Lyndon B. Johnson's reasons for seeing school reform as essential to improving the nation were to reduce the amount of ignorance, and poverty in the society by educating the youth so they would have better chances to succeed in life and as a country. "Nothing matters more to the future of our country: not our military preparedness-for armed might is worthless if we lack the brain power to build a world of peace; not our productive economy--for we cannot sustain growth without trained manpower; not our democratic system of government--for freedom is fragile if citizens are ignorant."(Fraser 309,310). Johnson also enacted the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, which lead directly to the creation of Head Start. "The Head Start program was planned and developed as a way to prepare poor children for school....From its inception, it was also more than just an educational program. It featured an unprecedented strategy, involving parents in a program that would help their children develop intellectually, socially, and physically."(Urban 294) I agree with Lyndon B. Johnson's reasons for education reform as they were aimed at impoverished children and families, in an attempt to make life better for them, and create a better future for them and children all across the country.
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The landmark case Brown v. the Board of education of Topeka resulted in the unanimous decision by the Supreme Court to overturn the previous ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson, that segregation on the basis of race was equal." Speaking for a unanimous Court, Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote a brief but eloquent decision. In a famous pair of sentences from that decision, Warren declared: “We conclude that in the field of public education the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.”"(Urban 269) The Supreme court made this decision because they realized that while all tangible elements were equal between white and black schools, the law made it so that educational opportunities were not equal. "Segregation with the sanction of law, therefore, has a tendency to [retard] the educational and mental development of negro children and to deprive them of some of the benefits they would receive in a racially integrated school system" (Fraser 280) Therefore the" Separate but equal" doctrine had no place in public education.
In my eyes Herbert Kohl was a progressive educator for his time and represented the next generation of progressive educators. He argued that teachers must teach with humanity and without bias. A teacher must not be ashamed to admit things like favoritism of certain students and must be real with their students to show that they are people too."As we are not honest with them, so will not let children be honest with us. To begin with we require them to take part in the fiction that school is a wonderful place and that they love every minute of it."(Fraser 266) This sentiment is then re-iterated in American Education: A History by Wayne Urban ."Kozol’s critique of the punitive pedagogy then practiced in Boston was echoed in other works of the time, one of which was Herbert Kohl’s book on New York’s schools. Kozol, Kohl, and other authors documented how innocent school children were the victims of teacher bias and gross educational malpractice.(Urban 299)" This very progressive teaching process is why I believe that Herbert Kohl was a great representation of the next generation of progressive educators.
In a conversation between Margaret Haley, Ella Flagg Young, Grace Strachan, and Cora Bigelow i feel as though all of them would agree with each other in regards to distrust in the administrators/ higher ups in education management, and would agree about the need to improve the salary and teachers roles in education. They all saw the disparity in income between teachers and those men who had administrative positions as the teachers had to work harder as unfair."It is rather sad commentary on our profession that its men members are the only men who object to women of the same profession getting the same pay for the same work."(Fraser 217). They would also agree on the need to organize themselves as educators "While Haley and her federation were never associated intimately with pedagogical innovation, her devotion to economic and political reforms that improved the financial support of public schools and ameliorated the occupational situation of teachers earned her a reputation as a tough minded political reformer whose major goals were tangible educational improvements." (Urban 204). one thing they might disagree on is the progressive turn that education as a whole was taking.
Between the debates of John Dewey and David Snedden on the direction that education should take, it is clear that both of them won the debate. There seems to have been a seamless integration of the ideas of both men which lead to the creation of the modern comprehensive high school. As James Bryant Conant said in his report of the status of american high schools today," The comprehensive high school as a high school whose programs correspond to the educational needs of all of the youth of the community"(Fraser 166) He then goes on to later say that " The comprehensive high school is an american development of this century. It has no equivalent, so far as i am aware, in any European country"(Fraser 166). As the comprehensive high school had to fill the educational needs of every student , it offered vocational classes and also had classes based around literature, arts and sciences. I say that both of them won the debate because at my high school while there were classes based around art appreciation, foreign languages, and all types of sciences and math, there were also classes for people who were more vocationally minded such as classes for becoming firefighters, police officers, electricians, auto mechanics and much more as stated in this excerpt from American Education; "After that defeat the battle for vocational and commercial education shifted from separate high schools to a new institution, the comprehensive high school, which would accommodate multiple curricula (academic, commercial, and vocational) within the same school building. Comprehensive high schools allowed educators to maintain allegiance to the principle of common schooling while simultaneously permitting the separation that was thought necessary for learning commercial and vocational skills."(Urban 214)
Frederick Douglass came to value literacy because he saw it as a way to enlighten himself as a slave. After his master told him that he shouldn't be taught to read, he realized that the reason white people made it illegal to teach slaves to read was so they could control them. Douglass realized that his easiest pathway to freedom was education through being able to read and write."I now understood what had been to me a most perplexing difficulty --to wit, the white man's power to enslave the black man. It was a grand achievement, and i prized it highly. From that moment i knew the pathway from slavery to freedom"(Fraser 97) As Douglass felt that education and literacy were the path to freedom, he felt that it was also his responsibility to enlighten his fellow slaves, even though it was against the law. "Frederick Douglass, who as a young slave had surreptitiously learned to read, later conducted a clandestine Sunday school in order “to exercise my gifts and to impart to my brother-slaves the little knowledge I possessed.”" (Urban 121). These reasons for learning are still relevant today as it is important to be literate/ educated in order to not get taken advantage of, like the slaves of early america, to a lesser extent. If you are illiterate you could get swindled out of everything you own by somebody just because you do not know what you are agreeing to.
