This article explores the All-Day Neighborhood Schools (ADNS) program, operated as a partnership between the New York City Board of Education and local philanthropists from 1936 to 1971. Designed to expand the resources available to children and parents, the program included after-school activities, additional teachers, professional development,…

While a number of recent studies highlight John Stuart Mill's role as a "teacher of the people," his reflections upon the political significance of higher education have received relatively little attention. I argue that Mill's 1867 St. Andrews Address was both a defense of liberal education against influential arguments for religion-…

The United States occupations of Cuba and Puerto Rico following the War of 1898 instituted immediate reforms to the educational systems of the islands. The imposition of public school systems modeled on those of the United States and a concurrent wave of Protestant schools established by American missionaries are well-known features of the…

This article summarizes and assesses federal K-12 compensatory education policies during the past six decades. It focuses on the centerpiece of that effort, Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. Related programs such as America 2000, Goals 2000, No Child Left Behind, and Every Student Succeeds Act are discussed. It…

This History of Education Society Presidential Address comes at the society's sixtieth anniversary and provides a new conceptual framework that foregrounds recognizing a "racist-blind," and not a color-blind, ideology in the intentional and unequal design our educational past and present. It highlights systemic racism brought on by the…

The "Quincy Method" is widely considered a successful nineteenth-century school reform. Pioneered by Francis Parker in Quincy, Massachusetts in 1875, it fostered broad pedagogic change in an ordinary school system, transforming Quincy into a renowned hub of child-centered instruction. This article revisits the reform and explores its…

The rise of online learning over the past few decades has raised fundamental questions about the kinds of "spaces" and "places" this mode of education creates. Do they support meaningful exchanges? Can they advance educational equity, access, and community-building? Are they comparable to in-person classroom experiences? The…

Federal agents, church officials, and education reformers have long used schooling as a weapon to eliminate Indigenous people; at the same time, Indigenous individuals and communities have long repurposed schooling to protect tribal sovereignty, reconstitute their communities, and shape Indigenous futures. Joining scholarship that speaks to…

The essay reinterprets the 1845-1847 pamphlet war between Emma Willard and Marcius Willson, authors of popular history schoolbooks. Willson publicly attacked the accuracy and literary quality of history schoolbooks by eight leading authors, with particular attention to Willard's, just as he was publishing his first school history. Willard and…

Two separate school districts--a city one and a county one--operated independently in Durham, North Carolina, until the early 1990s. The two districts merged relatively late compared to other North Carolina cities, such as Raleigh and Charlotte. In Durham, residents in both the county and city systems vehemently opposed the merger until the county…

Established in 1911 as a simple owner-operated commercial school in Providence, Rhode Island, the Katharine Gibbs School expanded over the decades to acquire an international reputation for excellence in secretarial training. This essay examines the origin, development, and ultimate demise of the chain, placing it within the context of the…

This article explores how education reformers in California pioneered forms of centralized educational governance between 1850 and 1879. Challenging previous scholarship that has attributed the success of this early educational state to reformer John Swett and New England migrants, this article situates the creation of common schools in California…

In this paper, the author first cites passages that highlight the key developments and dilemmas of teacher education in Ghana in the 1960s, when the new nation resolved to prepare its largely untrained teaching force in "progressive" methods. Across the decade--and across subject areas--Ghana conducted in-service teacher training to…

This author describes herself as someone who has questioned the role of theory since she first began studying educational history several decades ago, and who has attempted to use theory. She sees contradictions in what she is researching and how she is doing it, contradictions that arise from her graduate training, the developments in…

The world of private fundamentalist education grew prodigiously throughout the late 1970s and into the early 1980s. These schools needed curricular materials and guiding educational philosophies. The impassioned debates among leading fundamentalist educators directly affected the education of hundreds of thousands of students. Concern over the…