history of education

From 1871 to 2021: A Short History of Education in the United States

In 1600s and 1700s America, prior to the first and second Industrial Revolutions, educational opportunity varied widely depending on region, race, gender, and social class.

Public education, common in New England, was class-based, and the working class received few benefits, if any. Instructional styles and the nature of the curriculum were locally determined. Teachers themselves were expected to be models of strict moral behavior.

By the mid-1800s, most states had accepted three basic assumptions governing public education: that schools should be free and supported by taxes, that teachers should be trained, and that children should be required to attend school.

The term “normal school” is based on the French école normale, a sixteenth-century model school with model classrooms where model teaching practices were taught to teacher candidates. In the United States, normal schools were developed and built primarily to train elementary-level teachers for the public schools.

The Normal School The term “normal school” is based on the French école normale , a sixteenth-century model school with model classrooms where model teaching practices were taught to teacher candidates. This was a laboratory school where children on both the primary or secondary levels were taught, and where their teachers, and the instructors of those teachers, learned together in the same building. This model was employed from the inception of the Buffalo Normal School , where the “School of Practice” inhabited the first floors of the teacher preparation academy. In testament to its effectiveness, the Campus School continued in the same tradition after the college was incorporated and relocated on the Elmwood campus.

Earlier normal schools were reserved for men in Europe for many years, as men were thought to have greater intellectual capacity for scholarship than women. This changed (fortunately) during the nineteenth century, when women were more successful as private tutors than were men.

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, newly industrialized European economies needed a reliable, reproducible, and uniform work force. The preparation of teachers to accomplish this goal became ever more important. The process of instilling in future citizens the norms of moral behavior led to the creation of the first uniform, formalized national educational curriculum. Thus, “normal” schools were tasked with developing this new curriculum and the techniques through which teachers would communicate and model these ideas, behaviors, and values for students who, it was hoped, through formal education, might desire and seek a better quality of life.

In the United States, normal schools were developed and built primarily to train elementary-level teachers for the public schools. In 1823, Reverend Samuel Read Hall founded the first private normal school in the United States, the Columbian School in Concord, Vermont. The first public normal school in the United States was founded shortly thereafter in 1839 in Lexington, Massachusetts. Both public and private “normals” initially offered a two-year course beyond the secondary level, but by the twentieth century, teacher-training programs required a minimum of four years. By the 1930s most normal schools had become “teachers colleges,” and by the 1950s they had evolved into distinct academic departments or schools of education within universities.

The Buffalo Normal School Buffalo State was founded in 1871 as the Buffalo Normal School. It changed its name more often than it changed its building. It has been called the State Normal and Training School (1888–1927), the State Teachers College at Buffalo (1928–1946), the New York State College for Teachers at Buffalo (1946–1950), SUNY, New York State College for Teachers (1950–1951), the State University College for Teachers at Buffalo (1951–1959), the State University College of Education at Buffalo (1960–1961), and finally the State University College at Buffalo in 1962, or as we know it more succinctly, SUNY Buffalo State College.

As early as the 1800s, visionary teachers explored teaching people with disabilities. Thomas Galludet developed a method to educate the deaf and hearing impaired. Dr. Samuel Howe focused on teaching the visually impaired, creating books with large, raised letters to assist people with sight impairments to “read” with their fingers.

What Goes Around, Comes Around: What Is Good Teaching? Throughout most of post-Renaissance history, teachers were most often male scholars or clergymen who were the elite literates who had no formal training in “how” to teach the content in which they were most well-versed. Many accepted the tenet that “teachers were born , not made .” It was not until “pedagogy,” the “art and science of teaching,” attained a theoretical respectability that the training of educated individuals in the science of teaching was considered important.

While scholars of other natural and social sciences still debate the scholarship behind the “science” of teaching, even those who accept pedagogy as a science admit that there is reason to support one theory that people can be “born” with the predisposition to be a good teacher. Even today, while teacher education programs are held accountable by accreditors for “what” they teach teachers, the “dispositions of teaching” are widely debated, yet considered essential to assess the suitability of a teacher candidate to the complexities of the profession. Since the nineteenth century, however, pedagogy has attempted to define the minimal characteristics needed to qualify a person as a teacher. These have remained fairly constant as the bases for educator preparation programs across the country: knowledge of subject matter, knowledge of teaching methods, and practical experience in applying both are still the norm. The establishment of the “norms” of pedagogy and curriculum, hence the original name of “normal school” for teacher training institutions, recognized the social benefit and moral value of ensuring a quality education for all.

As with so many innovations and trends that swept the post-industrial world in the twentieth century, education, too, has experienced many changes. The names of the great educational theorists and reformers of the Progressive Era in education are known to all who know even a little about teaching and learning: Jean Piaget , Benjamin Bloom , Maria Montessori , Horace Mann , and John Dewey to name only a few.

As early as the 1800s, visionary teachers explored teaching people with disabilities. Thomas Galludet developed a method to educate the deaf and hearing impaired. He opened the Hartford School for the Deaf in Connecticut in 1817. Dr. Samuel Howe focused on teaching the visually impaired, creating books with large, raised letters to assist people with sight impairments to “read” with their fingers. Howe led the Perkins Institute, a school for the blind, in Boston. Such schools were usually boarding schools for students with disabilities. There are still residential schools such as St. Mary’s School for the Deaf in Buffalo, but as pedagogy for all children moved into the twentieth century, inclusive practice where children with disabilities were educated in classrooms with non-disabled peers yielded excellent results. This is the predominant pedagogy taught by our Exceptional Education faculty today.

As the reform movements in education throughout the twentieth century introduced ideas of equality, child-centered learning, assessment of learner achievement as a measure of good teaching, and other revolutionary ideas such as inquiry-based practice, educating the whole person, and assuring educational opportunities for all persons, so did the greater emphasis on preparing teachers to serve the children of the public, not just those of the elite.

This abridged version of events that affected teacher education throughout the twentieth century mirrors the incredible history of the country from WWI’s post-industrial explosion to the turbulent 1960s, when the civil rights movement and the women’s rights movement dominated the political scene and schools became the proving ground for integration and Title IX enforcement of equality of opportunity. Segregation in schools went to the Supreme Court in 1954 with Brown vs. Board of Education. Following this monumental decision, schools began the slow process of desegregating schools, a process that, sadly, is still not yet achieved.

In the second half of the twentieth century, the Sputnik generation’s worship of science gave rise to similarities in terminology between the preparation of teachers and the preparation of doctors. “Lab schools” and quantitative research using experimental and quasi-experimental designs to test reading and math programs and other curricular innovations were reminiscent of the experimental designs used in medical research. Student teaching was considered an “internship,” akin to the stages of practice doctors followed. Such terminology and parallels to medicine, however, fell out of vogue with a general disenchantment with science and positivism in the latter decades of the twentieth century. Interestingly, these parallels have resurfaced today as we refer to our model of educating teachers in “clinically rich settings.” We have even returned to “residency” programs, where teacher candidates are prepared entirely in the schools where they will eventually teach.

As schools became more and more essential to the post-industrial economy and the promotion of human rights for all, teaching became more and more regulated. By the end of the twentieth century, licensing requirements had stiffened considerably in public education, and salary and advancement often depended on the earning of advanced degrees and professional development in school-based settings. Even today, all programs in colleges and universities that prepare teachers must follow extensive and detailed guidelines established by the New York State Education Department that determine what must be included in such programs. Additions such as teaching to students with disabilities and teaching to English language learners are requirements that reflect the changing needs of classrooms.

As the world changed, so did the preparation of teachers. The assimilation of the normal school into colleges and universities marked the evolution of teaching as a profession, a steady recognition over the last 150 years that has allowed the teacher as scientist to explore how teaching and learning work in tandem and to suggest that pedagogy is dynamic and interactive with sociopolitical forces and that schools play a critical role in the democratic promotion of social justice.

Campus Schools and Alternative Classroom Organization During the ’60s and ’70s, new concepts of schooling such as multigrade classrooms and open-concept spaces, where students followed their own curiosity through project-based learning, were played out right here at Buffalo State in what was then the College Learning Lab (Campus School). Campus School shared many of the college’s resources and served as the clinical site for the preparation of teachers. School administration and teachers held joint appointments at the college and in the lab. Classrooms were visible through one-way glass, where teacher candidates could observe and review what they saw with the lab school teacher afterward. Participation in these classrooms was a requirement during the junior year. (I myself did my junior participation in a 5/6 open class there.)

However, as the SUNY colleges became less and less supported by New York State budgetary allocations, the Campus School was soon too expensive to staff and to maintain. The baby boom was over, and the population was shrinking. Job opportunities for the graduates of Buffalo State were rare. A 10-year cycle of teacher shortage and teacher over-supply continues to be a trend.

Standards and Norms In the 1980s, education in America once again turned to “norming,” but now the norms were not measuring one child against others; rather, each child was assessed as he or she approached the “national standards” that theoretically defined the knowledge and skills necessary for all to achieve.

Fearing America’s loss of stature as the technologically superior leader of the free world, A Nation at Risk , published in 1983, cast a dark shadow over teaching and schools for many years to come until its premises were largely disrupted. During the time after this report, however, being a teacher was not a popular career choice, and teaching as a profession was called into question.

By 1998, almost every state had defined or implemented academic standards for math and reading. Principals and teachers were judged; students were promoted or retained, and legislation was passed so that high school students would graduate or be denied a diploma based on whether or not they had met the standards, usually as measured by a criterion-referenced test.

In the 1980s, education in America once again turned to “norming,” but now the norms were not measuring one child against others; rather, each child was assessed as he or she approached the “national standards” that theoretically defined the knowledge and skills necessary for all to achieve.

The pressure to teach to a standards-based curriculum, to test all students in an effort to ensure equal education for all, led to some famous named policies of presidents and secretaries of education in the later twentieth century. National panels and political pundits returned to the roots of the “normal school” movement, urging colleges of teacher education to acquaint teacher candidates with the national educational standards known as Goals 2000 . The George H. W. Bush administration kicked off an education summit with the purpose of “righting the ship” since the shock of A Nation at Risk . Standards-based curriculum became a “teacher proof” system of ensuring that all children—no matter what their socioeconomic privilege—would be taught the same material. This “curriculum first” focus for school planning persisted through the Clinton administration with the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), the George W. Bush administration with No Child Left Behind , and the Obama administration with Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) and the accompanying federal funding called Race to the Top . Such packaged standards-based curriculum movements once again turned the public eye to a need to conform, achieve, and compete.

For teachers, the most important development from this pressure to teach to the standards was the controversial Common Core , a nationalized curriculum based on standards of education that were designed to give all students common experiences within a carefully constructed framework that would transcend race, gender, economics, region, and aptitude. So focused were the materials published on the Common Core that schools began to issue scripted materials to their teachers to ensure the same language was used in every classroom. Teacher autonomy was suppressed, and time for language arts and mathematics began to eclipse the study of science, social studies, art, music.

Now What? That takes us almost to today’s schools, where teachers are still accountable for helping student achieve the Common Core standards or more currently the National Standards. Enter the COVID pandemic. Full stop.

Curriculum, testing, conformity, and standards are out the window. The American parent can now “see into” the classroom and the teacher can likewise “see into” the American home. Two-dimensional, computer-assisted instruction replaced the dynamic interactive classroom where learning is socially constructed and facilitated by teachers who are skilled at classroom management, social-emotional learning, and project-based group work. Teacher candidates must now rely on their status as digital natives to engage and even entertain their students who now come to them as a collective of individuals framed on a computer screen rather than in a classroom of active bodies who engage with each other in myriad ways. Last year’s pedagogical challenges involved mastery of the 20-minute attention span, the teacher as entertainer added to the teacher as facilitator . Many of our teacher candidates learned more about themselves than they did about their students. Yet, predominately, stories of creativity, extraordinary uses of technology, and old-fashioned persistence and ingenuity were the new “norm” for the old Buffalo State Normal School.

There has been nothing “normal” about these last two years as the world learns to cope with a silent enemy. There will be no post-war recovery, no post-industrial reforms, no equity of opportunity in schools around the world. But there will be teaching. And there will be learning. And the Buffalo State Normal School will continue to prepare the highest quality practitioners whose bags of tricks grow ever-more flexible, driven by a world where all that is known doubles in just a few days. Pedagogy is still a science. Teaching is a science, but it is also a craft practiced by master craftsmen and women and learned by apprentices.

Ultimately, however, as even the earliest teacher educators knew, the art of teaching is that ephemeral quality that we cannot teach, but which we know when we see it at work, that makes the great teacher excel far beyond the competent teacher.

Teaching has been called the noblest profession. From our earliest roots as the Buffalo Normal School to the current challenges of post-COVID America, we have never changed our dedication to that conviction. We are still doing what the words of Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai encourage us to do: “One child, one teacher, one book, one pen can change the world.” That was and always will be the mission of Buffalo State, “the Teachers College.”

This article was contributed as part of a guest author series observing the 150th anniversary celebration of Buffalo State College. Campus authors who are interested in submitting articles or story ideas pertaining to the sesquicentennial are encouraged to contact the editor .

Wendy Paterson, ’75, ’76, Ph.D., dean of the School of Education, is an internationally recognized scholar in the areas of early literacy and reading, developmental and educational technology, and single parenting. She received the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Professional Service in 1996.

Read other stories in the 150th anniversary guest author series:

Pomp, Pageantry Seize the Day in 1869 Normal School Cornerstone Laying

Transforming Lives for 150 Years: Memoir of a 1914 Graduate

Buffalo Normal School Held Opening Ceremony 150 Years Ago Today

New Buffalo Normal School Replaces Outgrown Original

The Grover Cleveland–E. H. Butler Letters at Buffalo State

Test Your College Knowledge with a Buffalo State Crossword Puzzle

Photo: Staff of the Record student newspaper, 1913 .

References:

https://courses.lumenlearning.com/teachereducationx92x1/chapter/education-reforms/

https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_school

https://britannica.com/topic/normal-school

https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1216495.pdf

https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Normal_school

http://reformmovements1800s.weebly.com/education.html

http://www.leaderinme.org/blog/history-of-education-the-united-states-in-a-nutshell/

Brewminate: A Bold Blend of News and Ideas

A History of Education from the Ancient World to Today

Education in the Ancient World

Middle East

Perhaps the earliest formal school was developed in Egypt’s Middle Kingdom under the direction of Kheti, treasurer to Mentuhotep II (2061-2010 BC). [4]

In Mesopotamia, the early logographic system of cuneiform script took many years to master. Thus only a limited number of individuals were hired as scribes to be trained in its reading and writing. Only royal offspring and sons of the rich and professionals such as scribes, physicians, and temple administrators, were schooled. [5] Most boys were taught their father’s trade or were apprenticed to learn a trade. [6] Girls stayed at home with their mothers to learn housekeeping and cooking, and to look after the younger children. Later, when a syllabic script became more widespread, more of the Mesopotamian population became literate. Later still in Babylonian times there were libraries in most towns and temples; an old Sumerian proverb averred “he who would excel in the school of the scribes must rise with the dawn.” There arose a whole social class of scribes, mostly employed in agriculture, but some as personal secretaries or lawyers. [7] Women as well as men learned to read and write, and for the Semitic Babylonians, this involved knowledge of the extinct Sumerian language, and a complicated and extensive syllabary. Vocabularies, grammars, and interlinear translations were compiled for the use of students, as well as commentaries on the older texts and explanations of obscure words and phrases. In those times of course there were no assignment helpers as we have now, GrabMyEssay would be a great relief for ancient students. Massive archives of texts were recovered from the archaeological contexts of Old Babylonian scribal schools known as edubas (2000–1600 BCE), through which literacy was disseminated. Massive archives of texts were recovered from the archaeological contexts of Old Babylonian scribal schools known as edubas (2000–1600 BCE), through which literacy was disseminated. The Epic of Gilgamesh, an epic poem from Ancient Mesopotamia is among the earliest known works of literary fiction. The earliest Sumerian versions of the epic date from as early as the Third Dynasty of Ur (2150–2000 BC) (Dalley 1989: 41–42).

