Education 530
History of Education in the U.S.
Fall 2008
Wednesdays, 4:30-6:50, Miller 212
Professor: Joy Williamson
Office: Miller Hall, 315E
Email: (this is the best way to reach me)
Phone: 685-7749
Course website:
Office hours: M/W by appointment
Purpose:
This course is a survey of American educational history beginning in the colonial era and ending in our contemporary times. A basic premise of the class is that the same historical reality has appeared quite different to various groups and individuals. By illuminating educational values and institutions that are often taken for granted, as well as those that are currently disputed, history can offer insights into stubborn issues of educational policy. We will approach history, then, from many perspectives and discuss contrasting schools of interpretation. In particular, we will analyze some ways in which differences of power, class, race, religion, ethnicity, and gender shaped the development of American education. At the same time, we will explore the aspiration of creating a common school that would promote the common good. These and other questions will guide our analysis of American schooling/education: What are the purposes of education? How are those purposes achieved? Who is served by those purposes? Why were certain reforms successful while others failed? Who should control schools and why?
We will use primary and secondary sources to investigate these issues. Secondary sources (books and articles on a topic) help us identify the problems and opportunities in educational history as other writers have seen them. They also allow you to see how historians interpret the same historical reality in vastly different ways. Primary sources (speeches, autobiographies, treatises) allow the historical actors to speak for themselves and allow you, the reader, to draw your own conclusions about the material.
Structure:
The course will comprise three parts: 1) lectures, short dialogues, and videos to the whole group; 2) discussion that engage selected historical issues based on primary sources; 3) and individual conferences to discuss essay topics and any other matters of interest. The lectures are designed to provide the intellectual framework of the course and to integrate the discussion section and outside reading with central themes. The discussion allows you to control your own learning by directing the path of the conversation regarding the readings as well as the lectures.
You are REQUIRED to attend each class. You should feel free to participate in the lecture by asking questions, making points, etc. But, you are REQUIRED to participate in the class discussion. Each of you has valuable thoughts and opinions on the readings. This is the time to use your insight to help the class digest the material.
Readings:
There is one book required for the class, Carl Kaestle’s Pillars of the Republic. It is available for purchase at the University of Washington Bookstore. The bulk of the readings are available on the course website.
Evaluation:
1 Preliminary paper topic and bibliography (not graded); due October 15 by 4:30pm
2 Co-teaching a discussion (20% of credit)
3 Midterm paper (30%); due November 5 by 4:30pm
4 Final paper (50% of credit) due December 5 by 5pm
1Preliminary paper topic and bibliography: The final project for this course is a 12-15 page paper. Throughout the quarter you will have assignments to help move the paper along. First, you are required to submit a preliminary topic idea and bibliography, which will include a paragraph description of your idea and a list of at least three possible sources. We will meet individually to discuss your idea(s) so that we can work together to find a manageable topic and possible sources. This is not an evaluative exercise but an opportunity for us to talk about your interests. Submit it in the folder marked “topic ideas” on the course website. Your document should be titled with your last name and assignment type. For example, mine would read “Williamson topic idea.”
2Co-teaching a discussion: Active participation in the course is vital. Each student will be asked to co-teach a discussion section in a small group. We will divide up the responsibility for the discussion sections early in the quarter. Your assignment is to read something outside the required readings in order to raise additional questions and stimulate careful analysis. A chapter or article will suffice. There is no need to read an entire book. World Wide Web information is not acceptable. You must email me an outline of your additional reading and ideas on how to integrate it into the class *by 5pm the day prior to your assigned discussion.* Submit it in the folder marked “co-teaching assignment” on the course website. Your document should be titled with your last names and assignment type. For example, my “group’s” would read “Williamson-Smith-Jones co-teaching assignment.”
