The Legacy of an Influential Yet Often Forgotten Study
Boxes of tarnished trophies and other long-forgotten memorabilia symbolizing East High School's earliest sports triumphs lie in storage, replaced in school display cases by the honors bestowed on more recent generations. Even fewer traces of the Denver school's academic legacy endure.
No plaques identify it as one of 30 schools and school districts initially selected for the historic experiment in high school curriculum that came to be known as the Eight-Year Study. And today's administrators, teachers, and students are virtually unaware of the national reputation for innovation that their school earned some six decades ago.
But there is some evidence, however scant, that the study begun in 1932, and ending in 1940, has had a lasting impact on East and other high schools throughout the country. The project allowed participating schools and districts to depart from the college-preparatory curriculum that dominated secondary education and to design courses and programs that better related to the...
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