Ashurbanipal (685 – c. 627 BC), a king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, was proud of his scribal education. His youthful scholarly pursuits included oil divination, mathematics, reading and writing as well as the usual horsemanship, hunting, chariotry, soldierliness, craftsmanship, and royal decorum. During his reign he collected cuneiform texts from all over Mesopotamia, and especially Babylonia, in the library in Nineveh, the first systematically organized library in the ancient Middle East, [8] which survives in part today.

In ancient Egypt, literacy was concentrated among an educated elite of scribes. Only people from certain backgrounds were allowed to train to become scribes, in the service of temple, pharaonic, and military authorities. The hieroglyph system was always difficult to learn, but in later centuries was purposely made even more so, as this preserved the scribes’ status. The rate of literacy in Pharaonic Egypt during most periods from the third to first millennium BC has been estimated at not more than one percent, [9] or between one half of one percent and one percent. [10]

In ancient Israel, the Torah (the fundamental religious text) includes commands to read, learn, teach and write the Torah, thus requiring literacy and study. In 64 AD the high priest caused schools to be opened. [11] Emphasis was placed on developing good memory skills in addition to comprehension oral repetition. For details of the subjects taught, see History of education in ancient Israel and Judah. Although girls were not provided with formal education in the yeshivah, they were required to know a large part of the subject areas to prepare them to maintain the home after marriage, and to educate the children before the age of seven. Despite this schooling system, it would seem that many children did not learn to read and write, because it has been estimated that “at least ninety percent of the Jewish population of Roman Palestine [in the first centuries AD] could merely write their own name or not write and read at all”, [12] or that the literacy rate was about 3 percent. [13]

In the Islamic civilization that spread all the way between China and Spain during the time between the 7th and 19th centuries, Muslims started schooling from 622 in Medina, which is now a city in Saudi Arabia, schooling at first was in the mosques (masjid in Arabic) but then schools became separate in schools next to mosques. The first separate school was the Nizamiyah school. It was built in 1066 in Baghdad. Children started school from the age of six with free tuition. The Quran encourages Muslims to be educated. Thus, education and schooling sprang up in the ancient Muslim societies. Moreover, Muslims had one of the first universities in history which is Al-Qarawiyin University in Fez, Morocco. It was originally a mosque that was built in 859. [14]

In ancient India, education was mainly imparted through the Vedic and Buddhist education system. Sanskrit was the language used to impart the Vedic education system. Pali was the language used in the Buddhist education system. In the Vedic system, a child started his education at the age of five, whereas in the Buddhist system the child started his education at the age of eight. The main aim of education in ancient India was to develop a person’s character, master the art of self-control, bring about social awareness, and to conserve and take forward ancient culture.

The Buddhist and Vedic systems had different subjects. In the Vedic system of study, the students were taught the four Vedas – Rig Veda, Sama Veda, Yajur Veda and Atharva Veda, they were also taught the six Vedangas – ritualistic knowledge, metrics, exegetics, grammar, phonetics and astronomy, the Upanishads and more.

In ancient India, education was imparted and passed on orally rather than in written form. Education was a process that involved three steps, first was Shravana (hearing) which is the acquisition of knowledge by listening to the Shrutis. The second is Manana (reflection) wherein the students think, analyze and make inferences. Third, is Nididhyāsana in which the students apply the knowledge in their real life.

During the Vedic period from about 1500 BC to 600 BC, most education was based on the Veda (hymns, formulas, and incantations, recited or chanted by priests of a pre-Hindu tradition) and later Hindu texts and scriptures. The main aim of education, according to the Vedas, is liberation.

Vedic education included proper pronunciation and recitation of the Veda, the rules of sacrifice, grammar and derivation, composition, versification and meter, understanding of secrets of nature, reasoning including logic, the sciences, and the skills necessary for an occupation. [15] Some medical knowledge existed and was taught. There is mention in the Veda of herbal medicines for various conditions or diseases, including fever, cough, baldness, snake bite and others. [15]

Education, at first freely available in Vedic society, became over time more rigid and restricted as the social systems dictated that only those of meritorious lineage be allowed to study the scriptures, originally based on occupation, evolved, with the Brahman (priests) being the most privileged of the castes, followed by Kshatriya who could also wear the sacred thread and gain access to Vedic education. The Brahmans were given priority even over Kshatriya as they would dedicate their whole lives to such studies. [15][16]

Educating the women was given a great deal of importance in ancient India. Women were trained in dance, music and housekeeping. The Sadyodwahas class of women got educated till they were married. The Brahmavadinis class of women never got married and educated themselves for their entire life. Parts of Vedas that included poems and religious songs required for rituals were taught to women. Some noteworthy women scholars of ancient India include Ghosha, Gargi, Indrani and so on. [17]

The oldest of the Upanishads – another part of Hindu scriptures – date from around 500 BC. The Upanishads are considered as “wisdom teachings” as they explore the deeper and actual meaning of sacrifice. These texts encouraged an exploratory learning process where teachers and students were co-travellers in a search for truth. The teaching methods used reasoning and questioning. Nothing was labeled as the final answer. [15]

The Gurukula system of education supported traditional Hindu residential schools of learning; typically the teacher’s house or a monastery. In the Gurukul system, the teacher (Guru) and the student (Śiṣya) were considered to be equal even if they belonged to different social standings. Education was free, but students from well-to-do families paid “Gurudakshina”, a voluntary contribution after the completion of their studies. Gurudakshina is a mark of respect by the students towards their Guru. It is a way in which the students acknowledged, thanked and respected their Guru, whom they consider to be their spiritual guide. The corpus of Sanskrit literature encompasses a rich tradition of poetry and drama as well as technical scientific, philosophical and generally Hindu religious texts, though many central texts of Buddhism and Jainism have also been composed in Sanskrit.

Two epic poems formed part of ancient Indian education. The Mahabharata, part of which may date back to the 8th century BC, [18] discusses human goals (purpose, pleasure, duty, and liberation), attempting to explain the relationship of the individual to society and the world (the nature of the ‘Self’) and the workings of karma. The other epic poem, Ramayana, is shorter, although it has 24,000 verses. It is thought to have been compiled between about 400 BC and 200 AD. The epic explores themes of human existence and the concept of dharma (doing ones duty). [18]

In the Buddhist education system, the subjects included Pitakas. The Vinaya Pitaka is a Buddhist canon that contains a code of rules and regulations that govern the Buddhist community residing in the Monastery. The Vinaya Pitaka is especially preached to Buddhist monks (Sanga) to maintain discipline when interacting with people and nature. The set of rules ensures that people, animals, nature and the environment are not harmed by the Buddhist monks. The Sutta Pitaka is divided into 5 niyakas (collections). It contains Buddhas teachings recorded mainly as sermons. The Abhidhamma Pitaka contains a summary and analysis of Buddha’s teachings.

An early centre of learning in India dating back to the 5th century BC was Taxila (also known as Takshashila ), which taught the three Vedas and the eighteen accomplishments. [19] It was an important Vedic/Hindu [20] and Buddhist [21] centre of learning from the 6th century BC [22] to the 5th century AD. [23][24]

Another important centre of learning from 5th century CE was Nalanda. In the kingdom of Magadha, Nalanda was well known Buddhist monastery. Scholars and students from Tibet, China, Korea and Central Asia traveled to Nalanda in pursuit of education. Vikramashila was one of the largest Buddhist monasteries that was set up in 8th to 9th centuries.

According to legendary accounts, the rulers Yao and Shun (ca. 24th–23rd century BC) established the first schools. The first education system was created in Xia dynasty (2076–1600 BC). During Xia dynasty, government built schools to educate aristocrats about rituals, literature and archery (important for ancient Chinese aristocrats).

During Shang dynasty (1600 BC to 1046 BC), normal people (farmers, workers etc.) accepted rough education. In that time, aristocrats’ children studied in government schools. And normal people studied in private schools. Government schools were always built in cities and private schools were built in rural areas. Government schools paid attention on educating students about rituals, literature, politics, music, arts and archery. Private schools educated students to do farmwork and handworks. [25]

During the Zhou dynasty (1045–256 BC), there were five national schools in the capital city, Pi Yong (an imperial school, located in a central location) and four other schools for the aristocrats and nobility, including Shang Xiang. The schools mainly taught the Six Arts: rites, music, archery, charioteering, calligraphy, and mathematics. According to the Book of Rites, at age twelve, boys learned arts related to ritual (i.e. music and dance) and when older, archery and chariot driving. Girls learned ritual, correct deportment, silk production and weaving. [26]

It was during the Zhou dynasty that the origins of native Chinese philosophy also developed. Confucius (551–479 BC) founder of Confucianism, was a Chinese philosopher who made a great impact on later generations of Chinese, and on the curriculum of the Chinese educational system for much of the following 2000 years.

Later, during the Qin dynasty (246–207 BC), a hierarchy of officials was set up to provide central control over the outlying areas of the empire. To enter this hierarchy, both literacy and knowledge of the increasing body of philosophy was required: “….the content of the educational process was designed not to engender functionally specific skills but rather to produce morally enlightened and cultivated generalists”. [27]

During the Han dynasty (206–221 AD), boys were thought ready at age seven to start learning basic skills in reading, writing and calculation. [25] In 124 BC, the Emperor Wudi established the Imperial Academy, the curriculum of which was the Five Classics of Confucius. By the end of the Han dynasty (220 AD) the academy enrolled more than 30,000 students, boys between the ages of fourteen and seventeen years. However education through this period was a luxury. [26]

The nine-rank system was a civil service nomination system during the Three Kingdoms (220–280 AD) and the Northern and Southern dynasties (420–589 AD) in China. Theoretically, local government authorities were given the task of selecting talented candidates, then categorizing them into nine grades depending on their abilities. In practice, however, only the rich and powerful would be selected. The Nine Rank System was eventually superseded by the imperial examination system for the civil service in the Sui dynasty (581–618 AD).

Greece and Rome

In the city-states of ancient Greece, most education was private, except in Sparta. For example, in Athens, during the 5th and 4th century BC, aside from two years military training, the state played little part in schooling. [28][29] Anyone could open a school and decide the curriculum. Parents could choose a school offering the subjects they wanted their children to learn, at a monthly fee they could afford. [28] Most parents, even the poor, sent their sons to schools for at least a few years, and if they could afford it from around the age of seven until fourteen, learning gymnastics (including athletics, sport and wrestling), music (including poetry, drama and history) and literacy. [28][29] Girls rarely received formal education. At writing school, the youngest students learned the alphabet by song, then later by copying the shapes of letters with a stylus on a waxed wooden tablet. After some schooling, the sons of poor or middle-class families often learnt a trade by apprenticeship, whether with their father or another tradesman. [28] By around 350 BC, it was common for children at schools in Athens to also study various arts such as drawing, painting, and sculpture. The richest students continued their education by studying with sophists, from whom they could learn subjects such as rhetoric, mathematics, geography, natural history, politics, and logic. [28][29] Some of Athens’ greatest schools of higher education included the Lyceum (the so-called Peripatetic school founded by Aristotle of Stageira) and the Platonic Academy (founded by Plato of Athens). The education system of the wealthy ancient Greeks is also called Paideia. In the subsequent Roman empire, Greek was the primary language of science. Advanced scientific research and teaching was mainly carried on in the Hellenistic side of the Roman empire, in Greek.

The education system in the Greek city-state of Sparta was entirely different, designed to create warriors with complete obedience, courage, and physical perfection. At the age of seven, boys were taken away from their homes to live in school dormitories or military barracks. There they were taught sports, endurance and fighting, and little else, with harsh discipline. Most of the population was illiterate. [28][29]

The first schools in Ancient Rome arose by the middle of the 4th century BC. [30] These schools were concerned with the basic socialization and rudimentary education of young Roman children. The literacy rate in the 3rd century BC has been estimated as around one percent to two percent. [31] There are very few primary sources or accounts of Roman educational process until the 2nd century BC, [30] during which there was a proliferation of private schools in Rome. [31] At the height of the Roman Republic and later the Roman Empire, the Roman educational system gradually found its final form. Formal schools were established, which served paying students (very little in the way of free public education as we know it can be found). [32] Normally, both boys and girls were educated, though not necessarily together. [32] In a system much like the one that predominates in the modern world, the Roman education system that developed arranged schools in tiers. The educator Quintilian recognized the importance of starting education as early as possible, noting that “memory … not only exists even in small children, but is specially retentive at that age”. [33] A Roman student would progress through schools just as a student today might go from elementary school to middle school, then to high school, and finally college. Progression depended more on ability than age [32] with great emphasis being placed upon a student’s ingenium or inborn “gift” for learning, [34] and a more tacit emphasis on a student’s ability to afford high-level education. Only the Roman elite would expect a complete formal education. A tradesman or farmer would expect to pick up most of his vocational skills on the job. Higher education in Rome was more of a status symbol than a practical concern.

Literacy rates in the Greco-Roman world were seldom more than 20 percent; averaging perhaps not much above 10 percent in the Roman empire, though with wide regional variations, probably never rising above 5 percent in the western provinces. The literate in classical Greece did not much exceed 5 percent of the population. [35][36]

Formal Education in the Middle Ages, 500-1500 CE

The word school applies to a variety of educational organizations in the Middle Ages, including town, church, and monastery schools. During the late medieval period, students attending town schools were usually between the ages of seven and fourteen. Instruction for boys in such schools ranged from the basics of literacy (alphabet, syllables, simple prayers and proverbs) to more advanced instruction in the Latin language. Occasionally, these schools may also have taught rudimentary arithmetic or letter writing and other skills useful in business. Often instruction at various levels took place in the same schoolroom. [37]

During the Early Middle Ages, the monasteries of the Roman Catholic Church were the centers of education and literacy, preserving the Church’s selection from Latin learning and maintaining the art of writing. Prior to their formal establishment, many medieval universities were run for hundreds of years as Christian monastic schools ( Scholae monasticae ), in which monks taught classes, and later as cathedral schools; evidence of these immediate forerunners of the later university at many places dates back to the early 6th century. [38]

The first medieval institutions generally considered to be universities were established in Italy, France, and England in the late 11th and the 12th centuries for the study of arts, law, medicine, and theology.[1] These universities evolved from much older Christian cathedral schools and monastic schools, and it is difficult to define the date on which they became true universities, although the lists of studia generalia for higher education in Europe held by the Vatican are a useful guide.

Students in the twelfth-century were very proud of the master whom they studied under. They were not very concerned with telling others the place or region where they received their education. Even now when scholars cite schools with distinctive doctrines, they use group names to describe the school rather than its geographical location. Those who studied under Robert of Melun were called the Meludinenses . These people did not study in Melun, but in Paris, and were given the group name of their master. Citizens in the twelfth-century became very interested in learning the rare and difficult skills masters could provide. [39]

Ireland became known as the island of saints and scholars. Monasteries were built all over Ireland, and these became centres of great learning.