3Midterm assignment option 1: Paper proposal: You are required to write a more thorough paper proposal that has evolved out of your preliminary topic idea. By this point you should have selected a particular topic and conducted preliminary research. The proposal must include the following four components: 1) a discussion of your objectives, 2) a preliminary outline of the perspectives you will employ to advance your argument, 2) a brief description of the sources you will use, 4) a discussion of the educational significance of your topic. Your final paper may take a different route than your proposal, but this gives you a chance to see how you will tease out your argument. This assignment should be no more than four double-spaced pages. Submit it in the folder marked “midterm assignment” on the course website. My document would be titled “Williamson midterm assignment.”
Midterm assignment option 2: Book Review: You will choose a scholarly book that pertains to your particular topic and write a review that includesa detailed summary of the book including its essential themes, an explanation of how it fits with at least ONE OTHER book/article on the same topic (which means you will need to do other readings), and a discussion of its strengths and weaknesses. It might be helpful to read some of the book reviews included in the History of Education Quarterly ( While evaluating the book think about the questions listed above in the course description.A good review should leave the reader with a succinct idea of the book’s topic/themes and a convincing and scholarlystatement of your own views of it. This assignment should be no more than four double-spaced pages. Submit it in the folder marked “midterm assignment” on the course website. My document would be titled “Williamson midterm assignment.”
Midterm assignment option 3: Analysis of a primary source: You are not required to use primary sources in your final project, but those of you who will be using sources like autobiographies, court cases, and legislative acts in your final project may want to entertain this option. You are to choose one (or two closely related) primary source document(s) and provide an analysis of the document(s). Such analysis would include: a) placing the document in the appropriate historical context both within education and the larger society; b) describing the event or issue which was the catalyst for the document; c) discussing the actual text of the document; d) discussing the salient characteristics of the author(s) and what biases may be reflected in the document; and e) evaluating the significance of the document for the era in which it was produced. You are required to use at least one other source to help make sense of your primary source. This assignment should be no more than four double-spaced pages. Submit it in the folder marked “midterm assignment” on the course website. My document would be titled “Williamson midterm assignment.”
4Final paper option 1: Research paper: For those of you most comfortable with standard research papers, this option may be of interest. You can choose your own topic, but be aware that the topic has to be related to education. There are several possibilities for this type of paper. For instance, you may choose a theme and trace it through history, choose a particular reform initiative and evaluate its outcomes, choose a particular ethnic/gender/religious group and discuss their educational experiences, or tease out competing positions on a particular educational reform. Not matter its topic, it should be approximately 12-15 pages in length. A list of guidelines follows. Submit it in the folder marked “final paper” on the course website. My document would be titled “Williamson final paper.”
Final paper option 2: Literature review: For those of you beginning thesis/dissertation work, this option may be of interest. You will write a 12-15 page review essay on some issue related to the course material using at least six sources for the basis of your review. A list of guidelines follows. Submit it in the folder marked “final paper” on the course website. My document would be titled “Williamson final paper.”
All of your written assignments should have 12pt. Times New Roman font, 1 inch margins, left-justification, double-spacing, and page numbers on each page (basically, just hit ‘open’ in Microsoft Word and start typing).
Formalities:
To request academic accommodations due to a disability, please contact Disability Resources for Students, 448 Schmitz, 206-543-8924/V, 206-543-8925/TTY. If you have a letter from Disability Resources for Students indicating you have a disability which requires academic accommodations, please present the letter to me so we can discuss the accommodations you might need in this class.
Plagiarism, submitting someone else's words or ideas as your own work, is serious academic offense. Cases of suspected plagiarism will be referred to the Associate Dean for Academic Programs for adjudication. Possible penalties range from disciplinary warnings to dismissal from the university.
Course Outline:
September 24 Introduction to class
October 1Colonial/Revolutionary Era: Education for Citizenship
Kaestle, Pillars of the Republic, chapters 1-3
Primary sources: Jefferson, Rush, Hall, Negro Education Society statement, and Negro newspaper editorial
Possible additional readings:
New England Primer
Lawrence Cremin, American Education; The Colonial Experience
Edmund Morgan, The Puritan Family
Gordon Lee, ed., Crusade Against Ignorance; Thomas Jefferson on Education
Samuel Eliot Morrison, The Intellectual Life of Colonial New England (chps 1-4)
John Demos, A Little Commonwealth
Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography
James Axtell, The School Upon a Hill
Charles Andrews, The History of the New York African Free Schools
October 8Common School Era: Why Public Schools?
