American Education During the 1940s and 1950s
Main points about American education during the 1940s and 1950s
 Early 1940s men left for WWI leaving women and African Americans to work in factories,
offices & classrooms
 WWI ended in 1945 & troops flooded back to the states and married young and started their
families causing a baby boom. The baby boom resulted in a need for more schools and
teachers.
 Photographs of the Holocaust brought more awareness to Civil Rights movements
To keep America competitive with the Soviet Union, Congress:
 1958 National Defense Act that provided money to improve:
o Scientific equipment for schools
o Student loans and Scholarships for college
 Schools encouraged to strengthen their curriculum in
o Math, Science, & Foreign Language
 Additional Math and Science homework was required
Brown vs. the Board of Education involved:
Early 50s stated that African Americans would be education the same as whites but in separate
schools. This didn’t work due to unequal funding between the two. African American had less.
1954 – Supreme Court ruled this unconstitutional and ordered the public schools to be segregated.
Behaviorism involved:
1953 B.F. Skinners published a book that shared his beliefs that by combining science and human
behavior for controlling the classroom environment would produce educated and well behaved
students. Ex: Gold Star Stickers for good behavior..
American Education During the 1960s
Main points about America education during the 1960s
 Baby Boomers are becoming teens
 The Civil Rights Movement became very active due to the assassination of JF Kennedy,
Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy
 Teachers were free to try creative ideas
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 impacted education by:
 Formally outlawed segregation forcing all races to be bused to schools together.
The elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 impacted education by:
 This provided money to school districts based on the number of poor children.
 Schools with more lower income children were given monetary help.
Project Head Start was design to:
 Started by President Johnson for preschool students of low-income families because they
needed help before entering kindergarten.
 100s of 1000s of children were served each year.
American Education During the 1970s
Main points about American education during the 1970s:
 Divorce rates when up when the Vietnam War ended increasing the # of single parents
 The oil crisis sent gas prices soaring
 People had less disposable income so they had less to spend on education.
Desegregation and busing involved:
 At the beginning of the desegregation the students went to their neighborhood schools which
still left the schools segregated.
 Districts were forced to bus students to even out the multi races and economic statuses.
Bilingual education involved:
 In 1971, English classes for limited English speakers became required.
Gender Equality involved:
 1972 Title IX of Equal Opportunity in Education Act was passes that prohibited
discrimination based on gender. Prior to this, women were only teachers and nurses.
Children with disabilities experienced:
 1975 Education for All Handicapped Children Act guaranteed free public education that was
appropriate with the least restrictive environment.
American Education during the 1980s
Main points about American education during the 1980s
 There was less emphasis on education.
 The baby boomers are now adult during a time of great prosperity and living on credit as a
way of life.
 Credit led to more two income families and women were capable of more career
opportunities.
The back-to-basics movement involved:
 US had fallen behind in business, science and technology as well as math and science.
 The military recruits had poorer reading and writing skills
 Millions of Americans could not read/write.
American Education During the 1990s and Beyond
Main points about American education during the 1990s and beyond:
The computer revolution involved:
 Most classrooms had 1 computer.
 The internet and search engines were introduced and are now essential learning tools of
today.
Educational standards and accountability involved:
 The call for more demanding and uniform education standards creating testing of students to
check if they were at the various levels of knowledge and skills that they should be able to
do.
 Those against this believed that real learning and creativity was lost.
Goals 2000 involved:
 A Set of 6 educational Goals set in 1994 to be met by 2000
 One of these goals was to implement the no drug/violence/firearms
The No Child Left Behind Acct involved:
 George W. Bush created these in 2001
 Improve the performance of schools in US.
 Increased accountability
 Allow choices for choosing schools
 Increase the focus on reading
 High expectations and goals – success to all students.
Competing in the global economy involves:
We needed to prepare our students with skills and education to be successful in the workforce.
Career Clusters involve:
A partnership with the US Government, businesses, colleges, trade schools and high schools to
develop a system of Career Clusters to help student identify and pursue careers that they are
interested in becoming.