Northumbria was famed as a centre of religious learning and arts. Initially the kingdom was evangelized by monks from the Celtic Church, which led to a flowering of monastic life, and Northumbria played an important role in the formation of Insular art, a unique style combining Anglo-Saxon, Celtic, Byzantine and other elements. After the Synod of Whitby in 664 AD, Roman church practices officially replaced the Celtic ones but the influence of the Anglo-Celtic style continued, the most famous examples of this being the Lindisfarne Gospels. The Venerable Bede (673–735) wrote his Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum (Ecclesiastical History of the English People, completed in 731) in a Northumbrian monastery, and much of it focuses on the kingdom. [40]

During the reign of Charlemagne, King of the Franks from 768 to 814 AD, whose empire united most of Western Europe for the first time since the Romans, there was a flowering of literature, art, and architecture known as the Carolingian Renaissance. Brought into contact with the culture and learning of other countries through his vast conquests, Charlemagne greatly increased the provision of monastic schools and scriptoria (centres for book-copying) in Francia. Most of the surviving works of classical Latin were copied and preserved by Carolingian scholars.

Charlemagne took a serious interest in scholarship, promoting the liberal arts at the court, ordering that his children and grandchildren be well-educated, and even studying himself under the tutelage of Paul the Deacon, from whom he learned grammar, Alcuin, with whom he studied rhetoric, dialect and astronomy (he was particularly interested in the movements of the stars), and Einhard, who assisted him in his studies of arithmetic. The English monk Alcuin was invited to Charlemagne’s court at Aachen, and brought with him the precise classical Latin education that was available in the monasteries of Northumbria. [41] The return of this Latin proficiency to the kingdom of the Franks is regarded as an important step in the development of mediaeval Latin. Charlemagne’s chancery made use of a type of script currently known as Carolingian minuscule, providing a common writing style that allowed for communication across most of Europe. After the decline of the Carolingian dynasty, the rise of the Saxon Dynasty in Germany was accompanied by the Ottonian Renaissance.

Additionally, Charlemagne attempted to establish a free elementary education by parish priests for youth in a capitulary of 797. The capitulary states “that the priests establish schools in every town and village, and if any of the faithful wish to entrust their children to them to learn letters, that they refuse not to accept them but with all charity teach them … and let them exact no price from the children for their teaching nor receive anything from them save what parents may offer voluntarily and from affection” (P.L., CV., col. 196) [42]

Cathedral schools and monasteries remained important throughout the Middle Ages; at the Third Lateran Council of 1179 the Church mandated that priests provide the opportunity of a free education to their flocks, and the 12th and 13th century renascence known as the Scholastic Movement was spread through the monasteries. These however ceased to be the sole sources of education in the 11th century when universities, which grew out of the monasticism began to be established in major European cities. Literacy became available to a wider class of people, and there were major advances in art, sculpture, music and architecture. [43]

In 1120, Dunfermline Abbey in Scotland by order of Malcolm Canmore and his Queen, Margaret, built and established the first high school in the UK, Dunfermline High School. This highlighted the monastery influence and developments made for education, from the ancient capital of Scotland.

Sculpture, paintings and stained glass windows were vital educational media through which Biblical themes and the lives of the saints were taught to illiterate viewers. [44]

Islamic World

The University of al-Qarawiyyin located in Fes, Morocco is the oldest existing, continually operating and the first degree awarding educational institution in the world according to UNESCO and Guinness World Records [45] and is sometimes referred to as the oldest university. [46]

The House of Wisdom in Baghdad was a library, translation and educational centre from the 9th to 13th centuries. Works on astrology, mathematics, agriculture, medicine, and philosophy were translated. Drawing on Persian, Indian and Greek texts—including those of Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, Hippocrates, Euclid, Plotinus, Galen, Sushruta, Charaka, Aryabhata and Brahmagupta—the scholars accumulated a great collection of knowledge in the world, and built on it through their own discoveries. The House was an unrivalled centre for the study of humanities and for sciences, including mathematics, astronomy, medicine, chemistry, zoology and geography. Baghdad was known as the world’s richest city and centre for intellectual development of the time, and had a population of over a million, the largest in its time. [47]

The Islamic mosque school (Madrasah) taught the Quran in Arabic and did not at all resemble the medieval European universities. [48][49]

In the 9th century, Bimaristan medical schools were formed in the medieval Islamic world, where medical diplomas were issued to students of Islamic medicine who were qualified to be a practicing Doctor of Medicine. [50] Al-Azhar University, founded in Cairo, Egypt in 975, was a Jami’ah (“university” in Arabic) which offered a variety of post-graduate degrees, had a Madrasah and theological seminary, and taught Islamic law, Islamic jurisprudence, Arabic grammar, Islamic astronomy, early Islamic philosophy and logic in Islamic philosophy. [50]

In the 15th and 16th centuries, the town of Timbuktu in the West African nation of Mali became an Islamic centre of learning with students coming from as far away as the Middle East. The town was home to the prestigious Sankore University and other madrasas. The primary focus of these schools was the teaching of the Qur’an, although broader instruction in fields such as logic, astronomy, and history also took place. Over time, there was a great accumulation of manuscripts in the area and an estimated 100,000 or more manuscripts, some of them dated from pre-Islamic times and 12th century, are kept by the great families from the town. [51] Their contents are didactic, especially in the subjects of astronomy, music, and botany. More than 18,000 manuscripts have been collected by the Ahmed Baba centre. [52]

Although there are more than 40,000 Chinese characters in written Chinese, many are rarely used. Studies have shown that full literacy in the Chinese language requires a knowledge of only between three and four thousand characters. [53]

In China, three oral texts were used to teach children by rote memorization the written characters of their language and the basics of Confucian thought.

The Thousand Character Classic, a Chinese poem originating in the 6th century, was used for more than a millennium as a primer for teaching Chinese characters to children. The poem is composed of 250 phrases of four characters each, thus containing exactly one thousand unique characters, and was sung in the same way that children learning the Latin alphabet may use the “alphabet song”.

Later, children also learn the Hundred Family Surnames, a rhyming poem in lines of eight characters composed in the early Song dynasty [54] (i.e. in about the 11th century) which actually listed more than four hundred of the common surnames in ancient China.

From around the 13th century until the latter part of the 19th century, the Three Character Classic, which is an embodiment of Confucian thought suitable for teaching to young children, served as a child’s first formal education at home. The text is written in triplets of characters for easy memorization. With illiteracy common for most people at the time, the oral tradition of reciting the classic ensured its popularity and survival through the centuries. With the short and simple text arranged in three-character verses, children learned many common characters, grammar structures, elements of Chinese history and the basis of Confucian morality.

After learning Chinese characters, students wishing to ascend in the social hierarchy needed to study the Chinese classic texts.

The early Chinese state depended upon literate, educated officials for operation of the empire. In 605 AD, during the Sui dynasty, for the first time, an examination system was explicitly instituted for a category of local talents. The merit-based imperial examination system for evaluating and selecting officials gave rise to schools that taught the Chinese classic texts and continued in use for 1,300 years, until the end the Qing dynasty, being abolished in 1911 in favour of Western education methods. The core of the curriculum for the imperial civil service examinations from the mid-12th century onwards was the Four Books, representing a foundational introduction to Confucianism.

Theoretically, any male adult in China, regardless of his wealth or social status, could become a high-ranking government official by passing the imperial examination, although under some dynasties members of the merchant class were excluded. In reality, since the process of studying for the examination tended to be time-consuming and costly (if tutors were hired), most of the candidates came from the numerically small but relatively wealthy land-owning gentry. However, there are vast numbers of examples in Chinese history in which individuals moved from a low social status to political prominence through success in imperial examination. Under some dynasties the imperial examinations were abolished and official posts were simply sold, which increased corruption and reduced morale.

In the period preceding 1040–1050 AD, prefectural schools had been neglected by the state and left to the devices of wealthy patrons who provided private finances. [55] The chancellor of China at that time, Fan Zhongyan, issued an edict that would have used a combination of government funding and private financing to restore and rebuild all prefectural schools that had fallen into disuse and abandoned. [55] He also attempted to restore all county-level schools in the same manner, but did not designate where funds for the effort would be formally acquired and the decree was not taken seriously until a later period. [55] Fan’s trend of government funding for education set in motion the movement of public schools that eclipsed private academies, which would not be officially reversed until the mid-13th century. [55]

The first millennium and the few centuries preceding it saw the flourishing of higher education at Nalanda, Takshashila University, Ujjain, & Vikramshila Universities. Among the subjects taught were Art, Architecture, Painting, Logic, mathematics, Grammar, Philosophy, Astronomy, Literature, Buddhism, Hinduism, Arthashastra (Economics & Politics), Law, and Medicine. Each university specialized in a particular field of study. Takshila specialized in the study of medicine, while Ujjain laid emphasis on astronomy. Nalanda, being the biggest centre, handled all branches of knowledge, and housed up to 10,000 students at its peak. [56]

Vikramashila Mahavihara, another important center of Buddhist learning in India, was established by King Dharmapala (783 to 820) in response to a supposed decline in the quality of scholarship at Nālandā. [57]

Major work in the fields of Mathematics, Astronomy, and Physics were done by Aryabhata. Approximations of pi, basic trigonometric equation, indeterminate equation, and positional notation are mentioned in Aryabhatiya, his magnum opus and only known surviving work of the 5th century Indian mathematician in Mathematics. [58] The work was translated into Arabic around 820CE by Al-Khwarizmi.

Even during the middle ages, education in India was imparted orally. Education was provided to the individuals free of cost. It was considered holy and honorable to do so. The ruling king did not provide any funds for education but it was the people belonging to the Hindu religion who donated for the preservation of the Hindu education. The centres of Hindu learning, which were the universities, were set up in places where the scholars resided. These places also became places of pilgrimage. So, more and more pilgrims funded these institutions. [59]

After Muslims started ruling India, there was a rise in the spread of Islamic education. The main aim of Islamic education included the acquisition of knowledge, propagation of Islam and Islamic social morals, preservation and spread of Muslim culture etc. Educations was mainly imparted through Maqtabs, Madrassahas and Mosques. Their education was usually funded by the noble or the landlords. The education was imparted orally and the children learnt a few verses from the Quran by rote. [60]

Indigenous education was widespread in India in the 18th century, with a school for every temple, mosque or village in most regions of the country. [61] The subjects taught included Reading, Writing, Arithmetic, Theology, Law, Astronomy, Metaphysics, Ethics, Medical Science and Religion. The schools were attended by students representative of all classes of society. [62]

The history of education in Japan dates back at least to the 6th century, when Chinese learning was introduced at the Yamato court. Foreign civilizations have often provided new ideas for the development of Japan’s own culture.

Chinese teachings and ideas flowed into Japan from the sixth to the 9th century. Along with the introduction of Buddhism came the Chinese system of writing and its literary tradition, and Confucianism.

By the 9th century, Heian-kyō (today’s Kyoto), the imperial capital, had five institutions of higher learning, and during the remainder of the Heian period, other schools were established by the nobility and the imperial court. During the medieval period (1185–1600), Zen Buddhist monasteries were especially important centers of learning, and the Ashikaga School, Ashikaga Gakko, flourished in the 15th century as a center of higher learning.

Central and South American Civilizations – Aztec and Inca

Aztec is a term used to refer to certain ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl language and who achieved political and military dominance over large parts of Mesoamerica in the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, a period referred to as the Late post-Classic period in Mesoamerican chronology.

Until the age of fourteen, the education of children was in the hands of their parents, but supervised by the authorities of their calpōlli . Part of this education involved learning a collection of sayings, called huēhuetlàtolli (“sayings of the old”), that embodied the Aztecs’ ideals. Judged by their language, most of the huēhuetlàtolli seemed to have evolved over several centuries, predating the Aztecs and most likely adopted from other Nahua cultures.

At 15, all boys and girls went to school. There were two types of schools: the telpochcalli , for practical and military studies, and the calmecac , for advanced learning in writing, astronomy, statesmanship, theology, and other areas. The two institutions seem to be common to the Nahua people, leading some experts to suggest that they are older than the Aztec culture.

Aztec teachers ( tlatimine ) propounded a spartan regime of education with the purpose of forming a stoical people.

Girls were educated in the crafts of home and child raising. They were not taught to read or write. All women were taught to be involved in religion; there are paintings of women presiding over religious ceremonies, but there are no references to female priests.

Inca education during the time of the Inca Empire in the 15th and 16th centuries was divided into two principal spheres: education for the upper classes and education for the general population. The royal classes and a few specially chosen individuals from the provinces of the Empire were formally educated by the Amautas (wise men), while the general population learned knowledge and skills from their immediate forebears.

The Amautas constituted a special class of wise men similar to the bards of Great Britain. They included illustrious philosophers, poets, and priests who kept the oral histories of the Incas alive by imparting the knowledge of their culture, history, customs and traditions throughout the kingdom. Considered the most highly educated and respected men in the Empire, the Amautas were largely entrusted with educating those of royal blood, as well as other young members of conquered cultures specially chosen to administer the regions. Thus, education throughout the territories of the Incas was socially discriminatory, most people not receiving the formal education that royalty received.

The official language of the empire was Quechua, although dozens if not hundreds of local languages were spoken. The Amautas did ensure that the general population learn Quechua as the language of the Empire, much in the same way the Romans promoted Latin throughout Europe; however, this was done more for political reasons than educational ones.

After the 15th Century to the Modern World

In the 1950s, The Communist Party oversaw the rapid expansion of primary education throughout China. At the same time, it redesigned the primary school curriculum to emphasize the teaching of practical skills in an effort to improve the productivity of future workers. Paglayan [63] notes that Chinese news sources during this time cited the eradication of illiteracy as necessary “to open the way for development of productivity and technical and cultural revolution”. [64] Chinese government officials noted the interrelationship between education and “productive labor” [65] Like in the Soviet Union, the Chinese government expanded education provision among other reasons to improve their national economy.

Modern systems of education in Europe derive their origins from the schools of the High Middle Ages. Most schools during this era were founded upon religious principles with the primary purpose of training the clergy. Many of the earliest universities, such as the University of Paris founded in 1160, had a Christian basis. In addition to this, a number of secular universities existed, such as the University of Bologna, founded in 1088. Free education for the poor was officially mandated by the Church in 1179 when it decreed that every cathedral must assign a master to teach boys too poor to pay the regular fee; [66] parishes and monasteries also established free schools teaching at least basic literary skills. With few exceptions, priests and brothers taught locally, and their salaries were frequently subsidized by towns. Private, independent schools reappeared in medieval Europe during this time, but they, too, were religious in nature and mission. [67] The curriculum was usually based around the trivium and to a lesser extent quadrivium (the seven Artes Liberales or Liberal arts) and was conducted in Latin, the lingua franca of educated Western Europe throughout the Middle Ages and Renaissance. [68]

In northern Europe this clerical education was largely superseded by forms of elementary schooling following the Reformation. In Scotland, for instance, the national Church of Scotland set out a programme for spiritual reform in January 1561 setting the principle of a school teacher for every parish church and free education for the poor. This was provided for by an Act of the Parliament of Scotland, passed in 1633, which introduced a tax to pay for this programme. Although few countries of the period had such extensive systems of education, the period between the 16th and 18th centuries saw education become significantly more widespread. [69]

Herbart developed a system of pedagogy widely used in German-speaking areas. Mass compulsory schooling started in Prussia c1800 to “produce more soldiers and more obedient citizens”

In Central Europe, the 17th century scientist and educator John Amos Comenius promulgated a reformed system of universal education that was widely used in Europe. Its growth resulted in increased government interest in education. In the 1760s, for instance, Ivan Betskoy was appointed by the Russian Tsarina, Catherine II, as educational advisor. He proposed to educate young Russians of both sexes in state boarding schools, aimed at creating “a new race of men”. Betskoy set forth a number of arguments for general education of children rather than specialized one: “in regenerating our subjects by an education founded on these principles, we will create… new citizens.” Some of his ideas were implemented in the Smolny Institute that he established for noble girls in Saint Petersburg. [70]

Poland established in 1773 of a Commission of National Education (Polish: Komisja Edukacji Narodowej , Lithuanian: Nacionaline Edukacine Komisija ). The commission functioned as the first government Ministry of Education in a European country. [71]

By the 18th century, universities published academic journals; by the 19th century, the German and the French university models were established. The French established the Ecole Polytechnique in 1794 by the mathematician Gaspard Monge during the French Revolution, and it became a military academy under Napoleon I in 1804. The German university — the Humboldtian model — established by Wilhelm von Humboldt was based upon Friedrich Schleiermacher’s liberal ideas about the importance of seminars, and laboratories. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the universities concentrated upon science, and served an upper class clientele. Science, mathematics, theology, philosophy, and ancient history comprised the typical curriculum.

