Americans in the 20th century made tremendous efforts to create, in the words of Noah Webster, "a system of education that should embrace every part of the community."
In January 1999, Education Week began a yearlong series chronicling the successes and setbacks in those efforts over the past 100 years. Lessons of a Century appeared in 10 monthly installments, both in the print edition and on the World Wide Web. The series, now complete, examines all aspects of the educational landscape--people, trends, historical milestones, enduring controversies--with an emphasis on their continuing relevance. Essays by leading scholars and other observers offer additional perspective.
You can read all 10 parts here as they originally appeared in Education Week on the Web by choosing selections on this page, or you can order the softbound book from our Products & Services Special Reports page.
The 100 entries in this last installment of
Lessons of a Century show how forces and thinkers far removed from the classroom often shape what happens when the teacher closes the door and the pupils open their books.
December 15, 1999 – Education Week
Influential figures from this decade in American education.
December 15, 1999 – Education Week
Influential figures from this decade in American education.
December 15, 1999 – Education Week
Influential figures from this decade in American education.
December 15, 1999 – Education Week
Influential figures from this decade in American education.
December 15, 1999 – Education Week
Influential figures from this decade in American education.
December 15, 1999 – Education Week
Featured persons who helped shape 20th century American education.
December 15, 1999 – Education Week (Web)
Before the 20th century, education was a decidedly local affair. The young American democracy, which had grown up in opposition to the hierarchies of Europe, operated on the simple premise of keeping government limited and close to home. Local citizens decided whether to have schools, raised the money, hired the teachers, and chose which books to use. They also elected lay leaders, in the form of local school trustees, to oversee the job.
November 17, 1999 – Education Week
In 1900, when the town of Stow in eastern Massachusetts was paying Josephine Newhall the less-than-princely sum of $323 to teach three grades for one semester, the townspeople more than likely picked up the tab.
November 17, 1999 – Education Week
When a former student and colleague sought an affectionate nickname for Ellwood P. Cubberley, the Stanford University professor who would become one of the century's most influential educators, the young man chose "Dad." The name stuck, and from about 1903 to his retirement in 1933, "Dad" was how Cubberley was known to his students.
November 17, 1999 – Education Week
It was a moment steeped in symbolism. President Lyndon B. Johnson stood before the one-room schoolhouse in Stonewall, Texas, that he once attended. Flanked by his former teacher at the school, he signed into law the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
November 17, 1999 – Education Week
Who should be in charge of the publish schools, and how should they be run?
November 17, 1999 – Education Week
Without a system of local control by elected trustees in the 19th century, this country might not have created the most comprehensive and popular system of public education in the world.
November 17, 1999 – Education Week
American education grew up from the community outward. From Colonial
times onward, local citizens built the schools, raised the money, hired
the teachers, and chose which books to use. They also elected local
leaders to oversee the job.
November 17, 1999 – Education Week
Andover has remained true to its mission of building character while preparing students for college.
October 20, 1999 – Education Week
The term "private school" had only recently entered the lexicon of American education at the end of the 19th century. Earlier in the nation's history, few distinctions were made between institutions based on how they were financed and governed. But when the "common school" arrived on the scene, any school that did not fit that mold suddenly seemed different.
October 20, 1999 – Education Week
In November 1884, America's Roman Catholic bishops assembled in Baltimore for a series of meetings. They debated topics ranging from the appointment of church leaders to the burial of members of their flocks in non-Catholic cemeteries.
October 20, 1999 – Education Week
As ferocious as today's debate is over private school vouchers, it may be surprising that early in the history of the republic, American religious schools periodically received generous public funding.
October 20, 1999 – Education Week
American schools have long been polite places where no one confronts anyone else too directly.
September 15, 1999 – Education Week
Opal McAlister was young, ambitious, and grateful when she took her first teaching job in 1923. One teacher's journey from Calvin Coolidge to Gerald Ford.
September 15, 1999 – Education Week
In 1857, the year the National Education Association was founded, teacher and lecturer William Russell made a bold proposal: Give teachers control over entry into their profession.
September 15, 1999 – Education Week
In a world that likes to pigeonhole people, Albert Shanker was a paradox.
September 15, 1999 – Education Week
The men and women charged with educating the nation's young people occupy a special place in American society. Teaching has long been considered more than just a job--even a calling.
September 15, 1999 – Education Week
The century was young when the activist Margaret Haley dared to speak from the floor of the National Education Association's convention in Detroit, challenging the assertions made by its president. Teachers, she complained, were grossly underpaid.
September 15, 1999 – Education Week
Over the century, students have been faced with various forms of assessments. What follows is a sampling of questions; wording and punctuation are as they appeared to test-takers.
June 16, 1999 – Education Week
How the standardized testing of students grew into a big business.
June 16, 1999 – Education Week
Over the 20th century, the tests designed to measure what students know have changed like the seasons, but one thing has remained a constant: the tool necessary to record such measurement--the lead pencil.
June 16, 1999 – Education Week
Come every spring, Texas students from the 3rd to the 10th grades take the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills.
June 16, 1999 – Education Week
Standards, tests, and accountability programs are today's favored tools for raising overall academic achievement. Testing policies are also meant to increase equity, to give poor and minority students a fairer chance by making expectations clear and providing instruction geared to them. In practice, though, it is proving hard to meet the twin goals of equity and higher achievement. This is because our schools are trapped in a set of beliefs about the nature of ability and aptitude that makes it hard to evoke effective academic effort from students and educators.
June 16, 1999 – Education Week
Three pioneers of the testing field: Thorndike, Terman, and Yerkes.
June 16, 1999 – Education Week
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