This document provides an overview of the history of education in the United States from the colonial period to present day. It discusses the evolution of curriculum, teaching, schools, and educational policy over time. Key topics covered include the development of common schools, compulsory education laws, the progressive era, desegregation, and modern educational priorities around equity, excellence, and accountability.

1. Caprice Paduano
Chapter 5
Historical Foundations of U.S. Education

2. 1. Why is educational history important?
2. What were teaching and schools like in the American
colonies (1620–1750)?
3. What were the goals of education during the
Revolutionary Period (1750-1820)
4. How was the struggle won for state-supported
common school (1820-1865)?
5. How did compulsory education change schools and
the teaching profession (1865-1920)?
6. What were the aims of education during the
Progressive Era (1920-1945)?
7. How did education change during the modern
postwar era (1945-2000)?
8. What are the educational priorities of the new century
(2000 to the present)?

3. • Knowledge of events that influenced schools
will help in evaluation of current proposals for
change.
• Awareness of events that have influenced
teaching is a hallmark of professionalism

4. Curriculum
Essentialist reading, writing and math based on religion
Teacher Status
Low, minimal qualifications, high morals
Schools
Puritan – Often harsh schools that taught reading and
writing to learn scriptures
Parochial – Schools based on religious beliefs
Dame – Schools for initial instruction of reading, writing and
arithmetic boys and only school for girls
Reading and Writing – Schools for boys beyond what
parents could teach
Latin Grammar Schools – Schools for boys to prep for
Harvard

5. Origins of Mandated Education (Acts)
Massachusetts Act of 1642
 First educational law in country – declared children
needed to read and write. If not able parents could receive
fine
Massachusetts Act of 1647
 Old Deluder Satan Act – Mandated the establishment and
support of schools – towns with 50 or more families had to
fund schools.

6. Education of Students
African Americans
 received training from masters or church groups, also
Philadelphia African School
Native Americans
 Received education from Quaker Indian Schools
Mexican Americans
 Received training from missionaries

7. Ben Franklin
Started Philadelphia Academy - secular academic
supported privately
Wrote “Relating to the Education of Youth in
Pennsylvania”
Sarah Pierce
Started Sarah Pierce’s Female Academy – emphasized
essentialist curriculum
Female Seminaries
Troy Seminary – One of the first women’s colleges

8. Thomas Jefferson
Viewed education of the common people most
effective means of preserving liberty
For a society to remain free, it must support a
continuous system of public education
Bill for the More General Diffusion of Knowledge –
called for state controlled schools that would teach at
no cost to parents 3 yrs of reading, writing and
arithmetic

9. Webster’s Speller
Written by Noah Webster
“The Old Blue-Back”
Purpose was to “instill first rudiments of language,
some just ideas of religion, morals and domestic
economy”

10. Common Schools
state supported high schools
•Infavor – city residents, nontaxpayers, democratic
leaders, philanthropist, humanitarians
•Opposed – rural residents, taxpayers, aristocratic
and conservative groups, private school owners,
conservative religious groups, Southerners and
Non-English speaking groups

11. Horace Mann
 Champion of Common School Movement
 free public local schools
 Improved Massachusetts schools
 Convince Conservative moneyed classes
 free schools were cheapest means of self – protection and
insurance
 Started Normal Schools
 general knowledge course and courses in pedagogy for
teacher preparation

12. McGuffey Reader
 Written by Reverend William Holmes McGuffey
 Readers (books) emphasized virtues of hard work,
honesty, truth, charity and obedience
Morrill Land Grant Act
Provided federal land for states to either sell or rent for funds
for the establishment of colleges of agriculture and mechanical
arts

13. Compulsory Education Laws
•Required common school attendance
•More students attended school
•Increased attendance created need for
management
•Scientific Management
• Top down management taken from big business

14. Higher Education for African Americans
Booker T. Washington
 Founded Tuskegee Institute – Industrial school for
African Americans in rural Alabama
 Believed that as the race grows in knowledge,
experience, culture, taste and wealth that the wants
of the people will become more diverse and to
satisfy this the number of professional business men
and women will increase

15. W.E.B. Dubois
First Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D)
Founded National Association for the Advancement of Colored
People (NAACP)
Called to educate the most talented tenth of the African
American population to equip them for leadership

16. Kindergarten
Garden where children grow
Founded by Friedrich Froebel
Stress motor development and self activity before children
began formal schooling
Professionalization of Teaching
Professional Teacher Organizations Started
National Education Association (NEA)
American Federation of Teachers (AFT)
Worked to increase teacher salaries and professionalize
teaching.

