Chapter 5: The History of Schools in the United States

The curriculum taught in schools has evolved over the last 300 years to meet the needs of society. At the end of the nineteenth century America was becoming industrialized; this created a lot of jobs that immigrant workers would come to the country to get. The school system was focused on preparing the children of the immigrants to be ready to work in assembly line type situations. The schools were trying to control people by controlling what they learned. This style continued until some educators decided that learning should be done by way of group work and activities instead of lectures. The thought was the children would learn to be a useful part of society and have higher moral character. During the cold war there was a strong focus on math and science, supported by government funding, the goal of the school system was to create future scientists that would keep America ahead of the Soviets. In the 1990's, in order to include all demographics in the curriculum, National Standards of what will be taught were introduced that make all sectors of society represented in the material covered in schools.

The curriculum of schools has never been a black and white subject; there have always been debates about the right things to focus on. When the colonists first came to America they attempted to force the Native Americans in the school system in order to teach them the ways of the Anglo Saxons. The American Indians, of course, fought against the forced change of life and were moved from their homes to lands farther west. After the Mexican-American war there were many Mexicans living in the United States that were promised citizenship, but the government made them attend schools before they would grant the citizenship. The problem was that they also made laws that made all instruction to be done in English and even made it forbidden to speak Spanish in schools. This forced the Mexicans to attend private or Catholic schools in order to receive bilingual instruction until the government finally created programs for English Language Learners.