At the 2008 Democratic National Convention, Senator Edward M. Kennedy said, "We will break the old gridlock and guarantee that every American--north, south, east, west, young, old--will have decent, quality healthcare as a fundamental right and not a privilege. We can meet these challenges ..." These now historic words from Kennedy are symbolic of…

During the twentieth-century, American engineers harnessed the atom, sent men to the moon, and literally reshaped the world. They re-routed rivers to create giant hydroelectric dams, created a massive and interconnected highway system, and designed skyscrapers, jets, computers, and the internet. As a modern profession, engineering boasted strong…

About 50 miles east of Topeka, Kansas, in what is now the suburban town of Merriam sits South Park Elementary School. Built in 1947 for white children at a cost of $90,000, the school at that time showcased eight modern classrooms, a multi-purpose auditorium, a lunchroom, and playground. Today, the building serves as a monument to a struggle for…

Recent scholarship has suggested that: "A Nation at Risk" had put education on the national agenda," that it "catapulted education near to the top of the national political agenda," and that it started "an ambitious and well-publicized elementary and secondary education reform ... that has already lasted for more than a quarter of a century." The…

The role of federal involvement in education has, in recent years, become more and more prevalent. Such an involvement was not part of the historical origins of education at virtually any level. Whether it was for economic reasons, defense of the nation, the accountability of American taxpayers, or the pursuit of better civic-minded individuals,…

For most of the nineteenth century, county agricultural fairs had little to do with schools and schooling; nevertheless, they served as potent sources of learning. During the post-Civil War generation, most of the learning county agricultural fairs generated had little to do with livestock, crops, and cultivation; nevertheless, farmers and others…

In the current vernacular, co-education means the education of the sexes together within an institutional setting. Once a phenomenon, today, women enjoy nearly equal status on campuses that were at one time bastions of "maleness." Moreover, the counter-culture revolution of the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s, ushered in a new dimension of…

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…

During the period 1962-1994, the United States Supreme Court handed down several decisions that increasingly limited the influence of religion in schools ("Engel v Vitale" 1962; "Abington v. Schempp" 1963; "Lemon v. Kurtzman," "Early v. DiCenso," and "Robinson v. DiCenso" 1971; "Wallace v. Jaffee" 1985; "Lee v. Weisman" 1992). In particular, these…

There are six oversized boxes in the New York Historical Society that contain the remains of the Public School Society (PSS), New York City's first experiment with publicly-funded education. They are filled with the detritus of the Society's nearly fifty years: recommendations for prospective teachers from their clergymen, student certificates of…

Having limited access to colleges and universities offering women the same educational opportunities available to men, elite women of the 19th century crossed national borders for advanced study and teaching opportunities. The career of Tsuda Umeko, founder of one of the first private institutions of higher education for women in Japan, leader in…

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.…

Since its inception in the 1920s, the field of gifted education has remained in a constant ebb and flow. Public understanding and support, as well as, federal aid has mirrored this pattern, waxing and waning in response to national interests and concern from private institutions and foundations. Discourse between excellence and equity also has…

Following World War II, fear rooted in Communist paranoia gripped America. This distress seeped into all aspects of American culture, including education. The American people became increasingly worried that Communist influences would infiltrate the schools and pervert the minds of children. At the forefront of this quagmire was Dr. Earl James…