Increasing academic interest in education led to analysis of teaching methods and in the 1770s the establishment of the first chair of pedagogy at the University of Halle in Germany. Contributions to the study of education elsewhere in Europe included the work of Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi in Switzerland and Joseph Lancaster in Britain.

In 1884, a groundbreaking education conference was held in London at the International Health Exhibition, attracting specialists from all over Europe. [72]

In the late 19th century, most of West, Central, and parts of East Europe began to provide elementary education in reading, writing, and arithmetic, partly because politicians believed that education was needed for orderly political behavior. As more people became literate, they realized that most secondary education was only open to those who could afford it. Having created primary education, the major nations had to give further attention to secondary education by the time of World War I. [73]

In the 20th century, new directions in education included, in Italy, Maria Montessori’s Montessori schools; and in Germany, Rudolf Steiner’s development of Waldorf education.

In the Ancien Régime before 1789, educational facilities and aspirations were becoming increasingly institutionalized primarily in order to supply the church and state with the functionaries to serve as their future administrators. France had many small local schools where working-class children — both boys and girls — learned to read, the better to know, love and serve God. The sons and daughters of the noble and bourgeois elites, however, were given quite distinct educations: boys were sent to upper school, perhaps a university, while their sisters perhaps were sent for finishing at a convent. The Enlightenment challenged this old ideal, but no real alternative presented itself for female education. Only through education at home were knowledgeable women formed, usually to the sole end of dazzling their salons. [74]

The modern era of French education begins in the 1790s. The Revolution in the 1790s abolished the traditional universities. [75] Napoleon sought to replace them with new institutions, the Polytechnique, focused on technology. [76] The elementary schools received little attention until 1830, when France copied the Prussian education system.

In 1833, France passed the Guizot Law, the first comprehensive law of primary education in France. This law mandated all local governments to establish primary schools for boys. It also established a common curriculum focused on moral and religious education, reading, and the system of weights and measurements. The expansion of education provision under the Guizot law was largely motivated by the July Monarchy’s desire to shape the moral character of future French citizens with an eye toward promoting social order and political stability.

Jules Ferry, an anti-clerical politician holding the office of Minister of Public Instruction in the 1880s, created the modern Republican school ( l’école républicaine ) by requiring all children under the age of 15—boys and girls—to attend. see Jules Ferry laws Schools were free of charge and secular ( laïque ). The goal was to break the hold of the Catholic Church and monarchism on young people. Catholic schools were still tolerated but in the early 20th century the religious orders sponsoring them were shut down. [77][78]

French colonial officials, influenced by the revolutionary ideal of equality, standardized schools, curricula, and teaching methods as much as possible. They did not establish colonial school systems with the idea of furthering the ambitions of the local people, but rather simply exported the systems and methods in vogue in the mother nation. [79] Having a moderately trained lower bureaucracy was of great use to colonial officials. [80] The emerging French-educated indigenous elite saw little value in educating rural peoples. [81] After 1946 the policy was to bring the best students to Paris for advanced training. The result was to immerse the next generation of leaders in the growing anti-colonial diaspora centered in Paris. Impressionistic colonials could mingle with studious scholars or radical revolutionaries or so everything in between. Ho Chi Minh and other young radicals in Paris formed the French Communist party in 1920. [82]

Tunisia was exceptional. The colony was administered by Paul Cambon, who built an educational system for colonists and indigenous people alike that was closely modeled on mainland France. He emphasized female and vocational education. By independence, the quality of Tunisian education nearly equalled that in France. [83]

African nationalists rejected such a public education system, which they perceived as an attempt to retard African development and maintain colonial superiority. One of the first demands of the emerging nationalist movement after World War II was the introduction of full metropolitan-style education in French West Africa with its promise of equality with Europeans. [84][85]

In Algeria, the debate was polarized. The French set up schools based on the scientific method and French culture. The Pied-Noir (Catholic migrants from Europe) welcomed this. Those goals were rejected by the Moslem Arabs, who prized mental agility and their distinctive religious tradition. The Arabs refused to become patriotic and cultured Frenchmen and a unified educational system was impossible until the Pied-Noir and their Arab allies went into exile after 1962. [86]

In South Vietnam from 1955 to 1975 there were two competing colonial powers in education, as the French continued their work and the Americans moved in. They sharply disagreed on goals. The French educators sought to preserving French culture among the Vietnamese elites and relied on the Mission Culturelle – the heir of the colonial Direction of Education – and its prestigious high schools. The Americans looked at the great mass of people and sought to make South Vietnam a nation strong enough to stop communism. The Americans had far more money, as USAID coordinated and funded the activities of expert teams, and particularly of academic missions. The French deeply resented the American invasion of their historical zone of cultural imperialism. [87]

In 1818, John Pounds set up a school and began teaching poor children reading, writing, and mathematics without charging fees. In 1820, Samuel Wilderspin opened the first infant school in Spitalfield. Starting in 1833, Parliament voted money to support poor children’s school fees in England and Wales. [88] In 1837, the Whig Lord Chancellor Henry Brougham led the way in preparing for public education. Most schooling was handled in church schools, and religious controversies between the Church of England And the dissenters became a central theme and educational history before 1900. [89]

The Danish education system has its origin in the cathedral- and monastery schools established by the Church; and seven of the schools established in the 12th and 13th centuries still exist today. After the Reformation, which was officially implemented in 1536, the schools were taken over by the Crown. Their main purpose was to prepare the students for theological studies by teaching them Latin and Greek. Popular elementary education was at that time still very primitive, but in 1721, 240 rytterskoler (“cavalry schools”) were established throughout the kingdom. Moreover, the religious movement of Pietism, spreading in the 18th century, required some level of literacy, thereby promoting the need for public education. Throughout the 19th century (and even up until today), the Danish education system was especially influenced by the ideas of clergyman, politician and poet N. F. S. Grundtvig, who advocated inspiring methods of teaching and the foundation of folk high schools. In 1871, there was a division of the secondary education into two lines: the languages and the mathematics-science line. This division was the backbone of the structure of the Gymnasium (i.e. academic general upper secondary education programme) until the year 2005. [90]

In 1894, the Folkeskole (“public school”, the government-funded primary education system) was formally established (until then, it had been known as Almueskolen (“common school”)), and measures were taken to improve the education system to meet the requirements of industrial society.

In 1903, the 3-year course of the Gymnasium was directly connected the municipal school through the establishment of the mellemskole (‘middle school’, grades 6–9), which was later on replaced by the realskole . Previously, students wanting to go to the Gymnasium (and thereby obtain qualification for admission to university) had to take private tuition or similar means as the municipal schools were insufficient.

In 1975, the realskole was abandoned and the Folkeskole (primary education) transformed into an egalitarian system where pupils go to the same schools regardless of their academic merits.

Shortly after Norway became an archdiocese in 1152, cathedral schools were constructed to educate priests in Trondheim, Oslo, Bergen and Hamar. After the reformation of Norway in 1537, (Norway entered a personal union with Denmark in 1536) the cathedral schools were turned into Latin schools, and it was made mandatory for all market towns to have such a school. In 1736 training in reading was made compulsory for all children, but was not effective until some years later. In 1827, Norway introduced the folkeskole , a primary school which became mandatory for 7 years in 1889 and 9 years in 1969. In the 1970s and 1980s, the folkeskole was abolished, and the grunnskole was introduced. [91]

In 1997, Norway established a new curriculum for elementary schools and middle schools. The plan is based on ideological nationalism, child-orientation, and community-orientation along with the effort to publish new ways of teaching. [92]

In 1842, the Swedish parliament introduced a four-year primary school for children in Sweden, “ folkskola “. In 1882 two grades were added to “ folkskola “, grade 5 and 6. Some “ folkskola ” also had grade 7 and 8, called “ fortsättningsskola “. Schooling in Sweden became mandatory for 7 years in the 1930s and for 8 years in the 1950s and for 9 years in 1962, [93][94]

According to Lars Petterson, the number of students grew slowly, 1900–1947, then shot up rapidly in the 1950s, and declined after 1962. The pattern of birth rates was a major factor. In addition Petterson points to the opening up of the gymnasium from a limited upper social base to the general population based on talent. In addition he points to the role of central economic planning, the widespread emphasis on education as a producer of economic growth and the expansion of white collar jobs. [95]

Japan isolated itself from the rest of the world in the year 1600 under the Tokugawa regime (1600–1867). In 1600 very few common people were literate. By the period’s end, learning had become widespread. Tokugawa education left a valuable legacy: an increasingly literate populace, a meritocratic ideology, and an emphasis on discipline and competent performance. Traditional Samurai curricula for elites stressed morality and the martial arts. Confucian classics were memorized, and reading and recitation of them were common methods of study. Arithmetic and calligraphy were also studied. Education of commoners was generally practically oriented, providing basic three Rs, calligraphy and use of the abacus. Much of this education was conducted in so-called temple schools (terakoya), derived from earlier Buddhist schools. These schools were no longer religious institutions, nor were they, by 1867, predominantly located in temples. By the end of the Tokugawa period, there were more than 11,000 such schools, attended by 750,000 students. Teaching techniques included reading from various textbooks, memorizing, abacus, and repeatedly copying Chinese characters and Japanese script. By the 1860s, 40–50% of Japanese boys, and 15% of the girls, had some schooling outside the home. These rates were comparable to major European nations at the time (apart from Germany, which had compulsory schooling). [96] Under subsequent Meiji leadership, this foundation would facilitate Japan’s rapid transition from feudal society to modern nation which paid very close attention to Western science, technology and educational methods.

After 1868 reformers set Japan on a rapid course of modernization, with a public education system like that of Western Europe. Missions like the Iwakura mission were sent abroad to study the education systems of leading Western countries. They returned with the ideas of decentralization, local school boards, and teacher autonomy. Elementary school enrollments climbed from about 40 or 50 percent of the school-age population in the 1870s to more than 90 percent by 1900, despite strong public protest, especially against school fees.

A modern concept of childhood emerged in Japan after 1850 as part of its engagement with the West. Meiji era leaders decided the nation-state had the primary role in mobilizing individuals – and children – in service of the state. The Western-style school became the agent to reach that goal. By the 1890s, schools were generating new sensibilities regarding childhood. [97] After 1890 Japan had numerous reformers, child experts, magazine editors, and well-educated mothers who bought into the new sensibility. They taught the upper middle class a model of childhood that included children having their own space where they read children’s books, played with educational toys and, especially, devoted enormous time to school homework. These ideas rapidly disseminated through all social classes [98][99]

After 1870 school textbooks based on Confucianism were replaced by westernized texts. However, by the 1890s, a reaction set in and a more authoritarian approach was imposed. Traditional Confucian and Shinto precepts were again stressed, especially those concerning the hierarchical nature of human relations, service to the new state, the pursuit of learning, and morality. These ideals, embodied in the 1890 Imperial Rescript on Education, along with highly centralized government control over education, largely guided Japanese education until 1945, when they were massively repudiated. [100]

Education was widespread for elite young men in the 18th century, with schools in most regions of the country. The subjects taught included Reading, Writing, Arithmetic, Theology, Law, Astronomy, Metaphysics, Ethics, Medical Science and Religion.

The current system of education, with its western style and content, was introduced and founded by the British during the British Raj, following recommendations by Lord Macaulay, who advocated for the teaching of English in schools and the formation of a class of Anglicized Indian interpreters. [101] Traditional structures were not recognized by the British government and have been on the decline since.

Public education expenditures in the late 19th and early 20th centuries varied dramatically across regions with the western and southern provinces spending three to four times as much as the eastern provinces. Much of the inter-regional differential was due to historical differences in land taxes, the major source of revenue. [102]

Lord Curzon, the Viceroy 1899–1905, made mass education a high priority after finding that no more than 20% of India’s children attended school. His reforms centered on literacy training and on restructuring of the university systems. They stressed ungraded curricula, modern textbooks, and new examination systems. Curzon’s plans for technical education laid the foundations which were acted upon by later governments. [103]

Australia, Canada, and New Zealand

In Canada, education became a contentious issue after Confederation in 1867, especially regarding the status of French schools outside Quebec.

Education in New Zealand began with provision made by the provincial government, the missionary Christian churches and private education. The first act of parliament for education was passed in 1877, and sought to establish a standard for primary education. It was compulsory for children to attend school from the age of 6 until the age of 16 years. [104]

In Australia, compulsory education was enacted in the 1870s, and it was difficult to enforce. People found it hard to afford for school fees. Moreover, teachers felt that they did not get a high salary for what they did. [105]

Imperial Russia and the Soviet Union

In Imperial Russia, according to the 1897 census, literate people made up 28 percent of the population. There was a strong network of universities for the upper class, but weaker provisions for everyone else.

Vladimir Lenin, in 1919 proclaimed the major aim of the Soviet government was the abolition of illiteracy. A system of universal compulsory education was established. Millions of illiterate adults were enrolled in special literacy schools. Youth groups (Komsomol members and Young Pioneer) were utilized to teach. In 1926, the literacy rate was 56.6 percent of the population. By 1937, according to census data, the literacy rate was 86% for men and 65% for women, making a total literacy rate of 75%.

The fastest expansion of primary schooling in the history of the Soviet Union coincided with the First Five-Year Plan. The motivation behind this rapid expansion of primary education can largely be attributed to Stalin’s interest in ensuring that everyone would have the skills and predisposition necessary to contribute to the state’s industrialization and international supremacy goals. Indeed, Paglayan [63] notes that one of the things that most surprised U.S. officials during their education missions to the USSR was, in U.S. officials’ own words, “the extent to which the Nation is committed to education as a means of national advancement. In the organization of a planned society in the Soviet Union, education is regarded as one of the chief resources and techniques for achieving social, economic, cultural, and scientific objectives in national interest. Tremendous responsibilities are therefore placed on Soviet schools, and comprehensive support is provided for them” [106]

An important aspect of the early campaign for literacy and education was the policy of “indigenization” (korenizatsiya). This policy, which lasted essentially from the mid-1920s to the late 1930s, promoted the development and use of non-Russian languages in the government, the media, and education. Intended to counter the historical practices of Russification, it had as another practical goal assuring native-language education as the quickest way to increase educational levels of future generations. A huge network of so-called “national schools” was established by the 1930s, and this network continued to grow in enrollments throughout the Soviet era. Language policy changed over time, perhaps marked first of all in the government’s mandating in 1938 the teaching of Russian as a required subject of study in every non-Russian school, and then especially beginning in the latter 1950s a growing conversion of non-Russian schools to Russian as the main medium of instruction.