17. Reorganization of Secondary Education
 Called for high school curriculum to accommodate
individual instruction
 Determined 7 goals to provide focus for schooling at
all levels: health, command of individual processes,
worthy home membership, vocation, citizenship,
worthy use of leisure time, and ethical character

18. Women’s Influence on Teaching
 Greater demand for teachers
 Linked schools with social service agencies and
institutions

19. Progressivism
Belief that life is evolving in positive direction, people should
be trusted to act in own best interest
Education should focus on children’s interests and practical
needs
Teachers served as guides
John Dewey’s Laboratory School
Gave students meaningful relevant education
Test principles
Curriculum should be a natural outgrowth of child interests

20. Maria Montessori’s Method
 Believed children’s mental, physical and spiritual
development should be enhanced by providing them
with developmentally appropriate activities
 Teachers created learning environments based on
student’s level of development and readiness to
learn new material

21. • Decline in progressivism due to public criticism
• Lasting effects of progressivism
• Inquiry or discovery learning
• Self paced instructional approaches
• Field trips
• Flexible scheduling
• Open Concept classrooms
• Non-graded schools
• Small group activities
• School-based counseling

22. Education of Immigrants and Minorities
•Goal – rapid assimilation into English-speaking
Anglo-European society
• Children often punished for speaking native language
• Ethnic groups established separate schools to preserve
culture

23. Education of Immigrants and Minorities
•Native Americans – Federal Government placed
tribes on reservations and tribal children in
boarding schools to assimilate them into the
dominate culture
•The Problem of Indian Administration
• Recommended Native American Education be restructured
• Built day schools
• Revised curricula to reflect tribal cultures and needs

24. Mary McLeod Bethune
•Started what became Bethune-Cookman College
•Directed Office of Minority Affairs in the National
Youth Administration (NYA)

25. World War II and Federal Government
Influences
 Lanham Act Provided funding for:
 Worker training
 Construction of school in military areas
 Childcare for working parents
 G.I. Bill of Rights provided funding for tuition and
board at colleges and universities for veterans

26. Trends
 How can full and equal educational opportunity be
extended to all groups?
 What knowledge and skills should be taught?
 How should knowledge and skills be taught?

27. 1950s
National Defense Education Act of 1958
• Started in response to Russian Satellite – Sputnik first into
space
• Education is the first line of defense
• New math, science, social studies and foreign language
programs
Desegregation
•Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka
•Separation is unequal
•Schools order to desegregate

28. 1960s
•Elementary and Secondary Education Act
• Allocated funds on the basis of the number poor children
•Title VII – The Bilingual Education Act
• Provided federal aid to low-income children of limited
English-speaking ability

29. 1970s
 Accountability of teachers demanded
 Back-to-basics Movement
 Title IX
 No person in the United State shall on the basis of sex be
excluded from education or activity receiving federal
assistance
 Education for All Handicapped Children (PL94-142)
 Referred to as Mainstreaming Law
 Children with special needs will receive a free and
appropriate education in the least restrictive environment

30. 1980s
Nation at Risk
Gave evidence that schools were failing
Paideia Proposal
Response to Nation at Risk
Proposal for perrenialist core curriculum
High School: A Report on Secondary Education in America
Suggested strengthening academic core curriculum

31. 1990s
Challenges
Greater diversity
Greater international competition
Less support for public education
Decentralization and deregulation of schools
Response
Teacher leadership and collaboration

32. Equity for all students
The achievement gap
Excellence
2010 ESEA reauthorization
Race to the Top grants
Accountability
Holding schools, teachers, and administrators accountable for
student learning.