The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) represents a quantum leap in both Federal involvement and Federal mandates to schools. In the relatively short period of less than a decade NCLB has changed how teachers teach, what subjects are taught, and how teachers and principals are evaluated. As NCLB continues to impact American education and educational…

This article will briefly narrate illustrative life stories of some of the 450 men and women who taught in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, between 1919 and 1949 and identify and explain how they employed these options to build occupational pathways. Taken together, these "microbiographies" show patterns in the life trajectories of ordinary people. They…

In 1879, with aid from the Peabody fund, Texas's first tax-supported teacher training institution, Sam Houston State Normal Institute (SHNI), opened on the site of the old Austin College in Huntsville (Richmond 1941, 37). The need for qualified educators in Texas was growing as the state struggled to make up for decades of neglect of and antipathy…

Harvard is easily the most recognizable American institution of higher education, freighted with rich associations to the nation's leaders. This article provides an opportunity to examine the history of higher education through a lens often overlooked--fiction. By doing so, the authors provide a richer understanding of a particular institution and…

In the closing weeks of 1867, an educational organization was founded in Washington, D.C., that should have been stillborn. Most farmers dismissed scientific agriculture as useless book-farming. They should have been lukewarm to the Patrons of Husbandry's promise to sponsor monthly meetings for mutual instruction in the application of scientific…

For many decades, American schools have been mired in jargon and confused values. A few exceptional books have shown the way through the thicket of educational ideas, policies, and practices. The work of Michael John Demiashkevich belongs to this set and offers a special philosophical perspective. In "An Introduction to the Philosophy of…

In 1999, the changing goals of American schools were explored in "Education Week" through the events, achievements, and personalities that had formed United States education in the 20th century. First a series of articles, the collection was later published in book form as "Lessons of a Century: A Nation's Schools Come of Age." The chapter titled…

This article will focus on the efforts of the State of Illinois to desegregate Chicago Public Schools between 1971 and 1979. The article also examines the responsibility taken on by the State of Illinois to desegregate schools and the limits between establishing the mechanisms to desegregate and the ability to accomplish those goals in Chicago.…

Education played a pivotal role in African-Americans' post-World War II struggle for equality. Many activists believed that victories against racially discriminatory school systems would lead to gains in other critical areas. By examining Howalton Day School, a black private school on Chicago's South Side in operation from 1946-1986, this article…

As a cultural and university historian focusing on Europe and the United States, Sheldon Rothblatt is more interested in understanding the multiple bearings of liberal arts education as it has developed across the ages. The American high school, from its origins in the 19th century to the contemporary period, represents only a fraction of the…

With the colonization of Ireland in the 17th century by Cromwellian and Williamite forces, the spread of English as a language of power marked a linguistic shift as Anglicization and economic necessity transformed Irish to a vernacular of the poor. Where Irish was spoken by almost all throughout the country in the 17th century, a steady drop began…

This article will examine a little known but long-standing group, the Lisle Fellowship, that endeavored to open the world to college students and foster international understanding--or "world-mindedness," as the organization's founders called it--ultimately with the goal to contribute to the ideal of world peace. It will also, in particular,…

This paper seeks to specifically focus on the evolution of civil rights case law and legislation as it pertains to educating students with disabilities, specifically the often implemented but poorly understood Section 504 provisions. The purpose of this paper is to examine historical influences that precipitated the implementation of Section 504…

Unrealistic as they may have been, television shows like Leave it to Beaver and Ozzie and Harriet served important social purposes during an age of tumult and anxiety. The domestic sit-coms of the 1950s played an educative function by reinforcing and disseminating traditional values at a time when forces of change were becoming quite disruptive.…

The 1960s was a tumultuous decade in American public education. It was a time of transition and change. To many Americans in the early 1960s, Max Rafferty appeared to be a reactionary conservative harking back to an educational past. The longer perspective of history may instead see Rafferty as a harbinger of the educational policies of the 1990s.…