113. The National Press Attack On Academic Schooling: The Underground
History of American Education by John Taylor Gatto from archive.org
The
National Press Attack On Academic Schooling
In May
of 191 1, the first salvo of a sustained national press attack on the
academic ambitions of public schooling
was fired. For the previous ten years the idea of school as an oasis of mental development built around a
common, high-level curriculum had been
steadily undermined by the rise of educational psychology and its
empty-child/elastic- child hypotheses.
Psychology was a business from the first, an aggressive business lobbying for jobs and school
contracts. But resistance of parents, community groups, and students themselves to the new psychologized schooling was formidable.
contracts. But resistance of parents, community groups, and students themselves to the new psychologized schooling was formidable.
As
the summer of 191 1 approached, the influential Educational Review gave
educators something grim to muse upon as
they prepared to clean out their desks: "Must definite reforms with measurable results be
foresworn," it asked, "that an antiquated school system may grind out useless produce?"
The magazine demanded quantifiable proof of
school's contributions to society — or education should have its budget
cut. The article, titled "An
Economic Measure of School Efficiency," charged that "The advocate of
pure water or clean streets shows by how
much the death rate will be altered with each
proposed addition to his share of the budget — only a teacher is without
such figures." An editorial in
Ladies Home Journal reported that dissatisfaction with schools was increasing, claiming "On every hand
signs are evident of a widely growing distrust of the effectiveness of the present educational
system..." In Providence, the school board was criticized by the local press for declaring a
holiday on the Monday preceding Decoration
Day to allow a four-day vacation. "This cost the public $5,000 in
loss of possible returns on the money
invested," readers were informed.
Suddenly school critics were everywhere. A
major assault was mounted in two popular
journals, Saturday Evening Post and Ladies Home Journal, with millions
each in circulation, both read by
leaders of the middle classes. The Post sounded the anti- intellectual theme this way: "Miltonized, Chaucerized, Vergilized,
Shillered, physicked and chemicaled, the high
school.... should be of no use in the world — particularly the business
world."
Three heavy punches in succession came
from Ladies Home Journal: "The case of
Seventeen Million Children — Is Our Public-School System Providing an
Utter Failure?" This declaration
would seem difficult to top, but the second article did just that: "Is
the Public School a Failure? It Is: The
Most Momentous Failure in Our American Life
Today." And a third, written by the principal of a New York City
high school, went even further. Entitled
"The Danger of Running a Fool Factory," it made this point: that education is "permeated with errors and
hypocrisy," while the Dean of Columbia
Teachers College, James E. Russell added that "If school cannot be
made to drop its mental development
obsession the whole system should be abolished." [emphasis mine]
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