The Unchanged Century Myth

There it was again. In a launch event for a new staffing program idea, the contention that schools haven't changed in a century. The Ford Model T “represented breakthrough technology more than 100 years ago that wouldn’t serve us well today,” says the slide (which shows, ironically, a photo of a 1934 Ford Coupe, stripped down for that hot rod look), and goes on to draw the parallel with how schools also haven't changed in a century.

Everyone with a education-flavored product or miracle reform to pitch likes to make this claim, unless, like Education Secretary McMahon, they are pitching the reverse-- 60 or 70 years ago American education was awesome, "a shining light guiding generations, built on faith, heritage, patriotism."

Both views are really wrong. To say that schools are basically the same is like claiming that, because they still use four wheel and seats, automobiles are fundamentally unchanged over the last century. To say that schools have devolved from an earlier golden age is to insist that you would like to trade your current vehicle for a Model T (complete with the hand crank for starting it). The argument about the unchanging century is like arguing that houses have not changed since colonial times, because they still have walls, a roof, and a door for getting in and out. 

A Department of the Interior, Bureau of Education report gives us some info on what schools were like in 1926. 

They were, of course, highly segregated. And not just in the ways you're thinking of-- depending on where you were in the country, there may have been a school just for Italians or other immigrant groups. But while segregation was still the law of the land, the report only shows 84 schools for Black students, located in 22 states. 

Nor were the schools particularly well-used. The report says that of those youths of high school age, only 53% actually attended school. The notion that these schools were intended to get students ready for industrial jobs doesn't make sense--the young humans intended for industrial work were already doing that work instead of going to school. "The public high school will continue to grow," said the report, "but probably at a rate not nearly that of the growth of population." The report also noted that big changes were underway, including the creation of junior and senior high schools, plus

The reorganization and enrichment of curricular material and the construction of buildings suitable to the needs of reorganization are being pushed forward at a rapid rate. All this is done in a serious attempt to make the secondary school better fit the needs of the pupil and of the community as well. 

17,710 high schools reported in 1926, compared to just over 10,000 in 1910. The schools reported just over 3 million students (2.6% of the total US population), up from 1.8 million in 1920. There were 4,873 school libraries (with just over 8 million books). Attrition rates were huge-- only 55% of first years made it to the fourth year. 

High school teachers in the 1925-26 school year? 163,555 in the whole country, varying wildly by state. New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and California were the only states in five figures, while ten states had under a thousand. Some of those low counts are unsurprising (Arizona, 500; Nevada, 189; Wyoming, 550) but others-- Delaware reported 272 high school teachers!

The 1920s were actually a time of many shifts-- the 1920 census was the first to show more citizens living in big cities than in the countryside or small towns-- and the report pays attention to the differences between schools in places over 2500 population and those under 2500. 

There's a plenty of fascinating data in the report, but you get the idea. The Encyclopedia Americana 1920 edition noted that while fifty years ago, schools focused on basics of reading, writing and arithmetic, but were busy adding new subjects of study. "The vast changes in our social conditions have reacted on the whole theory and practice of education." Schools took on a social role as a means of improving one's circumstances through education. Two year teacher programs in college were replaced with four year programs; it was barely considered a profession. And in many places, there was a push back against those darn godless progressive ideas in education, as exemplified by the Scopes trial (1925). 

There were fewer students in school, but more students in individual classrooms. There was far less material to cover, but no accommodations to make for students with special needs, and those students mostly just dropped out. 

McMahon's Golden Age of Education circa 1950 was, of course, an age before Brown v. Board, so fully and deliberately segregated (as opposed to post-Brown deliberate and sneaky segregation). In 1960, enrollment of 5-13 year olds was hovering around 95% for white children, with nonwhite behind by around 2%. For 14-17 year olds, the enrollment numbers were around 90% for whites and 85% for nonwhites. In 1965, administrators reported that only about 40% of students with disabilities got an education (and if they did, it was while being warehoused in some corner of the building). 

The 1960s saw the beginning if international testing (like the PISA we now know and love) and back in those golden days the US was still below the median.

Classroom tools and materials were still rudimentary. Technology was expensive. Teachers were poorly paid. 

In the past hundred years, schools have seen a multitude of changes that encompass what we teach and when we teach it. We have seen changes in how we teach, both in terms of pedagogical techniques and instructional technology. We have seen changes in who we teach, both in terms of trying to reach all students and in terms of trying to actually teach students who were previously ignored. And we have seen changes in the intent of education, of what we think it is for. 

Do schools still run on four wheel and seats for the passengers? Sure. Have they "failed to change" over the last 100 years? I don't think so.

That said-- are schools an institution whose inertia is frustratingly large? They surely are (and I say that as someone who many times tried to push change on the inside). They are by their nature small-c conservative institutions. 

And as much as I find that a pain when the change is something I want, I still think it's better that way.

Educational practices get to be tested by time, and tested carefully because it's best not to sacrifice an entire cohort of students to experimentation. When Bill Gates said it would take ten years to find out whether the Common Core was a good idea or not, hackles went up all over the nation because ten years is a generation's education, a too-big-to-lose gamble that can never be recouped. Reformsters too often talk about student achievement levels like they are just the rise and fall of the stock market or the tide, with everything staying in place, just moving up and down. But that's not it. A bad experiment with teaching reading to third graders results in a bunch of third graders who are shortchanged forever. It's why some folks are rightfully upset about the pandemic-forced experiment in distance learning at scale-- it was quick, unplanned, and not very successful.

The tech mantra of move fast and break things is not suited to education, because the things we're talking about breaking are the educations of young humans.

Experimentation is often slow and careful, and it should be that way. Does that mean that sometimes schools hold onto suboptimal practices longer than they should? Sure. But the argument that schools have never changed and the argument that schools have changed for the worse since the golden age are both specious and unmoored from reality. Changes in education come best with time and thought and testing and paying attention to the experts in the classroom, not from yielding to whichever brand of panic-mongering is trying to stampede education in a particular direction RIGHT NOW!

Education is a house that is always filled with young humans, so burning it down is not a viable option. Radical revolution has to be tempered by concerns for the people living in the house. And yet, over the decades, the house has added electricity, indoor plumbing, all sorts of climate management, new architectural ideas. A colonial walking into a modern smart home would be awestruck (even if Grampaw is loudly complaining "Well, my house and my neighborhood in 1950 was much nicer).

There will always be a push for revolution, and there will always be a pull to take the whole business backwards (e.g. cursive writing mandates). Somewhere between "you changed too much" and "you never changed at all" is the reality, and anyone who really wants to make a positive difference in education needs to live in that reality. Anyone tossing out the panicky extremes is just trying to sell something; anyone who is arguing both extremes at once is just running a con.