number of high school students changed the methodology of education. Prior to the 20th century, schools focused on teaching basic literacy and arithmetic at the grade school level. High schools offered courses of study targeted toward preparing students for

Four African-American women participate in a cooking class. (Library of Congress)

College. Students who did not fit the system stayed out of school. Any child who completed elementary school and was not interested in college would drop out. Children who were unable to complete the regular courses in the elementary schools because of physical or mental handicaps did not attend schools. Educators thought that children leaving school early was a threat to society. Because they had placed themselves at the center of a healthy social order, educators moved to expand their offerings to attract more students. They did this by differentiating the curriculum to appeal to the widest range of students.

In all grade levels, educators created programs for students unable to complete the regular course of study, including students who were deaf, blind, developmentally disabled, delinquent, gifted, anemic, and suffering from tuberculosis. In the high schools, educators first differentiated the curriculum in their effort to meet the needs of students who attended school only because they were required to attend. At the turn of the century, America’s high school students could choose from two to five courses of study, in which most of the classes were required. Educators felt that the influx of a group of students who were not interested in the courses of study offered would disrupt regular classes. They were compelled, however, to offer all students an education. Schools, therefore, set up special classes. The problem arose of what to teach in these classes. Teachers eventually settled on a course of manual training, in which the schools would teach the students basic manual skills that might help them once they left school. As compulsory education laws forced more students into high school, educators expanded these programs.

From its beginning, manual training developed into vocational education. Initially, schools expanded manual training to make education more practical for all students. At the same time, educators realized that many youths were leaving public school to enter private business schools, which taught skills such as stenography and bookkeeping. To attract these students, schools began to teach business skills. Educators soon applied the same model to appeal to students who left school as soon as legally possible to work in industry. Manual training courses evolved into vocational education. Schools began to offer courses in trades such as bricklaying, painting, dressmaking, and automobile mechanics.

Educators’ belief in vocational education led them to differentiate the curriculum by sex. Because female students faced restrictions in the labor force, educators saw it as socially wasteful to offer them training in all fields. Thus, educators introduced vocational courses in dressmaking, millinery, retail selling, and domestic science. Restricting students to specific courses was a change from the 19th-century system in which all students could select their course of study. The differentiation by sex in vocational education spread to other areas of the curriculum, leading to further discrimination against female students.

From these beginnings, vocational education came to define the American high school as general education, while college preparation curricula also assumed students’ vocational paths. Many vocational education proponents, however, began to discern a problem with the educational system. School systems realized that many students were so far below grade level that they never reached high school before they turned 16, at which time they could legally leave school. The danger in this, according to school officials, was that these were the students most in need of vocational training. Schools reacted in two ways. They created junior high schools and instituted INTELLIGENCE TESTS.

The idea behind junior high schools was that the oldest grades of elementary schools would be separated and provided with the same type of differentiated curriculum offered at the high schools. Students who planned on continuing through high school took academic courses while those students who never intended to go to high school studied vocational subjects. School officials believed that this served the needs of all students equally.

Intelligence testing also worked to keep students at the grade level deemed appropriate for their age. The tests were first extensively used by the U. S. Army in World War I. America’s schools adopted them immediately after the war. By the mid-1920s, the school systems of 37 out of the 40 largest cities used intelligence testing to place students in instructional tracks. Many school systems gave students intelligence tests as early as first grade and assigned them to instructional tracks based on the results. Instruction was then differentiated between the tracks. Students who received the lowest scores were taught basic literacy and vocational skills while those who scored the highest were offered an education that prepared them for high school. By matching instruction to the perceived intelligence of the students, the schools hoped that all students could pass to the next grade level each year. However, there were problems built into the tests. Intelligence testing was in its infancy, and tests were biased in favor of native English-speaking students. Thus, across the country, foreign-born students were placed in the lower instructional tracks in a much greater proportion than their percentage in the population as a whole. Fortunately, most schools realized these problems; and by the 1930s they decreased their reliance on intelligence tests.

The separation of students into tracks remained an integral part of the schools. Coupled with the continued belief in social efficiency, tracking led to the abandonment of a broad, meaningful education for large numbers of American students by the late 1920s, as schools struggled to offer education to an ever-increasing student body. They discovered that, beyond a certain point, education ceased to offer vocational value for students who planned to work in factories. The schools’ goals for these students became simply to pass them from grade to grade without expecting much from them. The general track, as it was known in many school systems, failed to challenge students. It offered grade promotion in return for good behavior in school. Students were not expected to demonstrate mastery of any subject beyond the basics.

America’s colleges and universities went through changes similar to those of its secondary schools. In seeking to modernize, colleges first sought to make themselves the center for the production and dissemination of knowledge. Second, they promoted the use of scientific knowledge to improve agriculture and industry and to address economic and social problems in collaboration with government and business interests. Third, colleges expanded their programs in an effort to spread knowledge to as many people as possible.

Much in the same way as high schools, colleges in the 19th century had offered limited courses of study. As society and the economy became more complex, college presidents began to see a need for a more complex curriculum. They realized that the experts needed in the industrial economy would need to be trained at the universities. Professionals such as chemists, physicists, social workers, engineers, and lawyers required training. America’s colleges and universities developed specialized curricula to meet these needs. In order to teach these new subjects, university faculty members had to become experts themselves. Faculty thus began to undertake research as part of their roles as educators. It was the beginning of the university as an important site for scientific, economic, and social research.

Many other professions were beginning to require education past high school, but not four years at a university. Outside of the university, new post-secondary educational institutions emerged. Normal schools for teacher training, business schools, and nursing schools arose to meet the needs of newly specialized professions. In addition to the training offered to students pursuing a definite occupation, colleges began to offer classes to students not necessarily interested in a degree. Many college presidents believed that the knowledge being discovered by university faculty should be spread. Colleges developed classes and lecture tours that reached out to interested citizens not enrolled in a university.

The knowledge gained through research was not used solely for instructing new students. University faculty began to work with government and private organizations to help solve problems. Agricultural colleges developed new crops, fertilizers, and farming techniques to help farmers, and also extension programs. University social work programs undertook studies on which government and private agencies based their policies. Finally, new professional schools of education emerged to reinforce progressive reforms and to further modernize school systems. Collaboration between universities and other agencies became an important component of the modern educational system.

See also immigration; youth.

Further reading: Lawrence A. Cremin, American Education: The Metropolitan Experience, 1876-1980 (New York: Harper and Row, 1988); David Tyack, The One Best System: A History of American Urban Education (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1974);---

And Larry Cuban, Tinkering Toward Utopia: A Century of School Reform (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1995).

—Michael Hartman