In the 1920s and 1930s Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (1881-1938) imposed radical educational reforms in trying to modernize Turkey. He first separated of governmental and religious affairs. Education was the cornerstone in this effort. In 1923, there were three main educational groups of institutions. The most common institutions were medreses based on Arabic, the Qur’an, and memorization. The second type of institution was idadî and sultanî, the reformist schools of the Tanzimat era. The last group included colleges and minority schools in foreign languages that used the latest teaching models in educating pupils. The old medrese education was modernized. [107] Atatürk changed the classical Islamic education for a vigorously promoted reconstruction of educational institutions. [107] He linked educational reform to the liberation of the nation from dogma, which he believed was more important than the Turkish War of Independence. He declared:

Today, our most important and most productive task is the national education [unification and modernization] affairs. We have to be successful in national education affairs and we shall be. The liberation of a nation is only achieved through this way.” [108]

In 1924, Atatürk invited American educational reformer John Dewey to Ankara to advise him on how to reform Turkish education. [109] Unification was put into force in 1924, making education inclusive and organized on a model of the civil community. In this new design, all schools submitted their curriculum to the “Ministry of National Education”, a government agency modelled after other countries’ ministries of education. Concurrently, the republic abolished the two ministries and made clergy subordinate to the department of religious affairs, one of the foundations of secularism in Turkey. The unification of education under one curriculum ended “clerics or clergy of the Ottoman Empire”, but was not the end of religious schools in Turkey; they were moved to higher education until later governments restored them to their former position in secondary after Atatürk’s death.

In the 1930s, at the suggestion of Albert Einstein, Atatürk hired over a thousand established academics, including world renowned émigré professors escaping the Nazi takeover in Germany. Most were in medicine, mathematics, and natural science, plus a few in the faculties of law and the arts. Germany’s exiled professors served as directors in eight of twelve Istanbul’s basic science Institutes, as well as six directors of Istanbul’s seventeen clinics at the Faculty of Medicine. [110][111]

Education in French controlled West Africa during the late 1800s and early 1900s was different from the nationally uniform compulsory education of France in the 1880s. “Adapted education” was organized in 1903 and used the French curriculum as a basis, replacing information relevant to France with “comparable information drawn from the African context”. For example, French lessons of morality were coupled with many references to African history and local folklore. The French language was also taught as an integral part of adapted education.

Africa has more than 40 million children. According to UNESCO’s Regional overview on sub-Saharan Africa , in 2000 only 58% of children were enrolled in primary schools, the lowest enrollment rate of any region. The USAID Center reports as of 2005, forty percent of school-aged children in Africa do not attend primary school.

Recent Worldwide Trends

Today, there is some form of compulsory education in most countries. Due to population growth and the proliferation of compulsory education, UNESCO has calculated that in the next 30 years more people will receive formal education than in all of human history thus far.

Illiteracy and the percentage of populations without any schooling have decreased in the past several decades. For example, the percentage of population without any schooling decreased from 36% in 1960 to 25% in 2000.

Among developing countries, illiteracy and percentages without schooling in 2000 stood at about half the 1970 figures. Among developed countries, figures about illiteracy rates differ widely. Often it is said that they decreased from 6% to 1%. Illiteracy rates in less economically developed countries (LEDCs) surpassed those of more economically developed countries (MEDCs) by a factor of 10 in 1970, and by a factor of about 20 in 2000. Illiteracy decreased greatly in LEDCs, and virtually disappeared in MEDCs. Percentages without any schooling showed similar patterns.

Percentages of the population with no schooling varied greatly among LEDCs in 2000, from less than 10% to over 65%. MEDCs had much less variation, ranging from less than 2% to 17%.

Since the mid-20th century, societies around the globe have undergone an accelerating pace of change in economy and technology. Its effects on the workplace, and thus on the demands on the educational system preparing students for the workforce, have been significant. Beginning in the 1980s, government, educators, and major employers issued a series of reports identifying key skills and implementation strategies to steer students and workers towards meeting the demands of the changing and increasingly digital workplace and society. 21st century skills are a series of higher-order skills, abilities, and learning dispositions that have been identified as being required for success in 21st century society and workplaces by educators, business leaders, academics, and governmental agencies. Many of these skills are also associated with deeper learning, including analytic reasoning, complex problem solving, and teamwork, compared to traditional knowledge-based academic skills.

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In This Article Expand or collapse the "in this article" section History of Education in the United States

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History of Education in the United States by Christopher M. Span LAST REVIEWED: 29 October 2013 LAST MODIFIED: 29 October 2013 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199756810-0013

This annotated bibliography concentrates on the history of education in the United States. This history can be divided into two distinct areas: teacher training, and scholarship and research. Well before 1860, history of education, as a course of study, was associated with the professional education training of American teachers. To date, nearly all teacher education programs in the United States still incorporate the history of American education—even if only as part of a social foundations course—as a course requirement in its preservice teacher education programs. The assumption is that providing teachers with a general overview or survey of the most important developments in the history of education in the United States allows them to be self-reflective about the past and better understand the society in which they will teach. As a field of research, history of education has its earliest beginnings in the late 19th century, but by the mid-20th century it was a well-established field of study.

A number of journals specifically publish research on the history of education. The three most prominent journals in the field are the History of Education Quarterly (HEQ), History of Education , and Paedagogica Historica . Other important journals in the field are the American Educational History Journal , Historical Studies in Education/Revue d’histoire de l’éducation , and History of Education Review .

American Educational History Journal .

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The official annual publication of the Organization of Educational Historians (OEH), formerly the Midwest History of Education Society (MHES). The main criteria for publication in this journal is that authors present a cogent and coherent historical analysis at its annual conference.

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Historical Studies in Education/Revue d’histoire de l’éducation . 1989–.

Published twice a year, in both English and French, this peer-reviewed journal is the official journal of the Canadian History of Education Association (CHEA). The journal publishes all aspect of the history of education from informal to formal schooling, and from preschool to the university, as it relates primarily to Canada.

History of Education . 1972–.

This peer-reviewed journal is the official journal of the History of Education Society in the United Kingdom. It publishes six issues a year, and its aim and scope is to provide an outlet for the publication of theoretical, methodological, and historiographical articles on the history of education in Europe, Canada, and the United States.

History of Education Review .

This is the official journal of the Australian and New Zealand History of Education Society (ANZHES). Published biannually, the international journal publishes peer-reviewed research on the history of education, focusing primarily on Australia and New Zealand.

History of Education Quarterly . 1949–.

This outstanding peer-reviewed journal is the official journal of the History of Education Society (HES). First published under this title in 1961, the journal has been the primary publication outlet for scholars who seek to publish original research on the history of education in the United States. Between 1949 and 1961, the journal was published under the title History of Education Journal .

Paedagogica Historica: International Journal of the History of Education . 1961–.

This peer-reviewed journal is one of the leading journals in the field. It is the official journal of the International Standing Conference for the History of Education (ISCHE). Published six times a year and in three languages—English, French, and German—the scope of the research in the journal discusses education issues from a historical, theoretical, and methodological perspective.

There are a number of professional societies for historians of education. These professional societies allow historians of education the opportunity to present their research findings. The most prominent are the American Educational Research Association (AERA), Division F: History and Historiography , the American Educational Studies Association (AESA) , the Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE) , History of Education Society (HES) , History of Education Society, UK (HES) , the International Standing Conference for the History of Education (ISCHE) , and the Organization of Educational Historians (OEH) .

American Educational Research Association, Division F: History and Historiography .

Division F (History and Historiography) is dedicated to the study and practice of history and historiography. It is a division in the 25,000-member organization of the American Educational Research Association (AERA). It meets annually at different locations in the United States.

American Educational Studies Association .

The American Educational Studies Association (AESA) is a society primarily composed of college and university professors who teach and do research in the field of education, utilizing one or more of the liberal arts disciplines of philosophy, history, politics, sociology, anthropology, or economics, as well as comparative/international and cultural studies. It meets annually at different locations in the United States.

Association for the Study of Higher Education .

The Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE) is a scholarly society with about two thousand members dedicated to higher education as a field of study. It meets annually at different locations in the United States.

History of Education Society .

The History of Education Society (HES) is an international scholarly society whose purpose is to promote and improve the teaching of the history of education and encourage scholarly research in the history of education. It meets annually at different locations in the United States.

The UK History of Education Society (HES) promotes the study and teaching of history of education and is the annual conference for scholars and historians interested in presenting their research. It meets annually in the United Kingdom.

International Standing Conference for the History of Education .

The International Standing Conference for the History of Education (ISCHE) was founded in 1978 for the presentation of scholarship related to the history of education outside the United States. It meets annually at different locations in the world.

Organization of Educational Historians .

The Organization of Educational Historians (OEH) is an academic society for scholars interested in the history of education. It was formerly known as the Midwest History of Education Society. It meets annually in Chicago, Illinois.

A number of textbooks are available for the teaching of the history of education in the United States. These textbooks provide a comprehensive overview of the social, philosophical, historical, and economic foundations of education in the United States. The most noteworthy and widely used textbooks in the field are Mondale 2002 , Urban and Wagoner 2008 , Spring 2011 , and Tozer, et al. 2012 . These textbooks provide the most comprehensive information related to the social foundations of American education. An excellent documentary history of the United States is Fraser 2009 , a collection of primary sources of some of the most important personalities and milestones in the history of schools in the United States. Other textbooks that offer added value and alternative perspectives on the history of education in the United States include Gutek 2010 , Spring 2012 , and Rury 2012 .

Fraser, James W. 2009. The school in the United States: A documentary history . New York: Routledge.

This text uses primary sources to detail the educational history of the United States. Particular attention is paid to the role religion, race, language, gender, and the law played in determining who would have access to public schooling.

Gutek, Gerald L. 2010. Historical and philosophical foundations of education: A biographical introduction . 5th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.

Through the biographies of some of the leading educational theorists in the history of humanity, this textbook illustrates how education and schools evolved because of their ideas.

Mondale, Sarah. 2002. School: The story of American public education . Boston: Beacon.

This short history is a compilation of essays from esteemed scholars in the field of history of education. It chronicles the evolution of schooling in the United States from the colonial era to the near present. It is the companion book to the PBS video documentary School .

Rury, John. 2012. Education and social change: Contours in the history of American schooling . 4th ed. New York: Routledge.

This short history of American schooling concentrates on the forever changing contours and evolution of schools. Considerable analysis is spent on the educational experiences of women, African Americans, and Native Americans.

Spring, Joel. 2011. American education . 15th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill.

This textbook offers a comprehensive overview of the history of American education. It is revised every two years to provide up-to-date analysis on the historical, social, and legal foundation of American education. It is formatted thematically around relevant issues of the day, such as educational equity and opportunity, diversity, and the politicization of American education.

Spring, Joel. 2012. Deculturalization and the struggle for equality: A brief history of the education of dominated cultures in the United States . 7th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill.

This textbook offers a short educational history of groups—African Americans, Native Americans, Latinos, women, etc.—historically marginalized in the United States. It has a specific focus on the impact of race and racism, segregation, and the deculturalization of Native Americans.

Tozer, Steven, Guy Senese, and Paul Violas. 2012. School and society: Historical and contemporary perspectives . 7th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill.

This textbook illustrates the how schools arose in the United States and how certain issues—such as race, gender, region, socioeconomic status, and language—determined the overall schooling experiences of children in the United States. The text relies on a triangulated analytic framework of how schools, ideology, and political economy shaped schools from the colonial era to the present.

Urban, Wayne J., and Jennings L. Wagoner Jr. 2008. American education: A history . 4th ed. New York: Routledge.

One of the most widely used textbooks on the history of education in the United States from the colonial era to the present. Well-written, and very inclusive of the diversity and ever-changing demographics of the nation, it offers an excellent chronology of the history of education (K-12 and higher education) in the United States.

Very little meaningful scholarship was published that surmised the history of education prior to 1950. Much of the pre-1950 scholarship pertained to statewide reports of schools or were cursory chapters embedded in dense tomes devoted to broader topics in the discipline of history. The earliest publications, such as Boone 1907 , Thwing 1910 , Dexter 1916 , or Cubberly 1919 , served as “house histories” or textbooks for professional teacher education courses. They were flowery narratives that chronicled the early history of schools in the United States. Minimal attention was paid to the role gender, race, religion, socioeconomic status, region, language, or special needs played in the educational experiences and lives of teachers, parents, administrators, or school children. The only publications to articulate aspects of these specifics were typically written by historians, who wrote counter-narratives to these traditional turn-of-the-century histories on American education; these works include Blandin 1909 , Woodson 1919 , Bond 1934 , and Du Bois 1935 .

Blandin, Isabella Margaret Elizabeth. 1909. History of higher education of women in the South prior to 1860 . New York: Neale.

Offers a very early history of the higher educational opportunities of women in the United States prior to the Civil War. Particular attention is paid to women’s access to college in the South and the type of curriculum they were offered. Very little can be discerned as to what impact these collegiate experiences had on these women’s lives.

Bond, Horace Mann. 1934. The education of the Negro in the American social order . New York: Prentice-Hall.

First full-length history of the African American educational experience in the United States from the end of the Civil War to the contemporary present. Considerable attention is paid to the perceived role African Americans were to play in society, because this determined the type of schooling opportunities they would be afforded.

Boone, Richard Gause. 1907. Education in the United States . New York: Appleton.

Offers a flowery and cursory overview of the earliest examples of schooling in the United States. Illustrates the differentiation in education—theological education, legal education, medical education, teacher training, etc.—at the time. Book is available through Google e-books.

Cubberly, Ellwood P. 1919. Public education in the United States: A study and interpretation of American educational history . New York: Houghton Mifflin.

This work is an early textbook that illustrates the history of schooling in the United States from the colonial era to the early 20th century. Particular attention is paid to colonial Massachusetts, educational developments in the early republic, and the reorganization of the nation’s system of schools following the Civil War. Book is available through Google e-books.

Dexter, Edwin Grant. 1916. A history of education in the United States . London: Macmillan.

An early textbook that offers a chronological history of schools in the United States from colonial Virginia to the beginning of the 20th century. Teacher training programs, higher education institutions, and regional analyses is the primary focus of the book. Book is available through Google e-books.

Du Bois, William Edward Burghardt. 1935. Founding the public school. Chapter 15 in Black Reconstruction in America: An essay toward a history on the part which black folk played in the attempt to reconstruct democracy in America, 1860–1880 . By William Edward Burghardt Du Bois. London: Oxford Univ. Press.

Magnificent social history on the role African Americans played in the social, political, economic, and educational reconstruction of the American South following the Civil War. The book provides the first comprehensive assessment on the founding of public education in the American South and the role former slaves played in this development.

Thwing, Charles Franklin. 1910. A history of education in the United States since the Civil War . New York: Houghton Mifflin.

Offers a romantic overview of the major philosophical thoughts and organizational practices that defined schooling in the United States following the Civil War. Very little attention is paid to the diverse demographics of the nation and their schooling experiences, or how time, region, or context impacted the development of schools during this era. Book is available through Google e-books.

Woodson, Carter G. 1919. The education of the Negro prior to 1861: A history of the education of the colored people of the United States from the beginning of slavery to the Civil War . Washington, DC: Associated Publishers.