Kaestle, Pillars of the Republic, chap. 4-7; Katz, “The Origins of Mass Public Education”
Primary Sources: Mann, Catholic Petition, and Ireland
Possible additional readings:
Merle Curti, The Social Ideas of American Educators (chps 1-4)
Rush Welter, Popular Education and Democratic Thought in America (chps 1-5)
Lawrence Cremin, The American Common School; An Historic Conception
Tyack, James, and Benavot, Law and the Shaping of Public Education 1785-1954
Jonathan Messerli, Horace Mann
Lawrence Cremin, Traditions of American Education
Maris Vinovskis, The Origins of Public High Schools
Michael Katz, Reconstructing American Education
October 15 The Education of Outsiders during the Reconstruction Era
Adams, “Models;” and Anderson, “Ex-Slaves and the Rise of Universal Education”
Primary sources: Rules for Indian Schools, Hopi Girl Recollections, Washington, chapters 10 and 14 from Up from Slavery and DuBois, “Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others”
Preliminary Paper Topic and Bibliography Due by 4:30
Possible additional readings:
Thomas Webber, Deep Like the Rivers: Education in the Slave Quarter Community
Charles Andrews, The History of the New York African Free Schools
Carleton Mabee, Black Education in New York State: From Colonial to Modern Times
Joel Spring, Deculturalization and the Struggle for Equality (chps 1-2)
Annettte M. Jaimes, The State of Native America
Margaret Szasz, Education and the American Indian
Albert L. Hurtado and Peter Iverson, Major Problems in American Indian History
Tsianina K. Lomawaima, They Called It Prairie Light
Scott Riney, The Rapid City Indian School, 1898-1933
October 22The Progressive Era
Kliebard, excerpts from the introduction, chapters 3 and 4; Tyack and Hansot, “Differentiating the High School: The Woman Question”
Primary sources: Dewey, excerpts from The School and Society, Report of the Committee of Ten (1892), “Cardinal Principles of Secondary Education” (1928)
Possible additional readings:
Joel Spring, Education and the Rise of the Corporate State
Lawrence Cremin, The Wonderful World of Elwood P. Cubberley
John Dewey, Democracy and Education
William Reese, Power and the Promise of School Reform
Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America
Edward Krug, The Shaping of the American High School
Raymond Callahan, Education and the Cult of Efficiency
Powell, Farrar, and Cohen, The Shopping Mall High School (chapter 5)
Barbara Solomon, In the Company of Educated Women
October 29Immigrants and Language
Fass, “From Other Shores: European Immigrants and American Education,” Donato, “Schooling in the Pre-Brown Era”
Primary sources: German and Spanish language debates
Possible additional readings:
Bernard J. Weiss, American Education and the European Immigrant
Paula Fass, Outside In
Merle Curti, Social Ideas of American Educators
Ruben Donato, The Other Struggle for Equal Schools
Guadalupe San Miguel, Brown Not White
Guadalupe San Miguel, Let All of them Take Heed
Thomas Carter and Robert Seguro, Mexican Americans in School
James Crawford, Educating English Learners: Language Diversity in the Classroom
Janet Nolan, Servants of the Poor: Teachers and Mobility in Ireland and Irish America
Michael F. Perko, ed. Enlightening the Next Generation: Catholics and Their Schools
Neil G. McCluskey, ed., Catholic Education in America, A Documentary History
Judah Pilch, ed. A History of Jewish Education in the United States
November 5A Brief History of the University of Washington
***WE WILL MEET IN THE UNIVERSITY’S SPECIAL COLECTIONS, ALLEN SOUTH, BASEMENT CLASSROOM***
Midterm Assignment due by 4:30
November 12Textbooks and “Truth”
Miller Elson, “The Schoolbook and the School” and “Schoolbooks and ‘Culture,’” and Moreau, “Harold Rugg vs. Horatio Alger”
Primary sources: excerpts from The McGuffey Readers, excerpts from Rugg textbooks, and excerpts from Boorstin and Kelley, “A History of the United States”
Possible additional readings:
Ruth Miller Elson, Guardians of Tradition
Francis Fitzgerald, American Revised
Herbert Kohl, She Would Not Be Moved: How We Tell the Story of Rosa Parks
Michael Apple, The Politics of the Textbook
Diane Ravitch, The Language Police
James Loewen, Lies My Teacher Told Me
United States Congress, What is Your Child Reading in School
“The Historian’s Contribution to Anglo-American Misunderstanding”
What is your child reading in school? How standards and textbooks influence education.
