Evolution of public schools in the United States

The first public school in America, Boston Latin School, was founded in 1635.

Still an operating school that recently celebrated its 381st anniversary, Boston Latin School explains its establishment “was due in great measure to the influence of the Reverend John Cotton, who sought to create in the New World a school like the Free Grammar School of Boston, England, in which Latin and Greek were taught.”

At the end of the 21st century, less than two percent of American students were enrolled in a Latin class, providing evidence for one of many changes in American public schools since their origin.

Public school education did not become popular until the latter half of the 19th century, when enrollment started to drastically increase. Around that time, the National Education Association (NEA) appointed the Committee of Ten.

Their purpose, author and University of Michigan, Ann Arbor professor Jeffrey Mirel explained, was “curriculum standardization for public-high-school students who intended to go to college.”

Mirel continued, saying the Committee of Ten believed, “all public-high-school students should follow a college preparatory curriculum, regardless of their backgrounds, their intention to stay in school through graduation, or their plans to pursue higher education.”

Another NEA-originated group, the Commission on Reorganization of Secondary Education, viewed the Committee of Ten as elitists and provided opposition.

Their ideal education system was based on curricular differentiation, in which students could prepare themselves for their desired future by choosing from classes that met their educational needs.

Mirel described the system for curricular differentiation that won out over the Committee of Ten: “By 1920 most big-city high schools in the country were offering four high-school tracks: college preparatory, commercial (which prepared students, mostly young women, for office work), vocational (industrial arts and home economics), and general (which offered a high-school diploma without any specific preparation for future educational or vocational endeavors).”

Even though the majority of high school students followed the college preparatory track and received a solid, high quality education, graduation rates were under 17 percent. This became a problem in the 1930’s when the Great Depression meant that teenagers needed to be able to stay in school to open up the limited job market for adults.

“The economic crisis and the resulting enrollment boom combined to produce a profoundly important shift in the nature and function of high schools,” Mirel said. “Increasingly, their task was custodial, to keep students out of the adult world (that is, out of the labor market) instead of preparing them for it.”

In order to increase graduation rates, classes and academic rigor were watered down for additional new students, who couldn’t handle the challenging requirements. The four-track system was consequently lumped into one track. Meanwhile, the popularity of the easier classes among students led to a decrease in academic ability over time, a trend that continued after the depression ended.

Overall, the consensus was that allowing students to choose their own classes degraded education. In the 1980’s, the emphasis shifted to requirements and standards in attempts to regain the quality of American public schools.

The mission of the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC), the standardized test that LRHS students take, is to make up lost academic ability from watered down classes in the 20th century. SBAC cites their “ultimate goal” as “increasing the number of students who are well prepared for college and careers.”

This was precisely the ideology of the initial Committee of Ten that was edged out in the early 1900s.

The biggest problem with applying the strictly college preparatory mentality on all students is the reality that not all students are college bound.

As a solution, some people still believe in the system of curricular differentiation. When more academically rigorous classes are emphasized, they feel the system will fix itself. Others believe that the system will deteriorate unless legislative action is taken.

Predicting the next step in the evolution of public schools is nearly impossible, but one thing is for certain: continued change is inevitable.