Arguably the first history devoted to the education of African Americans in the United States. Great attention is paid to the role education played in the lives of enslaved and freeborn African Americans in the North and South, and how religion served as the primary catalyst for the earliest schooling opportunities of African Americans. Book is available through Google e-books.

It was only in the 1950s, as history of education came under assault by schools and colleges of education across the nation, that scholars in the field began to write a completely different kind of history of both the purpose of schooling and the pedagogical value of history of education in the teacher-training curriculum. Historians such as Arthur Bestor spurred this shift (see Bestor 1953 ). He argued that schools or colleges of education were failing to train teachers to understand the past to educate the present and future. Historians of education responded in a series of publications defending the functionality and relevance of both their pedagogy and field of expertise. The most prominent of these publications came in a series of articles published in the first three issues of Volume 7 of the History of Education Journal in 1955–1956. The general themes of the issue focused on the past, present, and future role of history of education in the teacher-training curriculum, preparation of doctoral students as future academicians, and the advancement of scholarship based on original sources and research. Key texts in this effort were Butts and Cremin 1953 , Cremin 1955 , Cremin 1956 , and Anderson 1956 , written by three of the most prominent historians in the field. Some historians, such as Louis Harlan, wrote histories to explain contemporary issues, such as legal segregation in public schools ( Harlan 1958 ). It was another way of demonstrating the functional role the history of education played in addressing some of the most pressing problems in American education.

Anderson, Archibald W. 1956. Bases of proposals concerning the history of education. History of Education Journal 7.2: 37–98.

Establishes the premise that the history of education as a course of study in the professional development of teachers is very functional and needed to enhance the everyday knowledge of teachers in their professional careers.

Bestor, Arthur. 1953. Educational wastelands: The retreat from learning in our public schools . Urbana: Univ. of Illinois Press.

Scathing critique of the educational philosophy, curriculum, and practices of schools during the Progressive Era. Bestor calls on the nation to abandon Progressive educational reform because he felt the nation’s schoolchildren had regressed under its guise. He calls for a return to the traditional curriculum that heavily emphasized literacy, rhetoric, and numeracy.

Butts, R. Freeman, and Lawrence Cremin. 1953. A history of education in American culture . New York: Holt.

Offers a detailed overview of the history of education in the United States and synthesizes the aesthetics of American iconography and culture into this analysis. The central argument is that the way schools developed and evolved in the United States, writ large, is unique compared to any other nation-state.

Cremin, Lawrence A. 1955. The recent development of the history of education as a field of study in the United States. History of Education Journal 7.1: 1–35.

Offers a short overview of the role the history of education has played in the professional development of teachers in the United States, and why it is necessary for the field to remain in colleges or schools of education rather than shift to departments of history.

Cremin, Lawrence A. 1956. The role of the history of education in the professional preparation of teachers: Recommendations of the committee. History of Education Journal 7.3: 99–132.

This article lists five recommendations as to how history of education can continue to play a prominent role in the professional preparation of teachers, colleges of education, and the discipline of history.

Harlan, Louis R. 1958. Separate and unequal: Public school campaigns and racism in the southern seaboard states, 1900–1915 . Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press.

First book to illustrate in great detail the impact racism had on the educational advancement of African Americans in the first decades of the 20th century. Written during the mass movements for human freedom in the United States, it utilizes the struggles of the times as the primary impetus for retracing this educational history.

History of education evolved tremendously during these two decades as a distinct field of study. In addition to more detailed histories being written on the development of systems of education in the United States and abroad, historians of this time period began to write about the challenges facing contemporary society and how schools have been historically called upon to answer or provide remedy to these challenges. Bailyn 1960 , Cremin 1961 , Karier 1967 , Katz 1968 , and Tyack 1974 all established the argument that schools shaped the progress of the United States. How schools developed and evolved in essence determined the progress of society. As such, many publications during this time period both promoted and challenged the premise that schooling was the panacea to societal problems. No longer was there a uniformed opinion on why schools were created, that they were positive developments, or what their overall purpose was in the nation. The historians who wrote in this era can be divided into two distinct groups: revisionists and traditionalists (discussed in detail in the next two subsections). The histories written by both groups pushed the boundaries of how the history of American education was previously written. They synthesized the history of education into broader considerations in American history; they illustrated both the success and failures of schooling in the United States; and they disaggregated populations such as students, teachers, communities, administrators, theorists, and school communities to provide a more nuanced history of how systems of education evolved in the United States.

Bailyn, Bernard. 1960. Education in the forming of American society: Needs and opportunities for study . Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press.

Provides a broader definition of education to illustrate the fundamental shifts in American education. Education was not just the formal pedagogy or practice of teaching in schools; it was the entirety of the American culture transmitted from one generation to the next. Ideology, political economy, and schools all shaped and reshaped each other, and this, in turn, formed American society.

Cremin, Lawrence A. 1961. The transformation of the school: Progressivism in American education, 1876–1957 . New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

Details the rise and decline of Progressive education in the United States. Similar to Bailyn, the book expands the definition of education to include the myriad of cultures in American society.

Karier, Clarence J. 1967. Man, society, and education: A history of American educational ideas . Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman.

This book presents a history of the history of educational ideas and how they shaped American society and schools. It directly challenges earlier and contemporary histories that argued that schooling is by nature good for society. Karier argues that no real differences existed between liberalism and conservativism, since proponents of both ideologies deemed schools to be beneficial to societal advancement.

Katz, Michael. 1968. The irony of early school reform: Education innovation in mid-nineteenth century Massachusetts . Boston: Beacon.

Offers an analysis of the development of schooling in Massachusetts during the 19th century. It particularly details the philosophies and practices of Massachusetts educational reformers. Whereas early histories offered sweeping overviews of the development of schools in Massachusetts, Katz situates his history in what he called a “small, concrete situation,” (p. 15) to illustrate how schools evolved in Massachusetts.

Tyack, David B. 1974. The one best system: A history of American urban education . Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press.

This history details the origins and challenges of education in urban America. It discusses the rise of massive levels of educational bureaucracy, decentralization, standardized testing, segregation, and ability tracking, and how education theorists and bureaucrats sought to develop one system of education to best meet the needs of all, regardless of their differences in access, ability, and outcome.

Some historians, including those mentioned in the previous section, insisted that schooling was rarely if ever beneficial to everyone in the United States. They sought to offer a revision or corrective history to earlier or contemporary histories that offered interpretations that schooling was universally beneficial to the advancement of the nation and its citizenry. Revisionist historians argued in their respective publications that schools in the 18th, 19th, and first half of the 20th century were not beneficial to most Americans. These works include Karier 1972 ; Karier, et al. 1973 ; Clifford 1975 ; Bowles and Gintis 1976 ; Katz 1976 ; Webber 1978 ; Franklin 1979 ; and Butchart 1980 . They argued that schools were established to replicate the status quo, to control discontent, to control the educational access and outcomes of marginalized populations, to be an engine for coercive assimilation, to determine access of opportunity to limited resources, to simply prepare individuals for employment, and a host of other factors. Using an array of primary source evidence, these historians set out to write the educational histories of how schools and society advanced democracy for some literally at the expense of others. Their emphasis pertained to writing histories of people who had been historically marginalized or simply denied schooling altogether. Their histories illustrated that schools were particularly harmful or unbeneficial, in general, to women, African Americans, Native Americans, Latinos, the poor, and immigrants.

Bowles, Samuel, and Herbert Gintis. 1976. Schooling in capitalist America: Education reform and the contradictions of economic life . New York: Basic Books.

Offers a quantitative and economic regression analysis of how schools have served to advance capitalism in the United States at the expense of advancing the overall livelihood of the average citizen. Discusses the uneven distribution of school resources, the origins of standardized testing, and the impact of intergenerational wealth and poverty on school performance and outcome.

Butchart, Ronald E. 1980. Northern schools, southern blacks, and Reconstruction . Westport, CT: Greenwood.

A corrective history to earlier publications written on the role of northern teachers who taught freedpeople during and after the Civil War. Previous scholarship was deeply sympathetic to the South’s defeat following the Civil War. This book challenged this historiography and illustrates a more accurate portrayal of the northern teachers who taught African Americans—free and freed.

Clifford, Geraldine Joncich. 1975. Saints, sinners, and people: A position paper on the historiography of American education. History of Education Quarterly 15.3: 257–272.

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This Division F Vice-Presidential Address details the more recent publications in the history of education and suggests future directions of where the field should continue to grow and conduct research. A comprehensive bibliography of all the known publications on the history of education in the Midwest.

Franklin, Vincent P. 1979. The education of black Philadelphia: The social and education history of a minority community, 1900–1950 . Philadelphia: Univ. of Pennsylvania Press.

A detailed history on the education of African Americans in Philadelphia. The book illustrates how African Americans were purposefully denied a quality education because they were thought to be inferior to whites. It also shows that the type of schooling afforded to African Americans served more as an impediment to the group’s social advancement rather than as a resource.

Karier, Clarence J. 1972. Liberalism and the quest for orderly change. History of Education Quarterly 12.1: 57–80.

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Offered a sharp critique of liberalism as an ideology for social change and good with regard to schools, particularly when there is a crisis or difficult situation. The essay is the first of its kind to offer a critical assessment of John Dewey, the Progressive Era, and the limited impact schools have had in addressing systemic and structural problems in society.

Karier, Clarence J., Paul C. Violas, and Joel Spring. 1973. Roots of crisis: American education in the twentieth century . Chicago: Rand McNally.

This book offers a revisionist history of education in the first half of the 20th century. It challenges established interpretations that important personalities and milestones in education in the United States were not producers of social good, but instead were producers and maintainers of social control. This book quickly became the standard for revisionist educational history.

Katz, Michael. 1976. The origins of public education: A reassessment. History of Education Quarterly 16.4: 381–407.

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This article offers a revisionist critique and response to scholars opposed to Katz’s interpretation and findings in The Irony of Early School Reform ( Katz 1968 , cited under 1960–1980 ). It offers additional interpretation as to why and how public schools in the United States were established and what outcomes can be ascertained from their development and maintenance.

Webber, Thomas L. 1978. Deep Like the Rivers: Education in the Slave Quarter Community, 1831–1865 . New York: W. W. Norton.

First comprehensive study of the formal and informal education of enslaved African Americans during the antebellum era.

Contemporaries of revisionist historians were quick to respond and defend their historical interpretations that proffered schooling as essentially the quintessential hallmark of American democracy. Historians such as Jill Conway, Lawrence Cremin, Edward Krug, and Diane Ravitch argued that schooling contributed to a more productive economy, gave the average citizen greater access to resources and opportunities, and alleviated societal ills (see Conway 1974 , Cremin 1970 , Cremin 1980 , Krug 1972 , Ravitch 1974 , and Ravitch 1978 ). Despite the limited progress some groups in the United States had achieved, schools were not the primary culprit of their underdevelopment, according to these historians; instead, it was the very reason many individuals within these marginalized groups achieved economic and social mobility. Schools were a story of democracy at its best, of places where opportunities abounded if one applied one’s talents, and of places that defined the very meaning of societal progress. Without schools there would be no societal advancement, so schools, according to traditionalists, were not as detrimental as the revisionists wrote. Notwithstanding this belief, the challenge for traditionalist historians was that as primary source evidence became increasingly available, and as people from historically marginalized or denied populations demanded their histories be written and told, it became nearly impossible to adhere to the interpretation that schools did more good than harm in remedying the needs and wants of these, and many other, groups in American society. As such, fewer and fewer histories were written from this perspective in the decades that followed.

Conway, Jill K. 1974. Perspectives on the history of women’s education in the United States. History of Education Quarterly 14.1: 1–12.

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Offers a brief overview of the early educational opportunities of women in the United States. The article is part of a themed issue in the Quarterly on “Reinterpreting Women’s Education.”

Cremin, Lawrence A. 1970. American education: The colonial experience, 1607–1783 . New York: Harper & Row.

The first of a three-volume synthesis of the history of American education. The books adheres to the argument that American culture—an American Paideia —defined how schools and democracy, writ large, would be developed in colonial America and beyond.

Cremin, Lawrence A. 1980. American education: The national experience, 1783–1876 . New York: Harper & Row.

The second of Cremin’s three-volume synthesis on the history of American education. Despite the greater emphasis on specificity of example and analysis in other contemporary histories of education, the book still adheres to a broad definition and interpretation of education. This interpretive framework made it difficult to assess the strengths and limitations of schooling in the United States during this time period.

Krug, Edward A. 1972. The shaping of the American high school, 1920–1941 . Madison, WI: Univ. of Wisconsin Press.

Offers one of the earliest and most complete histories of the rise of the high school during the Progressive Era.

Ravitch, Diane. 1974. The great school wars: New York City, 1805–1973; A history of the public schools as battlefield of social change . New York: Basic Books.

Details the early educational history of the denouncement of the common school model in New York City. The book highlights the influential work of Catholic Bishop John Hughes, who singlehandedly defended the culture and religion of Irish Catholics in the city, the rise of parochial education as an alternative to public schooling, and how New York City public schools evolved in the 20th century.

Ravitch, Diane. 1978. The revisionists revised: A critique of the radical attack on the schools . New York: Basic Books.

A series of essays that challenge contemporary histories written by historians critical of historical scholarship, and emphasizing the progress schooling historically had on society.

Histories of Education

Connections and Directions

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Part of the book series: Springer International Handbooks of Education ((SIHE))

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The primary intention of this Handbook is to advance our understanding of the substantive theoretical and methodological debates that underpin and inform the history of education as a field of knowledge through critique, reflection, and professional discourse. As a Major Reference Work, the challenges and opportunities are not dissimilar to those identified in comparable works that present an historiographical mapping of the field (see for example, Furlong and Lawn 2011; Lowe 2000; McCulloch 2005; McCulloch and Crook 2013). That is, if the field is to continue to flourish and deliver on its promises, debates about its methods, questions, and theoretical considerations are imperative. In that sense, this Handbook is a contribution to the intellectual history of the field.

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Fitzgerald, T. (2020). Histories of Education. In: Fitzgerald, T. (eds) Handbook of Historical Studies in Education. Springer International Handbooks of Education. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-2362-0_57

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Native American men and a boy posed outside of Carlisle Indian School. LC-USZ62-124294

Education in rural school. Williams County, North Dakota. LC-USF34-030766-D

Questa, New Mexico. Spanish-American students in the grade school LC-DIG-fsa-8d25973

Veazy, Greene County, Georgia. The one-teacher African American school, south of Greensboro LC-USF34-046270-D

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We are an international scholarly society devoted to promoting and teaching the history of education across institutions. You will find detailed information about us, what is happening in the organization, our annual meeting, and our publication by browsing our site.

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March 3 online book talk with sharon s. lee.

An Unseen Unheard Minority: Asian American Students at the University of Illinois Online Book Talk with Dr. Sharon S. Lee, Teaching Assistant Professor, Education Policy, Organization, and Leadership, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Thursday, March 3, 2022...

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Carol Lloyd, VP Editorial Director for GreatSchools, a nonprofit providing resources to parents and communities to improve children's learning, is overseeing a 2-year project that involves the creation and distribution of information for parents about high school...

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The Canadian History of Education Association (CHEA)/Association canadienne d’histoire de l’éducation (ACHÉ) biennial conference will be held in-person on October 13-15, 2022 in Victoria, BC. View the Call for Proposals here. Deadline for submissions is April 4,...

