Urban Education in the United States: A Historical Reader

351 Pages·2005·1.354 MB·English

by  John L. Rury (eds.)

rban ducation in
U E
the nited tates
U S
Previous Publications
Education and Social Change(2002)
DePaul University: Centennial Essay and Images(1998)
(with Charles Suchar)
Seeds of Crisis: Public Schools in Milwaukee Since 1920(1993)
(with Frank Cassell)
Education and Women’s Work(1991)
rban ducation in the
U E
nited tates
U S
istorical eader
A H R
Edited by
John L. Rury
URBANEDUCATIONINTHEUNITEDSTATES
© John L.Rury,2005.
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2005 978-1-4039-6777-0
All rights reserved.No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any
manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief
quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
First published in 2005 by
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ISBN 978-1-349-53020-5 ISBN 978-1-4039-8187-5 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9781403981875
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Urban education in the United States :a historical reader / John L.Rury,editor
p.cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4039-6778-7 (pbk.)
1.Education,Urban—United States—History.I.Rury,John L.,1951–
LC5131.U684 2005
370(cid:2).9173(cid:2)2—dc22 2004059984
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd.,Chennai,India.
First edition:May 2005
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To Carl F. Kaestle
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able of ontents
T C
Acknowledgments ix
Works Republished in this Book xi
Contributors and Their Current Affiliations xiii
1. Introduction: The Changing Social Contours of
Urban Education 1
John L. Rury
Part One The Origins of Urban School Systems 13
2. Common Schools before the “Common School Revival”:
New York Schooling in the 1790s 17
Carl F. Kaestle
3. The Origins of Public Education in Baltimore, 1825–1829 37
Tina H. Sheller
4. Popular Education in Nineteenth Century St. Louis 57
Selwyn K. Troen
Part Two Bureaucracy and Curricular
Differentiation, 1870–1910 69
5. Bureaucracy and the Common School: The Example of
Portland, Oregon, 1851–1913 75
David Tyack
6. Urban Reform and the Schools: Kindergartens in
Massachusetts, 1870–1915 97
Marvin Lazerson
7. Progressivism and Curriculum Differentiation: Special Classes
in the Atlanta Public Schools, 1898–1923 119
Barry M. Franklin
viii Table of Contents
Part Three Policies and Politics in
Urban Schools, 1900–1940 137
8. Taxation and Social Conflict: Teacher Unionism and
Public School Finance in Chicago, 1898–1934 143
Marjorie Murphy
9. Missing the Mark: Intelligence Testing in
Los Angeles Public Schools, 1922–32 159
Judith R. Raftery
10. The Politics of Educational Retrenchment in Detroit,
1929–1935 179
Jeffrey Mirel
Part Four The Postwar Era: 1945–1980 213
11. Race and the Politics of Chicago’s Public Schools:
Benjamin Willis and the Tragedy of Urban Education 219
John L. Rury
12. Bureaucratic Order and Special Children: Urban Schools,
1950s–1960s 241
Joseph L. Tropea
13. “The Community is Beginning to Rumble”: The Origins of
Chicano Educational Protest in Houston, 1965–1970 257
Guadalupe San Miguel, Jr.
Part Five Urban School Reform in
the Late Twentieth Century 275
14. After the Fall: Continuity and Change in Detroit, 1981–1995 283
Jeffrey Mirel
15. The Milwaukee Voucher Experiment 309
John F. Witte
16. High Stakes in Chicago 333
Brian Jacob
Epilogue: The Uncertain Future of Urban Education 341
Index 349
cknowledgments
A
T
he idea for this book came about several years ago as I began to plan a
course on the history of urban education. Looking around, I was struck by
the scarcity of recently published material on the topic. This was odd, because
in the past it had been the object of keen interest among historians. Indeed,
for a time urban education had become something of a preoccupation in the
field of educational history, but more recently attention seems to have shifted
to other issues. This pattern of inquiry and publication resulted in a rather
peculiar situation: a very rich body of work in the past, some of it more than
thirty years old, and a comparative dearth of more recent writing. Thus was
born the idea for this reader, a book pulling together some of the best of this
scholarship, lightly edited and with connecting notes and current bibliogra-
phy, to provide students with a broad survey of urban educational experience
in American history. Constraints of cost and the availability of certain materi-
als have limited the scope of the volume somewhat, but I hope it nonetheless
will offer a stimulating point of entry for students interested in learning more
about the history of city schools, and provide an aid for exploring the subject
further.
This is a collection of works by other authors, and it is these scholars
to whom we all owe the largest debt of gratitude for allowing their work to
appear in this book. As suggested above, most of the articles republished in
this volume have received editorial attention. In most cases this has consisted
of simply removing some of the historiographic references from an earlier
time, discussions probably of little interest to most readers today. In certain
instances an author has suggested editorial changes that might be helpful.
Insome of the articles I have tried to reduce technical discussions to a mini-
mum, and I have curtailed statistical data and methodological description
where possible. This has helped to make the length and cost of the book
more reasonable. Since all of these articles have been published elsewhere,
readers interested in learning more about such matters can simply look them
up in an academic library. The original references for each of these selections
have been included in the book, but attentive readers may notice changes in
the notation where portions of the text have been edited. Again, anyone
interested in examining the full text of a given article can consult the original
version as first published.
Like every project of this type, this one has necessitated contributions
from many quarters. Amanda Johnson, my editor at Palgrave Macmillan, was
encouraging from the very beginning, and has been a continuing source of
support and guidance since then. Feedback from anonymous reviewers of the