During the mid 1800's many women traveled westward to become teachers in states like Michigan and Illinois. There were many reasons for this migration such as a using it as a way to escape the social restrictions of their hometowns. The most important reason for these women to travel to the west, however, was their dedication to furthering the education of others. As it says in the American Education book ; "Teaching was regarded as respectable employment for a woman because it was consistent with the dominant view of women as innately nurturing."(Urban 105) Teaching was thought of as a job that women were almost created to do as they fit all of the prerequisites, as they were the one who normally took care of and taught the children anyway. This reason is made even more clear by the letters of women teachers in the west such as Mary Augusta Roper. In her letters back home Miss Roper details the harsh conditions in which she has to teach. From the many attempts to destroy her school by spreading slanderous rumors about not only her school but herself, to the towns attempt to replace the school director, she endured. When at the end of the year, Miss Roper did not know if she could continue to teach or not she decided to persevere, writing " If my trials are peculiar to a location or be the result of evil in my heart, may He but give me grace to endure them until their end is accomplished"(Fraser 90)
Horace Mann's unique ideas for the United States system of education were revolutionary, not just because they were so far ahead of their time, but because of how his common schools established a standard for education in a time where every town was taught differently. Horace Mann's ideas were far ahead of his time because of his ideas of allowing women to teach , giving them more freedom than just staying at home to take care of their own families. He felt that women were natural born nurtures and therefore it was only logical for them to be the ones educating the youth. Horace also believed that women deserved an education befitting that of a teacher. "Of course, Mann’s “soft-line” Pestalozzian pedagogy also furthered the cause of women’s entry into teaching. He worked hard with the leaders of Massachusetts’ new normal schools to train their women students in a new pedagogy and to facilitate their entry on a large scale into Massachusetts’ common schools."(Urban 84).
The idea of standardizing the type of education a child receives is something that has been established as a convention of the United Stats for many years. This is because of Horace Mann's idea that every person has the absolute right to an education that prepared them to be an adequate citizen of the country." It seems clear that the minimum of this education can never be less than such as is sufficient to qualify each citizen for the civil and social duties he will be called to discharge"(Fraser 45).He believed that there should be a universal baseline for what every citizen should learn that way each one had an equal chance at becoming successful in life. These unique ideas still affect the everyday life of american citizens to this day, almost two centuries later. In the early years of the United States education was handled in varying ways by the government. Whether it be indoctrinating children into their beliefs, or creating and enforcing entire laws to ensure the continued literacy of a people, race was the major determining power in how the government decided to handle education. The most dominant race at the time was white/ European so this was the race that got the most education. The white children had laws enacted that required parents the have their children well versed in basic reading and writing skills so they could be convicted to religion. One such law was the Old Deluder Satan act which stated that "Satan, master of deception, was keeping people from true knowledge of the Scriptures. Acknowledging dissent and a fear that the learning of the church and civic elders might not survive into future generations, the law required that towns with fifty or more families must make provision for instruction in reading and writing."(Urban 34) . Because of this conviction to religion, the white slave owners taught their slaves Christianity as a way to free them from their sins, but had to re-ascertain that the slaves were not free from being slaves with the "South Carolina Statute on Conversion of Slaves to Christianity" (Fraser 5). Much like with the African American slaves, the Europeans tried to indoctrinate the Native Americans into their religion as a way to turn them from their "savage ways" . "One early directive required each town, city, borough, and plantation to educate Indian children in their vicinity “in true religion” and the principles of civilized life. "
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