Two Tenure-Track Positions with a History of Education Focus

Nov 29, 2021

TWO Full-Time, Tenure-Track Faculty Positions: Critical Multicultural Education, Social Justice Education, Ethnic Studies, UNLV, College of Education, Department of Teaching and Learning Position #1: History of Black Education Focus Assistant Professor of Cultural...

Education: A Very Short Introduction (1st edn)

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Education: A Very Short Introduction explores how and why education has evolved throughout history and explains the way in which schools work, noting how curricula are remarkably consistent around the world. Few people know how the schools that exist today came to their current state. Little is known about the intellectual traditions that have shaped education. There is a gap in awareness and understanding about what education is and how it has developed. As a result there is a dearth of creativity about how to improve it. There are always going to be strong opinions on how best to educate. What is the difference between progressive and formal education? How might education develop in the future?

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Children and schools just keep getting better

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Does Education Really Help?: Skill, Work, and Inequality (2006) on Oxford Scholarship Online
Education and Training in Europe (2007) on Oxford Scholarship Online
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The History of Classical Education in America

Jose Arevalo, post-doctoral fellow at Hillsdale College, joins host Scot Bertram to discuss the roots of classical education in America, how the progressives changed American education, and the revival of Great Books courses.

A 20-minute podcast featuring professors, K-12 teachers, and friends of Hillsdale College, all speaking about classical education—what it is, why it’s still relevant today, and what makes it unique. Hosted by Scot Bertram.

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Welcoming Students with Special Needs in a Classical Classroom

Jeffery rogers: building boys to men, matt stone: first year teachers – like drinking from a fire hydrant, abigail teska: the purpose of art education, gloria suarez: engineer to classical teacher, benedict whalen: falling in love with literature.

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School choice and a history of segregation collide as one Florida county shutters its rural schools

Tens of thousands of students have left Florida’s public schools in recent years, amid an explosion in school choice. Now districts are reckoning with the harsh financial realities of empty seats in aging classrooms. (AP Video: Kate Payne)

Mannika Hopkins talks with her fourth graders on the first day of school at Greenville Elementary in Greenville, Fla. on Aug. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Kate Payne)

Madison County School District superintendent Shirley Joseph walks into Greenville Elementary School in Greenville, Fla. on Aug. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Kate Payne)

Alexis Kornegay coaches her first grade students on the alphabet at Greenville Elementary School in Greenville, Fla. on Aug. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Kate Payne)

A sign gauges students’ emotions on the first day of school at Lee Elementary in Lee, Fla. on Aug. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/ Kate Payne)

Alexis Molden poses for a photo with her sons Alex’zae, left, and Dimitri, right, in Madison, Fla. on Aug. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Kate Payne)

Mannika Hopkins laughs with one of her fourth grade students at Greenville Elementary School in Greenville, Fla. on Aug. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Kate Payne)

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MADISON, Fla. (AP) — Tens of thousands of students have left Florida’s public schools in recent years amid an explosive expansion in school choice . Now, districts large and small are grappling with the harsh financial realities of empty seats in aging classrooms.

As some districts are being forced to close schools, administrators are facing another long-avoided reckoning: how to integrate students in buildings that remain racially and economically segregated .

In the Florida panhandle, one tiny district plans to consolidate its last three stand-alone elementary schools into one campus because there aren’t enough students to cover the costs of keeping the doors open. But the Madison County School District’s decision to do so has exposed tensions around race in a community where for years some white families have resisted integrating public schools.

“It’s the elephant in the room that nobody wants to talk about,” county school board member Katie Knight told The Associated Press.

AP AUDIO: School choice and a history of segregation collide as one Florida county shutters its rural schools

AP correspondent Donna Warder reports on the death of some Florida public schools.

“At the end of the day, these kids are going to have to interact with all people of races, skill sets, personality types,” she said. “Trying to segregate our children is not an option.”

Segregation, integration, consolidation

Shirley Joseph is a product of Florida’s segregated schools — and was a Black student in some of the first integrated classes at one of the local high schools.

Now, as superintendent of Madison County’s public schools, it’s her job to close some of them.

There are fewer than 1,700 students left in traditional public schools in this rural county in the state’s old cotton belt. Many families have moved away to places with more jobs and housing — or chosen other kinds of schooling. For those who remain, the schools provide more than just an education: All of Madison’s students qualify for free meals because of the county’s poverty rate. One in three children there live in poverty.

“If we are to survive as a district,” Joseph said, “we have got to make the hard decisions.”

Earlier this month, Joseph walked the halls of the elementary campuses on their last first day of school, pointing out classroom after empty classroom.

One of the schools slated to close is Greenville Elementary, which has fewer than 100 students — roughly a third of the school’s capacity . When Florida schools were officially segregated, Joseph attended classes there at what was then called the Greenville Training School.

Generations of Black residents cherish the school’s legacy in the tiny town of Greenville where music legend Ray Charles grew up.

More than 50 years after desegregation, the school remains 85% Black . Class sizes have dwindled as the school struggles to hold onto certified teachers. State ratings of the school have fluctuated, but Greenville has been rated an “F” five times over the past decade for low rates of student achievement.

Fourth grade teacher Mannika Hopkins had just eight students in her class when an Associated Press reporter visited recently.

“I hate it that it’s closing. This is my heart. This is our community. … This is us,” Hopkins said. “Who wants to move into a community that doesn’t have a school that’s close by?”

Starting next year, Greenville will consolidate with Lee and Pinetta Elementary Schools, which are predominantly white. All those students will be sent to Madison County Central School, a majority Black K-8 campus that’s a 15- to 20-minute drive from the outlying elementary schools. The district hasn’t announced yet which teachers will move to the consolidated school and which ones will be out of job.

School choice fuels declining enrollment

Madison County sits an hour east of Tallahassee in a region once dominated by cotton and tobacco plantations. A statue of a Confederate soldier still towers over the central park in the county seat of Madison.

The area has been losing students for years as birth rates decline, businesses close and families move to places with more jobs other than in the timber industry, trucking and working at the nearby state prison.

Other families have stayed but simply left the public schools.

For decades, Aucilla Christian Academy in neighboring Jefferson County has attracted some of the area’s wealthiest families. Established in 1970, Aucilla opened as a wave of new private schools sprang up across the South, founded by white people who opposed integration. Researchers call these “segregation academies,” and many of them remain mostly white. As of the 2021-2022 school year, Aucilla’s student body was more than 90% white, according to federal data .

Madison families have pushed back against consolidation in the past: In 1998, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights stepped in when residents resisted plans to send students from predominantly white Lee Elementary to Central, the school that will soon receive the county’s elementary schoolers. After the department got involved, the district went ahead with the plan.

Today, it’s arguably never been easier to leave Florida’s public schools. The chaos of COVID-19 pushed many families to try homeschooling or microschooling — tiny, private learning environments that often serve multiple families. And now, under Gov. Ron DeSantis, all Florida students can qualify for taxpayer-funded vouchers worth about $8,000 a year to cover private school tuition, regardless of household income.

For families opposed to Madison’s consolidation, Aucilla is a possible destination, along with Madison Creative Arts Academy, a public charter school.

Nine-year-old Noel Brouillette’s parents hope she gets a seat at the Academy. It’s not about race, mom Nicole Brouillette said, but rather the majority Black Central school’s reputation of having more fights. If Noel doesn’t get into the charter school, the family might leave Madison County entirely.

The fourth grader says she’s heartbroken she can’t stay at Pinetta Elementary.

“If I never went here, I would have never met my best friend,” she said.

Other parents are considering homeschooling, like Alexis Molden. She said her sons love going to Lee Elementary, but she’s heard rumors about Central — that multiracial kids like hers get bullied there.

“I’ve heard that … it’s pretty much segregated,” Molden said. “You’ve got the white kids, the Black kids and then the mixed kids pretty much have to decide which side they’re going to.”

Katie Knight, the school board member, said that if she had a dollar for every rumor she heard about Central, she could retire.

Still, the county has a history.

When now-Superintendent Shirley Joseph taught at Madison County High School a couple of decades ago, she said her students would sort themselves when they filed into her classroom — white kids on one side, Black kids on the other — until she’d make them change seats.

“Somehow we’ve got to find out: How do we mesh the communities?” Joseph said.

There’s always talk about leaving the public schools, Joseph said, but she believes most families will stay. In the meantime, she’s focused on delivering the best education possible for the students she has — the ones who can’t leave.

Kate Payne is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

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BRUCE DENNETT, 1948–2024

A great teacher leaves an imprint on the world like a stone thrown in a pond, the ripples spreading outward and leaving a legacy that each of their students keeps paying forward throughout their lives. No teacher embodies that more than Bruce Dennett, who, over half a century of teaching, changed thousands of lives profoundly for the better.

Bruce Dennett was born in Newcastle on September 11, 1948, and all his life considered himself a proud Novocastrian. In 1951, his parents moved to Sydney, his father taking a job as a greenkeeper at Bellevue Hill Bowling Club to give young Bruce more opportunities – i.e. to avoid going down the mines.

Bruce was dyslexic and was set for a place at a manual arts high school after performing poorly in the Primary Final, but instead was sent to Cranbrook School after his mother took a job at the TAB to afford the fees. His early experiences as a student no doubt fired his desire to become a teacher and his lifelong passionate commitment to public education.

Bruce (left) and Jane Dennett (right) with Jimmy Carter and the late Rosalynn Carter.

At Cranbrook, Bruce blossomed in both academics and athletics, displaying his parallel gifts for running and for argument on the debating team. Many who in later years thought to engage him in discussion would not find it at all surprising that he was a star debater from an early age. From there he gained entrance to the University of NSW, where he gained a BA Dip Ed and then a Masters in Education.

His first teaching job was at Kogarah High School, where he taught history from 1972 to 1984. Here, he made lifelong friends in the history faculty, and one, in particular, proved the most important meeting of his life – in 1980, he met fellow history teacher Jane, and an instant spark led to a whirlwind romance, a wedding in 1981 and a marriage that lasted the rest of his life.

Many students of Bruce got to know Jane, either in person or through the huge repertoire of stories he had of their adventures together. These stories generally had two key characteristics: they were howlingly funny, and they made clear that Bruce and Jane were soul mates, and that he remained madly in love his whole life. It may be that Hollywood never picks up the Dennetts’ love story for adaptation to a major motion picture. Hollywood’s loss.

Right from the start of his teaching career, Bruce formed a running group for students, fuelled by his own love of running. He encouraged and mentored young runners, taking them to events around Australia and New Zealand. Many of the children who joined Dennett’s running group at school kept turning up in adulthood, joining the rest on the weekend to pound the pavements alongside their former teacher, whose fitness and indefatigable appetite for running was as marvellous as his appetite for life in general. To this day, Mr Dennett’s running group continues.

Passionate history teacher Bruce Dennett.

He was himself a supreme athlete his whole life, running marathons and ultramarathons. At the age of 62, he taught himself to swim and, two years later, competed in the World Masters Games. In 2000, he was given the Prime Minister’s Sports Award. Just as many students grew up with a passion for history or for teaching, thanks to Dennett, so did many gain a lifelong love of running thanks to his encouragement.

In 1985, Bruce moved to Baulkham Hills High School, which could be considered his spiritual home, and stayed there until his retirement in 2008. In the 1990s, he was offered the post of History head teacher but turned it down to stay in the classroom – he was there to teach and never had much interest in taking on the burdens of admin. Generations of students were the beneficiaries of that attitude.

Even after retiring, Bruce Dennett didn’t stop teaching. He taught trainee teachers at Notre Dame and Macquarie Universities and developed a course on critical thinking at the International Grammar School that he continued teaching until his death. He devoted countless study days to HSC students, often free of charge. But even outside formal educational environments, Mr Dennett was always teaching. Those lucky enough, after leaving school, to continue their friendships with him – and those were legion – knew that every time you spoke to Bruce, you learnt something from him. You’d learn about history, about philosophy, about politics, about life – if anyone could be said to have teaching in their bones, it was Bruce Dennett. He could not help leaving everyone he met wiser and more knowledgeable than they had been before.

As is the case with any good teacher, he was also committed to ceaselessly learning. He went about every area of life with insatiable curiosity, forever wanting to know more, to understand more, to open up more of the world to experience and savour. He was a veteran traveller, circling the globe with Jane. Never would he let the opportunity for a new experience slip, an inclination illustrated beautifully by the time in 2000 in the US, when catching sight of former president Jimmy Carter, he chased him down and asked if he could interview him. Nobody who knew Bruce would be surprised that he got that interview, too. In 2012, at the age of 64, he gained a PhD.

Bruce Dennett combined his passion for history with a love of sport.

Besides being the greatest of teachers, Bruce Dennett was an accomplished academic and author, writing many textbooks including a book on Aboriginal Australia co-authored with the eminent historian Henry Reynolds. This was a particular passion of his, and he was a long-time supporter and advocate of Aboriginal rights. Politically, Bruce was staunchly left-wing, an inveterate union supporter, and in all things a devotee and spokesman for the marginalised, the oppressed and the underdog. There was no trace of shyness in him when it came to speaking up for what he believed in – witness his pursuit of historian Keith Windschuttle in a Launceston hotel to argue with him.

The achievements of Bruce Dennett were enormous, and just listing them is enough to mark him as an extraordinary man. But to those who knew him, those who worked with him, studied under him, ran with him, spoke with him and loved him, it tells only a fraction of the tale. We knew a man of phenomenal intelligence as well as incredible kindness, a man as hysterically funny as he was dazzlingly insightful, a man who could command an audience as easily as any great entertainer, as well as being the best friend anyone could hope for.

We remember a man whose knowledge of history was encyclopaedic but who could talk, as he said, underwater with a mouth full of marbles on any subject under the sun, from ancient Rome to 1950s Maitland, from cricket and rugby to the Goon Show. It seems almost impossible that one person, in one lifetime, could have given so much time to so many people, but it would be a Herculean task to try to count the number of people who will tell you that without Bruce Dennett, they would not be the person they are today. None of them will ever forget his lessons, his stories about Grandma Dennett, his lust for life, or his endless generosity.

Bruce Dennett passed away on May 6, 2024, after a short illness. He is survived by his beloved wife Jane, his godson Nick, his in-laws, cousins, nieces and nephews, and countless former students for whom he was truly family.

History of Moscow

Moscow has seen its fair share of history, from invasions to revolutions : these days it is home to a wealth of culture and is one of the most populated capitals in the world.

The name of the Russian city comes from the river that courses through it, the Moskva . While the exact date of the founding of the metropolis is unknown, it was first mentioned by name in 1147 , and was a convenient meeting place well accessed by rivers and roads.

Medieval Moscow

This small trading post grew and was fortified over the next few centuries, with churches and monasteries being built. However, the 13th century saw a Mongol invasion burning the city to the ground and killing all who lived there, with Moscow becoming a Grand Duchy within the Mongol Empire. The city prospered and would eventually lead a united Russian army in victory over the Mongols , ending up as capital city by the end of the 15th century.

During the 16th to 17th centuries under the Tsardom of Russia , Moscow's population grew rapidly, and many of the monuments emblematic of the city were constructed, from Novodevichy Convent to Saint Basil's Cathedral and the Kremlin . Despite its growth, it suffered famine, plagues, attacks by the Crimean Tatars and destructive fires - unsurprising considering much of the city was built of wood.

Under the Russian Empire

When Peter the Great founded the Russian Empire in 1712 and made Saint Petersburg its capital, Moscow was suddenly relegated to second place and population quickly declined. However, over the ensuing century, the city's infrastructure was built up and connections to the capital were created. When Napoleon invaded in 1812 , Moscow's inhabitants were evacuated, but not before allegedly setting fire to the city to sabotage the French forces. The city's destruction was claimed as a great success by the Muscovites, and it was quickly rebuilt afterwards: Moscow State University was founded, the Bolshoi Theatre was built, and any number of monuments celebrating the city's victory were put up.

