Talk:History of education in the United States

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[edit] Improvement

The article has a nice bibliography. Next it needs an outline, then--finally--some text. I'll try working on it.Rjensen 04:46, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

I added some information from Education in the United States that should be here, but it may need some major cleanup. --Zenosaga 16:36, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] History?

It seems the bulk of this article is not about the "history" of U.S. education so much as it is about the current state of education in the U.S. under NCLB. I know there are only so many hours in a day, and I'm not volunteering to clean things up because I'm not qualified to do so. I found this article because I was looking for information.

To whom it may concern, I found an informative article that might be of some use in that the author has done what someone seems to be attempting to do here, condensing a broad spectrum of facts, but does so without sacrificing cohesion. The article flows like a story and is thus a pleasant read without being light on substance. I have not checked the sources for accuracy, but if the article is accurate, it might be a useful source of inspiration for anyone wishing to breathe some life into the "history" section of this history article.

It also provides some perspective on the so-called struggle over separation of church and state as it has been played out in the field of education, demonstrating that this was a source of friction from the very beginning.

I hate to be a back-seat driver, but here's the article, if anyone's interested.

http://www.servintfree.net/~aidmn-ejournal/publications/2001-11/PublicEducationInTheUnitedStates.html


Here's my four tildes: 220.45.182.173 01:18, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Thomas Jefferson

Greetings, there's no mention about Thomas Jefferson in the article and how he helped start and funded the public education throughout the country and helped build the University of Virginia. He thought that public education should be a universal right to everyone no matter what class not a privelage to the wealthy elite. He thought it was important in order for the country to succeed. Otherwise it would have been a backwater country full of mostly low educated ignorants like in the Dark Ages or Medieval Times. The main reason Thomas Jefferson became bankrupt is because of funding support for Public Education and founding the University of Virginia. I saw all of this in the TV show History Detectives who found a document signed by Thomas Jefferson concerning public education. I don't think I'm a good wiki writer but for the people who regularly maintains this article should make a mention about him.--Pilot expert 08:40, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cleanup?

I was looking for some information for a bulletin board about the history of education, so I began to read through the article for some paragraphs I could utilize. This read-through convinced me of the need for a cleanup of this page.

For instance, I quote from the Standardized Testing portion of the NCLB section:

"On the other hand the subjects that are not measured with No Child Left Behind are the following: History, Civics, Music, and Physical Education. Granted these subjects are hard to calculate but subjects like these impact a student’s life. Not just with their life but they also have effect on their achievements."

I teach English at the high school level, and this feels like the writing of my students--incomplete sentences, interjection of opinion, mishandled punctuation, etc. I haven't got the time to edit it fully myself, but I figured I'd mention the need.

I also agree that this article seems dominated by the current state of Education. This should be a latter section or footnote, not the main bulk of the article. The history covers to about 1925 then vanishes until NCLB appears. What about the intervening 80 years?

Dan P, Amherst MA, 10/4/2007 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.119.122.151 (talk) 20:39, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

poor article... --77.179.92.57 16:51, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
User:77.179.92.57 I reverted your wholesale deletion today. It would be better not to delete large sections which you find unacceptable without either 1) explaining your deletion on the discussion page or 2) providing an improved edit. You may be correct in simply deleting the material, but generally you will find greater acceptance for your deletions/edits when working with other editors to improve the article. Also, you may consider drafting an improved article on your own sandbox page and then seeking review of it before transferring and replacing this article. Let me know if I can be of assistance in your efforts to improve the page. --Storm Rider (talk) 16:56, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for your note. Kinda surprised someone actually tries to talk to me rather than just reverting it;-) I do know how wikipedia works and so I've come to the conclusion it would be best to simply throw out this part. I've made the experience that sometimes it is better to rewrite parts and even articles completely instead of trying to save material from the old one. But this case is different. I believe the whole part about the No Child Left Behind Act is not what you would look for when reading about the history of education in the US. So there's no need to put up a sandbox for trying to save anything of that essay. There is a separate article which is long enough itself. The need for cleanup has been voiced several times on this talk page but nothing has happened so I volunteered for a start (Wikipedia:Be bold). Neither in the history nor on the talk page I could make out someone who actually cares for the article. I also don't believe in templates crying for help or cleanup or whatever. By the way, there is no need for the bibliography section since there is another article for that too. If anyone wants to have a small paragraph about the NCLB-Act - well, go ahead and look for material in the article history. Other than that, I would say this section should be deleted completely. So yes, you can be of assistance in my efforts to improve the page. Just let me delete the whole section;-) --77.179.92.57 17:27, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
There is significant support for allowing a cncerned editor more freedom for orphaned articles. I appreciate your willingness to explain your edits in the edit summary and encourage you do continue doing so; but when you make large deletions it may still cause other editors to revert you. Just be prudent in your editing; also point people to the discussion page so that they can see your logic and then more easily agree or disagree.
Wouldn't you think that the NCLB policy should go in the history of education to address it's supposed departure from the past? If nothing else a short statement plus a link to No Child Left Behind Act should be sufficient.
The only other thing I can offer is that it is easier to destroy than to create; your continued focus on improving the article is appreciated! Cheers. --Storm Rider (talk) 20:35, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
well, that's what I wrote as a hidden comment in the text. I left one sentence about the NCLB linking to it and then I wrote something like there should be two more sentences describing the NCLB. Sorry, but did you look closely or did you just revert when you saw large parts of the article deleted? So there might be a short paragraph explain what is becoming different but compared to the "time frame of history" of education in the US it is still current events and heavily debated. There is so much more what one would expect from an article "History of education in the US" but I'm not an expert so I don't feel I can contribute a lot. But I do know for sure that all this NCLB stuff doesn't belong here. So will you let me delete it now? ;-) Otherwise you could put in some templates and hope for someone's attention but as I already pointed out I don't believe in such templates. I found it too often that it doesn't help at all. (same thing as with this stupid rating of articles and "this article is part of project: blah" and an attempt to create...) --77.179.89.30 15:57, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_education_in_the_United_States:_Bibliography

Some content is duplicated at the above page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.246.0.173 (talk) 10:34, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Claims about Catholic parochial education

This needs to be supported by sources. There was more than one reason why Catholic immigrants wanted their children educated in Catholic schools - they were trying to preserve religion, which is somewhat different than "resisting assimilation". Also, in many areas, Irish, the first major group of Catholic immigrants, were subject to much hostility. They set up the first Catholic schools and universities, and dominated the Catholic Church in America for decades.--Parkwells (talk) 20:30, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Differences between colonies and regions

There were documented differences between the New England colonies and Chesapeake Bay colonies in their approaches to education before the Revolution, and between the regions in the 19th century, which should be more recognized by this article. Public education was much more widespread in the North and support for education and literacy was part of the culture.--Parkwells (talk) 22:45, 26 March 2008 (UTC)