The+One+Best+System+Part+V


 * Return to Reading Response and Discussion**


 * The One Best System: Part V**

Part V opens with a scene that gives the reader the sense that children strongly disliked school in the 1890's and early 1900's. Helen Todd interviewed 500 children in 1909 and found that most children were afraid of attending of school, so they chose the alternative, working in factories. The majority of children believed that schools were a place where you were punished for the smallest infraction. For example, if a child's chair squeaked, they would be hit. Because of this fear, children would rather toil in poor factory conditions than attend school. It was obvious that additional school reform was needed.
 * __Summary__:**

It was time to make changes to the "one best system". The idea of formalized schooling was becoming popular. As a result, primary and secondary schools were becoming over-crowded, especially in urban areas. Administrators were better able to understand and serve the needs of the ever-growing student population.

Starting in 1930, George D. Strayer helped initiate a steady stream of progress through applying the scientific method to education and calling for "professional training of school executives" (p. 182). Students started to be looked at as individuals and classified into groups. These new compulsory school laws began to show their effect with the increase in school attendance from 1900 to 1920. At the same time many new specialized administrative offices were being created in the school system. By the 1920's there were many principals, assistant principals, supervisors of special subjects, deans, and clerks to help the school run more efficiently. Educators organized into associations and they used their growing influence to help pass laws requiring specialized training and certification according to subject, level, and function.

Those in charge of changing the system were realists. They saw that the social structure ladder had a lot of people on the bottom and that these people probably would not climb the ladder. As a result, they thought it to be the duty of the school systems to provide these people with vocational training.

To ensure that schools were living up to the new standards set by the administrative progressives, the "school survey" became a staple. Many of the surveys indicated that improvement was needed. The reviews would use harsh words and rarely highlighted any of the progress made by the school. Though the surveys got a bad reputation, they were the basis on which the administrative progressives developed additional reforms.

As school populations continued to increase and IQ records became more mainstreamed, more information was available about students. Authors discovered that there was high number of both retardation and elimination. In 1908, Edward Thorndike wrote "The Elimination of Pupils from Public School." In this study he concluded that about half the pupils entering school that year would not reach the eighth grade. In 1909, Leonard Ayres wrote, "Laggards in Our Schools." He used statistics to prove that the numbers of pupils in the higher grades was far less than in the lower grades. Ayres also noted that girls were more sucessful in school than boys (p. 200). At a time when the school system was coming under heavy public scrutiny, solutions were desperately needed.

New York district superintendent Julia Richman had a solution in 1899. Students would be grouped into "brightest material", "medium material", and "poorest material." That way, kids were being held back over and over would have a chance to catch up in a slower learning environment. Though her efforts were revolutionary, New York schools were still facing problems in 1922, so IQ testing similar to the kind the Army used for classifying recruits during World War I were used. The idea of IQ testing became widely popular after World War I. The Army had used the testing to show who would be better suited for a certain status in the Army. The school system adapted the tests for their own purposes. These IQ tests showed that it was not rampant retardation, but the fact that on a slower pace, children could rise and meet their mental capacity.

These IQ tests led to many prejudices concerning certain ethnicities. When the children of immigrants, such as Mexicans, were given the IQ test, most scored on the lower level. That led to the belief that it was not the child's fault for being slow, because the intelligence level of that ethnicity was viwed as low. They were known as "defective children." Some rebelled against the IQ testing. Some thought it labeled the child in life; predetermining their path in life. Studies showed that the tests separated children into their social status. A child from a poor family could only afford to go to a two year vocational school, which did not allow them much mobility up the social ladder. Wealthier families could afford to send their children to many years of schooling, allowing them to climb the social ladder to the same level they were born on to. This created a large separation between the two groups such that men with a higher intelligence would not allow themselves to work in the same conditions as those with lesser intelligence. "The easiest answer to social injustice was to blame the victim" (216). = =

