FOCUS QUESTIONS

1. What was the nature and purpose of colonial education?
2. How did the Common School Movement promote universal education?
3. What developments mark the educational history of Native Americans?
4. How did teaching become a “gendered” career?
5. How did secondary schools evolve?
6. What were the main tenets of the Progressive Education movement?
7. What role has the federal government played in American education?
8. How did history shape the educational experiences of African Americans, Hispanics, Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders, and Arab Americans?
9. What educational barriers and breakthroughs have girls and women experienced?
10. Who are some of the influential educators who have helped fashion today’s schools?

CHAPTER PREVIEW

Understanding the history of America’s schools offers you perspective—a sense of your place in your new profession. Your classroom is a living tribute to past achievements and sacrifices.

In this chapter, we will trace American education from colonial times to the present. Education during the colonial period was intended to further religious goals and was offered primarily to white males—typically, wealthy white males. Over time, educational exclusivity diminished, but even today, wealth, race, and gender continue to have an impact on educational quality. To a great extent, the story of American education is a battle to open the schoolhouse door to more of our citizens. In this chapter, we share the story of America’s struggle to honor its commitment to equality.

The complex network of expectations surrounding today’s schools is the product of a society that has been evolving for over three centuries. Individuals, groups, and the government all have contributed to making public schools more accessible. Benjamin Franklin, Horace Mann, Emma Hart Willard, and Mary McLeod Bethune, for example, fought to free America from historical biases. New federal laws were designed to create more equitable and effective educational opportunities. Today, the federal focus is to increase school competition, identify failing schools, and either “fix” them or replace them. But the notion of competition and standards is only the most recent chapter in the story of our nation’s schools. In the colonial era, the goals were simpler: to teach the Scriptures and to develop a religious community. We will begin by looking into the classroom of Christopher Lamb, a New England teacher in one of the earliest American schools, over three centuries ago.