The Historical Context of Public Schooling  The common school movement  Common schools and the curriculum

Common School Movement  Effort of mid-nineteenth century school reformers to establish a state system of free, tax supported, locally controlled public schools (elementary)  The impetus for this movement was in the desire to prepare Americans for the role of democratic citizenship or democratic equality  Realization of the enlightenment idea that intelligence and virtue were the key to building a democratic government

Why Common Schools?  The arrival of large numbers of immigrants, particularly Irish Catholics and the concern that they would not adjust to American society  The 1830’s and 1840s as a period of reform-anti slavery movement, temperance movement, humane care of the mentally retarded, penitentiary and reformatory  Common schools would bring all children of the Republic together and teach them useful skills and civic virtue and reward individual merit

Civic Virtue  The task of the schools was to instill a commitment to the common good  Teach a non-denominational brand of Protestant Christianity  Read the bible (King James Version) without comment  Angered large numbers of Catholics and set the stage for the emergence of a Catholic school system

Horace Mann ( )  Massachusetts politician and first secretary of the Board of Education  Promoted a system of free, locally controlled, tax supported, and compulsory common schools  His 12 annual reports make the case for such a system of common schooling

Equality  “Education, then, beyond all other devices of human origins is the greatest equalizer of the condition of man…it does better than disarm the poor of their hostility toward the rich; it prevents being poor” (12 th Annual Report)

Relieves Class Tensions  “If education be equally diffused, it will draw property after it by the strongest of all attractions; for such a thing never had happened and never can happen as that of an intelligent and practical body of men should be permanently poor” (12 th Annual Report)

Social Harmony  “Could there in your opinion be any police so vigilant and effective for the protection of all the rights of person, property, and character as such a sound and comprehensive education and training as our system of common schools could be made to impart; and would the payment of a sufficient tax to make such education and training universal be the cheapest form of self protection and insurance” (5 th annual report).

W.T. Harris ( ) Superintendent of the St. Louis Public Schools and U.S. Commissioner of Education  A curriculum for the common good  A curriculum comprised of the five traditional disciplines of knowledge- mathematics, geography, literature and art, grammar, and history

 It was this curriculum that would socialize youth into their roles as citizens in a democratic society  Education for Harris was a process in which the individual is “elevated into the species” The child is introduced into the “rhythm of the school” “Order,” for Harris is “heaven’s first law”

Charles W. Eliot  President of Harvard and Head of the Committee of Ten  1894 Report of the Committee laid out the components of liberal education—4 courses of study of equivalent value in preparing the student for whatever path he or she took after high school  Any subject should be taught to any child in the same way and to the same extent

Challenges to Liberal Education  Developmentalism-the curriculum should be organized around the interest of children with minimal direction placed upon the child; children should pursue their own interests  Social Efficiency-the curriculum should prepare students for their occupational and social destinies and should be differentiated in terms of ability and one’s destination in life

 Social Melioriam-the curriculum should be organized around the key social problems and issues affecting youth and should be an instrument for promoting social change  The contemporary curriculum as an untidy compromise among these positions.