**Archived Information**

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The modern vision of high school, as expressed in the *No Child Left
Behind Act*, is that *every* student will reach a high level of
proficiency in core academic skills. But the current American high
school education system is based on a model established when the
expectations of high school education were far different. The model
assumed that most students would not go on to postsecondary education or
training, and that the majority had little need for rigorous academic
preparation.

As teachers, principals, local and state local leaders work to implement
*No Child Left Behind*, it is worth reflecting on how the American high
school system has evolved, the assumptions upon which it rests, and the
serious policy debates that should inform its future.

### In the Beginning: Preparing the Elite

Until the 20^th^ century, secondary education was a small-scale
experience, largely reserved for the privileged, rather than the nearly
universal democratic institution of today. Even as late as 1910, only
about ten percent of American youth attended high school.

The first American high school -- the Boston Latin Grammar School -- was
founded in 1635 to prepare young men for college at Harvard, service in
government, and the church.[^1] Although elementary education spread
rapidly among the American population in succeeding generations, high
school education did not. The first public high school did not even
appear until nearly 200 years later, when the English Classical School
opened in Boston in 1821.[^2]

The English Classical School taught a curriculum consisting of the
subject matter thought to best prepare young minds at the time:
composition, declamation, mathematics, history, civics, logic,
surveying, navigation, and moral and political philosophy.[^3] Other
public high schools soon appeared in other parts of New England and New
York. Their primary purpose was college preparation for young men, and
enrollment remained quite small.

### College Prep and Manual Training 

By 1870, there were still only 500 public high schools with 50,000
students in the United States.[^4] But things were changing. It was in
this era that enrollment first opened to girls -- with many young women
being trained in "normal" classes to become teachers -- and working
class youth entered high schools to learn skilled trades. It can be said
that the modern public high school was born when the Michigan State
Supreme Court ruled in 1874 that taxes could be levied to support public
high schools as well as elementary schools.[^5] Thereafter, with the
Industrial Revolution and the beginning of mass urbanization, large
cities began to construct high schools.

Students enrolling in the new high schools of the late 19^th^ century
were not necessarily being prepared for college. While college
preparatory schools still existed, "manual" (i.e. vocational) training
schools began to multiply.

Many parents and students saw the "new vocationalism" as a shortcut to
the new skilled jobs in the burgeoning factories and agricultural
enterprises. Academic subjects came to be regarded as merely a part of,
rather than the core of, the curriculum of the manual training schools.

### The Great Divide

**Academic standards.** By the end of the 19^th^ century, some education
leaders were becoming distressed by the uneven quality of high school
education. In response, the presidents of the nation's most prestigious
colleges convened the first National Council of Education in 1892.[^6]
Consisting of professors from Ivy League colleges, the Council, also
known as the *Committee of Ten*, mapped a core of academic subjects that
they considered necessary to prepare for college.

![](media/image2.pct)In addition to Latin, Greek and mathematics, the
Committee added modern subjects that, in altered form, are still
considered the core of the academic curriculum: English, foreign
languages, natural history, physical science, geography, history, civil
government, and political economy.[^7]

The Committee of Ten did not believe that this curriculum was suitable
only for those intending to go on to college, but for the entire high
school population including those in the manual schools and those not
intending to go on to further education or training. To the objection --
one still heard today -- that this curriculum was not suitable for
preparation for life and work, they countered that a liberal arts
education, which trained the mind, was suitable for all students
regardless of their future life path. Their message was simple: *there
would be no distinction between those students preparing for college and
those who were "preparing for life."*[^8]

But this view did not prevail for long.

**General studies***.* Through the first two decades of the 20^th^
century, wave after wave of new immigrants, many of them poor and with
little formal education, arrived in the United States and in its growing
high schools. Leaders in education and industry were not convinced this
population was receiving the type of education needed to prepare them
for life outside of school. They assumed that most students would go on
to work in unskilled or semi-skilled work after high school and that the
greatest need was for students to be acculturated to American society.

In 1918, the Commission on the Reorganization of Secondary Education, a
group appointed by the National Education Association, issued *The
Cardinal Principles of Secondary Education.* In it the Commission stated
that the primary purposes of high schools were *health, citizenship and
worthy home-membership and, only secondarily, command of fundamental
processes.*[^9] Published by the U.S. Bureau of Education, this document
helped lay the foundation for the modern American high school, with its
emphasis on providing custodial care, what later came to be known as
"life adjustment" education.