November 19Students, Colleges, and Activism in the 1960s
Perlstein, “Teaching Freedom,” Klatch, “The New Age”
Primary Sources: Rafferty, “Campus Violence: A Fascist Conspiracy” (I may assign other sources here)
Possible additional readings:
“El Plan de Santa Barbara”
McEvoy and Miller, Black Power and Student Rebellion
Carmichael and Hamilton, Black Power: The Politics of Liberation in America
The President’s Commission on Campus Unrest
Foster and Long, Protest! Student Activism in America
Klatch, A Generation Divided: The New Left, The New Right, and the 1960s
November 26No class
December 3 The Present Moment in School Reform
Sleeter, Christine. “This Curriculum is Multicultural Isn’t It,” Schlesinger, “E Pluribus Unum?”
Primary sources: No Child Left Behind materials
December 5Final Exam/Long paper due December 5 by 5pm
Research Paper Guidelines
- You will write a research paper of 12-15 pages on some historical topic of special concern. Your paper should not merely present information. It should have an interpretive frame that turns the paper from mere description into an interesting story that has a hook. Also, it is not enough to use someone else’s interpretive frame. I want you to come up with something novel or devise a new way of looking at old material. For example, a paper that describes the debate between Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. DuBois is not sufficient (that topic is done to death). You would need to add a new interpretive lens to it. In this instance, you might compare Washington to Charles Eliot and Elwood Cubberley as other Progressive Era thinkers. Or, you might you compare DuBois’s ideas on curriculum with the black student curricular demands of the 1960s.
- Quality of writing is also important. It is necessary to have an introduction with a thesis statement telling the reader what you plan to accomplish, a strong argument in the middle, and a conclusion that not only ties the paper together but makes a critical statement about the topic (it should be more than a mere summary of the paper). Be sure to proofread the paper and check your grammar, margins, font, and spacing. And, be sure to remember this is a research paper not a political treatise.
- You do not have to use primary sources (i.e. newspapers, personal journals, census data) when writing this paper. Secondary sources—those in which the author synthesizes what other books/authors have stated—are fine. However, those who would like to use primary sources are encouraged to do so.
- You are expected to use outside readings for the paper, and you must use a minimum of six sources. Web sites can be used only in addition to scholarly sources.
- Formatting: The paper should have 12pt. Times New Roman font, 1 inch margins, double-spacing, and page numbers on each page. Also, include a title page with your name, the class title, the quarter, a date, and a title for the paper. This page should not be included in the pagination. You can use whichever citation style you choose as long as the citations remain consistent.
- Do not try and cover too much in the paper. It is far better to cover less ground deeply than more ground superficially. For instance, you may have to omit certain court cases, shorten the period of time you plan to study, or choose three rather than four main points.
- Look at some of the pieces you have read for examples of good writing. Whose piece did you find the most interesting? Why? What did her/his introduction or conclusion look like? How did s/he tackle the subject matter?
- I strongly suggest using headings in your paper, but only mark the major sections and be careful not to break the paper into too many sections.
Review essay guidelines