"At the turn of the century Chicago was the center of a movement to humanize schooling and to train teachers to understand the natural learning processes of children. The charismatic progressive Francis Parker taught hundreds of teachers at the Cook County Normal School in the years 1896 to 1899, showing them his techniques for employing the child's curiousity as the easy and pleasant path of instruction." (p. 178)
 * __Key Passages__:**

"In the //New Republic//, the liberal intellectual Randolph Bourne applauded Cubberly's Portland survey, saying that "it stirs enthusiasm because it shows the progress that has been made in clarifying the current problems and the ideals which must be realized if the public school is to prepare the child of to-day for intelligent participation in the society of which he will form a part." (pp. 193-194)

"Social efficiency demanded a new relationship between school and society......would enable schoolmen to retain their traditional faith in individual opportunity while in fact the intelligence tests often were unintentionally biased against certain groups." whole paragraph (pp. 188-189)

"Schoolmen created special programs for retarded, deaf, blind, delinquent, gifted, anemic, and other groups of children, and specialized tracks and schools for vocational and other special training. With such differentiation came dozens of of new job categories, programs of professional preparation, and many new bureaus and officials. Specialists of all sorts formed their own professional associations...Together with the rapidly expanding college and university departments and schools of education, professional associations helped to persuade state legislatures to pass laws requiring certificates for the various specializations." (p. 185)

The report of the Chicago Federation of Labor in 1924'; last paragraph on page 214-215


 * __Important Terminology__:**
 * //professional associations// - (**p. 185) By the 1920s teachers and administrators began to organize into groups according to their field of specialty. For example, there were a professional associations for different subjects, for superintendants, for principals, and for vocational teachers. Within these groups, members discussed the current problems they were facing and developed solutions. Professional associations helped put pressure on state governemnts to pass stricter certification laws.


 * //progressives// -** (pp. 191-197) According to Tyack, progressive administrators desired change or reform within the school system by centralizing the decision-making process. This group was instrumental in developing new testing and teaching techniques to meet the individual needs of the student. Besides educators and administrators, scientists and authors were included in this group.


 * //school survey// -** (p. 191) School surveys were reports issued by outside experts about urban schools that pointed out that much improvement was needed in order to meet the needs of all the students. Elite organizations often urged these experts to "point out faults in the schools and to propose the corporate model of reform." Tyack explained that this allowed for progressives to move away for the idea of "traditional education" and to introduce new forms of education for city schools.


 * //elimination// -** (p. 200) If Edward Thorndike were to write his book today, he would use the word, "drop-out" instead of "elimination." In his 1908 book, "The Elimination of Pupils from Public School," Thorndike writes about the high drop-out rate.


 * //laggards// -** (p. 200) In 1909, Leonard Ayres used statistics to explain why students could not keep up with the pace of learning at higher grade levels.In "Laggards in Our Schools," Ayres proved the numbers of pupils in the higher grades was far less than in the lower grades. Ayres also noted that girls were more sucessful in school than boys, so reform was needed in order to keep students in school.


 * //acedemic proletariat// -** (p. 202) The lowest class on the acedmic assessment scale who were often the ones who quit attending school because little was done to modify the curriculum to their needs. Julia Richman also classified these students as "the poorest material."


 * //IQ testing// -** (p. 204-216) An assessment tool first used by the Army during World War I to determine which job a recruit was best suited for. IQ is an anacronym for intelligence quotient and was developed by Alfred Binet in 1905. Due to their successful use in the Army, these tests were adapted for use in schools to test a student's memory, vocabulary, comprehension. These assessments began being widely used in 1920 to assess student intelligence, to organize students by ability, and to adapt school circulum.

1. Is an IQ test a good indication of a student's ability to succeed in school and in a future career?
 * __Discussion Guiding Questions__:**

2. On p. 180, the next to last paragraph says "...schoolmen found IQ tests invaluable means of channeling children...". Is this the same as the tracking that is still being done in schools today?

3. Do you agree with the statement on p. 190, last sentence in first paragraph that, "the vocational program often became a dead-end side track for lower-class youth?

4. Do you believe as stated in second paragraph on p. 199 that if a child does not learn the prescribed material it is inhumane to have the child repeat grades?