Enrollments continued to rise dramatically as child labor and truancy
laws brought ever more students into the high schools. Attempts were
still made to prepare some of these students for technical trades --
Congress enacted the first federal vocational education legislation in
1917 -- and college prep schools persisted for the elite. However, it
was *The Cardinal Principles* vision that dominated most schools.
So-called "general" studies -- neither specifically college nor
technical preparation -- began to push out the academic and
career/technical disciplines.[^10] Rigorous academic studies suffered
most, reserved as they were for the small minority of students deemed
"college material."

For the majority of students, neither an academic nor a vocational
curriculum was considered appropriate because these students were viewed
as fit neither for the professions or the trades. At a conference on the
U.S. Office of Education in 1945, Charles Prosser, the first director of
the Federal Board for Vocational Education, offered opening comments in
support of life-adjustment education. His comments later became known as
the Prosser Resolution (see box at left).[^11] The American high school
with all of its ancillary cultural institutions from Friday night
football to the senior prom -- and its loose academic standards --
became embedded in the public mind. The schools seemed to meet the
demands of the time. They were universal and democratic and produced a
more or less standardized product without requiring too much homework.
The great mass of immigrants and their children were acculturated to
American life. On average, it seemed that up through the Second World
War, American youth were well prepared compared with those in other
countries where universal secondary education had yet to take hold.

### Sputnik - New Urgency Amid Old Expectations

Thus, it was a shock to the public when in the 1950s and 1960s the
United States found itself falling behind other countries, especially
the Soviet Union, in critically important academic skills symbolized by
the science needed to launch Sputnik in 1957.[^12] The economic rise of
Germany and Japan highlighted the academic failings of American schools,
as well. The state of academics in the American curriculum --
particularly math and science -- was suddenly decried from all corners.

Policymakers and educators responded by adding more courses and
ever-larger facilities with all of the modern trappings -- science labs,
football fields, and band rooms. However, their concern was for the
elite, defined by educators as the top 20 percent of students, who would
become the scientists and engineers who would win the Cold War.[^13]

What the policymakers did not do was re-examine assumptions about the
capabilities of most young Americans. Schools continued to believe that
students should be sorted among various tracks -- academic, vocational
and general -- depending on their test scores and, more often, the
judgment of guidance counselors as to their suitable destinies. Most
students were judged not to be "college material" and, thus, did not
need rigorous academic preparation. The more the schools changed (bigger
budgets, better facilities), the more they remained the same (low
academic expectations for the majority).

### Equality and Access

Before it had a chance to fully address the Sputnik shock, the education
system became the center of new storms roiling society -- civil rights
for minorities and equal access for children with disabilities.
Throughout the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s significant efforts were made to
ensure that all students had equal access to public education. Two
important actions were the Supreme Court decision in *Brown v. the Board
of Education of Topeka* (1954)[^14] ending legal segregation, and the
Education of all Handicapped Children Act of 1975 mandating full
educational opportunities for all children with disabilities.

At the same time, large numbers of middle-class families were moving out
of urban centers to suburban areas, resulting in dramatic decreases in
the tax base for urban public education. A consequence of this outward
migration was that inner cities were left with large low-income minority
high schools. Despite the large amounts of compensatory funding from the
federal government since the mid-1960s, these schools continue to
struggle.

![](media/image3.png){width="2.779861111111111in"
height="3.379166666666667in"}In the postwar period, as in the first half
of the century, graduation rates improved, but there was little
corresponding improvement in reading, and inconsistent improvement in
math and science as measured by the National Assessment of Educational
Progress.[^15]

### A Nation at Risk

This lack of overall academic progress became increasingly apparent to
business leaders, policymakers, and educators as the economy faced new
challenges from Europe and Asia, where post-war reform had made rigorous
academic education nearly universal. In 1983, Secretary of Education
Terrell Bell appointed the National Commission on Excellence in
Education to address the issue.

The Commission's report*, A Nation at Risk*, marked the first time a
government-sponsored report prompted serious discussion and action to
implement higher academic standards for *all* students.[^16] In issuing
the report, the Commission expressed alarm that the rise of global trade
and the United States as the leading world power, and the dawn of the
information age, were not being accompanied by complementary changes in
the schools.