Throughout this time, Moscow was also experiencing a population boom, with a massive influx of peasants moving to the metropolis from rural farms in search of work. In stark contrast to the lavish architecture being built, the city was also filled with poverty-stricken slums, and increasing discontent lead to revolution .

Bolshevik Revolution & Soviet Russia

Mass political and social unrest instigated an attempted revolution in 1905, but it wasn't until 1917 that the movement really took hold of Russia. That year saw the February and October Revolutions , followed by a Civil War which ended with the monarchy being abolished , the royal family being executed, and the Soviet Union being established by the socialist political party known as the Bolsheviks . In 1922, the Communist government made Moscow capital again .

The Russian Army was victorious in defending the city from German offensives in the Battle of Moscow during World War II , and the Soviet leadership left its mark on the capital over the next five decades. Improved roads, bus, train and metro networks modernised Moscow; high-rise apartments provided a solution to serious housing crisis, and atheist ideology saw the destruction or conversion of over half of the country's churches. Remnants of the Soviet state can still be seen today across much of the city, for example in the statues and artwork throughout the Moscow Metro .

In 1980, Moscow hosted the Summer Olympic Games , an event which was boycotted by the United States and over 60 other countries because of the Soviet-Afghan War. While this increased the Cold War tensions that gripped the two superpowers, there was no denying that Russia was liberalising under leader Mickhail Gorbachev's "perestroika" reforms.

Moscow since 1991

1991 saw the Soviet Union being dissolved, with Moscow remaining capital of the Russian Federation . Enormous population growth since the 1990s means it is now the largest city on the European continent, with over 13 million people living within the city limits alone. Political, economic and social changes have "Westernised" Moscow, which can be seen in the presence of international chains in the city and in the restoration of churches demolished under Stalin, like the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour .

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CU Boulder Physics Professor Noah Finkelstein Partners with CU Boulder History Professor Phoebe Young to Study the Importance of Belonging at Universities

In the current landscape of higher education, familiar challenges like disengaged students, faculty burnout, and high staff turnover can frequently dominate discussions. Often seen as separate issues, these challenges can be viewed through a systems perspective to reveal deeper, interconnected roots—chief among them a pervasive lack of belonging across all levels of academia. The recent COVID-19 pandemic seemed to have exacerbated these issues, leaving many students, staff, and faculty feeling isolated and overwhelmed.

To address these issues and suggest a possible solution, University of Colorado Boulder Professor of Physics Noah Finkelstein collaborated with CU Boulder Professor of History Phoebe Young to highlight the importance of belonging, or a sense of community, at institutes of higher learning in a recently published article for the journal Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning. From their work, they found that belonging is important on multiple levels, from students to faculty and staff to the institution itself, and that each of these levels can help support each other.

“One of the key takeaways is that each level impacts the other levels and is impacted by the other levels,” Finkelstein explained. “So students, faculty, and institutions both benefit from a sense of belonging and are agents of belonging for these other layers.”

A Background in Belonging

For years, Finkelstein and Young have studied the importance of belonging within separate institutional layers.

In addition to conducting studies that identify a sense of belonging as essential for student engagement and retention in physics classes, Finkelstein notes that, as a professor, he got a front-row seat to seeing how belonging impacted students. Given his role, he observed how students helped foster belonging not only for other students but also for faculty.

Additionally, Finkelstein studies the role of belonging at an institutional level, both in his research on institutional change and as he sits on the board of trustees for the Higher Learning Commission. From his position, he looks at how institutions are organized and the policies they implement to cultivate a community and sense of belonging among individuals.

Young elaborated, “I've done less formal research on faculty and staff belonging than Noah has done on either students or institutions.” As Associate Chair for Undergraduate Studies, however, she led and published efforts within her department (the History Teaching and Learning Project and the Teaching Quality Initiative), which demonstrated the significance of faculty sense of belonging.

“We got together and said, ‘Hey, why not combine forces on this,’ and then we can highlight the systems view with multiple layers,” Finkelstein added.

Belonging is Multi-Layered

Unlike previous literature, which has largely examined each layer individually, Finkelstein and Young adopted a systems view to explore the concept of belonging at its three essential layers: student, faculty and staff, and institutional. This multi-layered approach involved analyzing existing literature and case studies to understand how belonging impacts each group and their interdependencies.

“You can't look at any one of these groups in isolation, right?” Young said. “We have to think about how they relate to each other.”

The researchers examined students' academic and social belonging, highlighting the importance of feeling connected to their field of study and peers. They also looked at how institutional support and recognition influence faculty and staff's ability to foster student belonging. Lastly, Finkelstein and Young considered how institutions themselves need to be viewed as integral parts of society to foster a collective sense of belonging.

The researchers saw that a strong sense of belonging is correlated with higher retention rates, increased engagement, and better academic performance for students. They found that, notably, belonging has a more substantial impact on retention for women in fields like physics than traditional metrics like exam scores.

For faculty and staff, Young and Finkelstein saw that belonging enhances their capacity to support students and contributes to institutional loyalty and reduced turnover.

At the institutional level, not only does the institute construct conditions for students and faculty belonging within college campuses, but also, increasingly, institutions for higher education need to make the case that they belong and contribute to our broader society.

Belonging During the COVID-19 Pandemic

For Young, the faculty and staff's sense of belonging was especially important during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We noticed the importance of belonging more clearly when it got stressed and taken away during the pandemic. This was because of the way faculty were being so front and center and staff too on many occasions for trying to hold on to some kind of tenuous sense of student belonging. For them, they had fewer tools to do so than they would have normally had.”

Finkelstein and Young found the pandemic revealed that a strong sense of belonging among faculty and staff is essential for their well-being and their capacity to support students effectively. This period underscored the interdependence of belonging across different levels within academia: diminished belonging among faculty and staff led to decreased student engagement, highlighting the need for systemic approaches to foster a supportive environment for all.

Belonging Beyond the Simple Fix

Given their observations, Young and Finkelstein suggest that moving forward, higher education institutes need to adopt this systems-wide thinking to ensure sustainable belonging within and beyond an institution.

“We often see belonging in the literature that belonging does matter, but there's often a kind of list, such as ‘the top 10 things you can do to increase student belonging.’” Young stated. “So it becomes a kind of plug-and-play or one-off solution. So the institutions then say: ‘Oh, we'll pick this one. We'll do that, and things will be better.’”

Instead, Finkelstein and Young suggest that shifting to a systems-wide view can help integrate belonging into an institutional framework more sustainably. This perspective requires rethinking institutional policies and practices to foster an environment where students, faculty, and staff all feel valued and supported. For institutions, this means not only addressing internal culture and policies but also how they are perceived externally. By positioning themselves as integral parts of the broader social fabric, institutions can garner public support and fulfill their mission to serve the public good more effectively.

Noah Finkelstein

Give to Physics

Souderton school board member tells angry residents his lewd Kamala Harris comment ‘is being twisted by my opposition’

A defiant Bill Formica refused calls to resign during a school board meeting repeatedly interrupted by shouts and boos.

Bill Formica takes his seat a the beginning of Souderton's school board meeting Thursday. He rejected calls from audience members to resign over a lewd social media post about Kamala Harris.

A defiant Bill Formica rejected calls to resign from the Souderton Area School District board during a raucous meeting Thursday, casting the outcry over his social media post that Kamala Harris “blew a lot of dudes” as the product of “partisan politics.”

“This is being twisted by my opposition into a convenient narrative,” Formica said, as he was repeatedly interrupted by boos, and nearly shouted down by residents who packed the Indian Valley Middle School auditorium — many holding posters that read “Formica Resign Now” and wearing T-shirts that read “Character Counts,” a reference to the district’s slogan.

While Formica apologized for being “impulsive and juvenile,” he said that “no rational person could be that upset” about his post, which was in response to another user who asked: “Name ONE thing this chick has accomplished, politically.” Formica said his post was a criticism of Harris’ policies, “not her race or her gender.” He added that he expected to be called a white supremacist, “the tired label applied to all white alpha males to shut us up.”

An angry crowd rejected Formica’s explanation.

“What you said was degrading. It was misogyny. You can laugh that off, but it’s true,” Lauren McShea, a mother of third and fifth graders, said, addressing Formica during public comment.

Like others, McShea noted that Formica has a history of making offensive comments: Before the meeting, protesters who gathered outside the middle school held posterboards with screenshots of other social media posts, including comments that people who don’t speak English “are here for the handouts (my tax money);” that he doesn’t want teachers “spewing their morals, values, politics and idiology [sic] on my children or grandchildren;” and that “my answer to diversity training would be ‘F off.’” (Formica, who appears to have deleted his X account, said Thursday he had “experienced a profound peace” over the past month since leaving social media.)

“You have demonstrated you are unfit to make decisions for all students,” McShea said. As for the rest of the school board — which initially appointed Formica to a seat last year, before he was elected as part of a slate of Republican candidates in November — “the response to this unacceptable behavior has been so disappointing. You haven’t said anything, and the silence is deafening.”

School board president Ken Keith — who repeatedly called the meeting into recess as shouts broke out in the auditorium — said at the start that “the district has been clear it does not condone the comments” made by Formica, whose post about Harris has engulfed the district in controversy since late July.

Imploring residents to remain civil, Keith said the board had received death threats by email and phone that it reported to the police. He called the backlash “simply unacceptable.”

Jeffrey Sultanik, the board’s solicitor, told the crowd the board had little power to remove Formica, apart from a provision in the school code that allows a board to exclude a member for missing two successive meetings without an excuse.

Beyond that, he said, “the only way to exclude a board member” is if the district attorney determines the member “has committed a high crime,” Sultanik said.

That didn’t stop residents from continuing to demand Formica’s resignation during a 90-minute public comment period — facing Formica as he leaned back in his chair, a slight smile on his face.

Referring to Formica’s post that he doesn’t want teachers “spewing their morals,” Keith Dobson said: “Your morals are so much better?” Dobson noted another post in which Formica questioned why people “gushed” over teachers, even though they had a “great gig” and “couldn’t be fired” — saying Formica had demonstrated “a profound misunderstanding of the teaching profession.”

Brian Farrell, a Souderton alumnus and Army veteran, drew a standing ovation when he told the board that after being awarded a Purple Heart for his service in Afghanistan, “the one thing I do feel qualified to comment on is leadership and the lack thereof.”

“Mr. Formica, you can speak your mind, but step out of the leadership job,” Farrell said, adding that the board was “no better than Bill.”

While Formica’s opponents rallied outside the middle school before the meeting — organized by Souderton for All, a coalition supporting diversity, equity and inclusion efforts — a group of supporters gathered near the school entrance. One man played guitar while singing “Awesome God.”

Those who addressed the board said that Formica had apologized, and that the community should demonstrate forgiveness. Richard Sacks said he favored First Amendment rights, and called the protest against Formica “a political hack job.”

Others said the bigger problem was indoctrination in the schools. Matt Simkins told the board he was more concerned about inappropriate library books and “ideas put into children’s heads than what an adult is posting on Twitter.”

Kaitlin Derstine, a local conservative activist, was repeatedly interrupted as she read a passage from the novel Push , by Sapphire, about a father raping his daughter.

“The same progressives who fought me” in opposition to book bans “are the same ones demanding Bill Formica’s resignation,” Derstine said. Another woman said children should learn “reading, writing and arithmetic. We don’t need them to know sex education.”

As Formica read his comments at the start of the meeting, he said he wouldn’t be forced into resigning.

“I can’t be intimidated, because I just don’t care what people think about me,” he said.

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The DBE has, amongst its social cohesion and nation building programmes, the iNkosi Albert Luthuli Oral History Programme. The Programme aims to promote History as a subject of choice; expose learners to historic anniversaries and significant events; uncover untold and undocumented histories; and celebrate unsung heroes and heroines in communities.

Learners and educators from across the country will be assembling from 22 – 25 August 2024, at ANEW OR Tambo Hotel (formerly known as The Lakes Hotel and Conference Centre) in Benoni, to showcase some of the work that educators and learners had undertaken in Oral History, Story Writing, Storytelling, Letter Writing and Poetry.

The Deputy Minister, Dr Reginah Mhaule, will be hosting the gala dinner for the Awards Ceremony on Saturday, 24 August 2024, to confer prizes for the best projects, adjudicated by a panel of experts. Ahead of the Awards Ceremony, the Minister has invited the Ministers of Social Development, the South African Police Service, as well as Justice and Constitutional Development, to observe the launch for the strategic partnership with the South African Chapter of the International Association of Women Judges (SAC-IAWJ), to mark the consolidation of Women’s Month.

The launch aims to highlight the work that the various ministers and the judiciary intend to do in order to support the basic education sector in its quest towards the establishment of A Rights-based, Safe, Socially Cohesive and Inclusive School .

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Moscow , city, capital of Russia , located in the far western part of the country. Since it was first mentioned in the chronicles of 1147, Moscow has played a vital role in Russian history. It became the capital of Muscovy ( the Grand Principality of Moscow ) in the late 13th century; hence, the people of Moscow are known as Muscovites . Today Moscow is not only the political centre of Russia but also the country’s most populous city and its industrial, cultural, scientific, and educational capital. For more than 600 years Moscow also has been the spiritual centre of the Russian Orthodox Church .

The capital of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.) until the union dissolved in 1991, Moscow attracted world attention as a centre of communist power; indeed, the name of the seat of the former Soviet government and the successor Russian government, the Kremlin (Russian: Kreml), was a synonym for Soviet authority. The dissolution of the U.S.S.R. brought tremendous economic and political change, along with a significant concentration of Russia’s wealth, into Moscow. Area 414 square miles (1,035 square km). Pop. (2010) city, 11,738,547; (2020 est.) city, 12,678,079.

If St. Petersburg is Russia’s “window on Europe,” Moscow is Russia’s heart. It is an upbeat, vibrant, and sometimes wearisome city. Much of Moscow was reconstructed after it was occupied by the French under Napoleon I in 1812 and almost entirely destroyed by fire. Moscow has not stopped being refurbished and modernized and continues to experience rapid social change . Russia’s Soviet past collides with its capitalist present everywhere in the country, but nowhere is this contrast more visible than in Moscow. Vladimir Ilich Lenin ’s Mausoleum remains intact , as do many dreary five-story apartment buildings from the era of Nikita Khrushchev ’s rule (the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s), yet glitzy automobiles and Western-style supermarkets, casinos, and nightclubs are equally visible. Many Orthodox churches, as well as some synagogues and mosques, have been restored, Moscow’s novel theatres have reclaimed leadership in the dramatic arts, and traditional markets have been revived and expanded. These markets, which under the Soviets were known as kolkhoz (collective-farm) markets and sold mainly crafts and produce, are now more sophisticated retail establishments.

It has become habitual to compare Moscow with St. Petersburg , its rival and the former (1712–1918) capital of Russia. While St. Petersburg has absorbed western European influences, Moscow is viewed as a traditional Russian city. Unlike its rival, Moscow has a well-defined city centre marked by the Kremlin . Other characteristics of Moscow are its physical layout in radial spokes and rings that have been extended over time, its hodgepodge of architectural styles, and its historical buildings that were mainly built by Russian architects. Moscow’s buildings were predominantly wooden until the 1920s, when brick and stone came into use.

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