*A Nation at Risk* harkened back to the Committee of Ten, renewing the
demand that American schools provide all students with access to a
rigorous academic curriculum. Since its publication, virtually all
states have raised the number of academic credits required for
graduation and have made academic standards more rigorous. Some have
established curriculum-based and other examinations linked to high
school graduation. Some cities are also funding choice programs that
offer students greater access to a more rigorous curriculum.

But progress since 1983 has been slow and uneven. After decades of
reform, it is true that 60 percent of high school students, including
more occupational/technical education students, now complete the number
of academic credits recommended by the Commission as necessary for
postsecondary education or training.

Yet it is still not clear--given stagnant test scores and climbing high
school dropout rates--whether the quality of the curriculum, not just
course titles, is consistent across and even within the same high
schools. It is, indeed, not clear whether the rising number of students
taking core academic courses represents real improvement over 20, or
even 50, years ago. Moreover, whatever progress has been made in the
past 20 years, the economy, and its demand for ever higher academic
proficiency, has changed more than either the high school curriculum or
student performance.

Today's world demands a higher level of expectations and academic
achievement. Establishing high expectations for all is a critical first
step. Students and their parents have made their choices about the
direction they wish to pursue -- 97 percent of high school graduates
indicate that they *intend* to pursue some sort of postsecondary
education at some point in their lives.[^17] But too few are offered --
or guided to -- the types of courses that will prepare them for their
chosen future.

The nation and its education system remain far from achieving the vision
of excellence recommended by the Commission 20 years ago. Nor have the
low expectations that deny many students access to a rigorous curriculum
been changed. And big questions still remain about what mix of
instructional, curriculum and organizational strategies is right to
achieve the needed results.

### ![](media/image4.pct)The Future of American High Schools 

Public high school enrollment by 2008 is projected to increase by 11%
over 1998 figures[^18]. The U.S. Department of Education estimates that
6,000 new schools must be built by the year 2006 to handle the overflow
of K-12 students. And, as at the turn of the last century, the education
system is being called upon to serve millions of new immigrant children.

> Multiple foundations, organizations, and educational leaders are
> focusing once again on transforming the American high school. Indeed,
> it will require a consistent and committed partnership of parents,
> students, teachers, principals, and leaders at the local, state and
> national level to create the educational opportunities and results
> worthy of American youth in the 21^st^ century. *No Child Left Behind*
> offers a framework to channel that commitment and to meet these
> historic challenges.

### Endnotes

[^1]: Boyer, E.L. *High School: A Report on Secondary Education in
    America. (*New York: Harper and Row, 1983.) p. 43.

[^2]: Boyer, p. 44.

[^3]: Boyer, p. 44.

[^4]: Boyer, p. 46.

[^5]: Boyer, p. 46.

[^6]: Boyer, p. 49.

[^7]: Boyer, p. 49.

[^8]: Kliebard, H. M. *The Struggle for the American Curriculum:
    1893-1958. (*New York: Routledge, 1986.) p. 12.

[^9]: Kliebard, p. 50.

[^10]: Boyer, p. 54.

[^11]: Boyer, p. 249.

[^12]: New York Times archives,
    <http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/specials/sputnik/>.

[^13]: Kliebard, H. M. p. 266.

[^14]: Boyer, p. 56.

[^15]: J.R. Campbell, C.M. Hombo, and J. Mazzeo. *NAEP 1999 Trends in
    Academic Progress: Three Decades of Student Performance.* NCES
    2000--469. Washington, DC: 2000.

[^16]: National Commission on Excellence in Education. *A Nation at
    Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform*. (Washington, DC: U.S.
    Government Printing Office. 1983).

[^17]: U.S. Department of Education, NCES. 1996. *National Education
    Longitudinal Study: 1988-1994; Descriptive Summary Report (NCES
    2001-072)*, (Washington, DC, May 2001).

[^18]: U.S. Department of Education, NCES. 2003. *The Condition of
    Education 2003 (NCES 2003-067*). p. 18. Washington, DC.

    > This paper is one of a series produced in conjunction with the
    > U.S. Secretary of Education\'s ***High School Leadership
    > Summit***. For more information about the U.S. Department of
    > Education\'s work on high schools, visit
    > <http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ovae/pi/hsinit/index.html>.