Mismatch: Historical perspectives on schools and students who don't fit them

Teachers College Record

Volumn 103, Issue 4, 2001, Pages 525-547

  Deschenes, Sarah ^a   Cuban, Larry ^a   Tyack, David ^a  

^a STANFORD UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0035537315     PISSN: 01614681     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/0161-4681.00126     Document Type: Article

References (81)

1. For a full treatment of arguments about the dilution of curriculum since the early twentieth century and the case for raising standards of performance, see David L. Angus and Jeffrey E. Mirel, The Failed Promise of the American High School, 1890-1995 (New York; Teachers College Press, 1999); Diana Ravitch, The Troubled Crusade: American Education, 1945-1980 (New York: Basic Books, 1983); Ravitch and Maris Vinovskis, eds., Learning From the Past: What History Teaches Us About School Reform (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995).
2. For a full treatment of arguments about the dilution of curriculum since the early twentieth century and the case for raising standards of performance, see David L. Angus and Jeffrey E. Mirel, The Failed Promise of the American High School, 1890-1995 (New York; Teachers College Press, 1999); Diana Ravitch, The Troubled Crusade: American Education, 1945-1980 (New York: Basic Books, 1983); Ravitch and Maris Vinovskis, eds., Learning From the Past: What History Teaches Us About School Reform (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995).
3. For a full treatment of arguments about the dilution of curriculum since the early twentieth century and the case for raising standards of performance, see David L. Angus and Jeffrey E. Mirel, The Failed Promise of the American High School, 1890-1995 (New York; Teachers College Press, 1999); Diana Ravitch, The Troubled Crusade: American Education, 1945-1980 (New York: Basic Books, 1983); Ravitch and Maris Vinovskis, eds., Learning From the Past: What History Teaches Us About School Reform (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995).
4. For a discussion of current structures of failure in school systems, see Raymond P. McDermott, "Achieving School Failure 1972-1997," in George D. Spindler, ed., Education and Cultural Process: Anthropological Approaches (Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press, 1997).
5. Helen Todd, "Why Children Work: The Children's Answer," McClure's Magazine 40 (April 1913): 68-79.
6. Leonard Ayres, Laggards in Our Schools: A Study of Retardation and Elimination in City School Systems (New York: Survey Associates, 1913): 200.
7. Although it is clear that not all immigrants, working-class students, or students of ethnic and racial minority groups did poorly in school or were subject to this mismatch, the majority of the students who were labeled failures did come from these groups. This incongruity cannot be applied as a blanket explanation across the United States and across time, either. Local variation and significant differences between urban and rural schooling surely had an impact on how and whether this mismatch manifested itself in local communities. We think it is important nevertheless to take note of this inconsistency in an era when high standards, test scores, and strict accountability measures threaten the welfare of students who might still be feeling the impact of this mismatch.
8. National Commission on Excellence in Education, A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform: A Report to the Nation and the Secretary of Education (Washington, DC: Author, 1983).
9. National Research Council Committee on Appropriate Test Use, High Stakes: Testing for Tracking, Promotion, and Graduation (Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1999).
10. Michael Katz, "Education and Inequality: A Historical Perspective," in Social History and Social Policy, David Rothman and Stanton Wheeler, eds. (New York: Academic Press, 1981): 91; David Tyack, "Constructing Difference: Historical Reflections on Schooling and Social Diversity," Teachers College Record 95 (Fall 1993): 9-34.
11. Michael Katz, "Education and Inequality: A Historical Perspective," in Social History and Social Policy, David Rothman and Stanton Wheeler, eds. (New York: Academic Press, 1981): 91; David Tyack, "Constructing Difference: Historical Reflections on Schooling and Social Diversity," Teachers College Record 95 (Fall 1993): 9-34.
12. See, for example, Michael Katz, Class, Bureaucracy, and Schools: The Illusion of Educational Change in America (New York: Praeger, 1975).
13. For example, Jeannie Oakes, Keeping Track: How Schools Structure Inequality (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985).
14. Barry Franklin, From "Backwardness" to "At-Risk": Childhood Learning Difficulties and the Contradictions of Reform (Albany: SUNY Press, 1994).
15. David Tyack, The One Best System: A History of American Urban Education (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1974).
16. Oakes, 35.
17. Barry Franklin, "Progressivism and Curriculum Differentiation: Special Classes in the Atlanta Public Schools, 1898-1923," History of Education Quarterly 29 (1989): 571-593.
18. Todd, 74, 76.
19. See Tyack, "Constructing Difference" on social diversity and values.
20. For another discussion of the impact of labels for low achieving students, see Franklin, From "Backwardness" to "At-Risk."
21. Stanley J. Zehm, Educational Misfits: A Study of Poor Performers in the English Class, 1825-1925 (Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Stanford University, 1973).
22. Ibid., Appendix A.
23. Quoted in David B. Tyack, ed., Turning Points in American Educational History (Waltham, MA: Blaisdell Publishing Company, 1967): 145, 143.
24. Carl Kaestle, Pillars of the Republic (New York: Hill and Wang, 1983); David Tyack and Elisabeth Hansot, Managers of Virtue: Public School Leadership in America, 1820-1980 (New York: Basic Books, 1982).
25. Carl Kaestle, Pillars of the Republic (New York: Hill and Wang, 1983); David Tyack and Elisabeth Hansot, Managers of Virtue: Public School Leadership in America, 1820-1980 (New York: Basic Books, 1982).
26. Zehm, Educational Misfits, chapter 2; Wayne Edison Fuller, The Old Country School: The Story of Rural Education in the Middle West (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982).
27. David F. Labaree, The Making of an American High School: The Credentials Market and the Central High School of Philadelphia, 1838-1939 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988); William Reese, The Origins of the American High School (New Haven; Yale University Press, 1995); Tyack, The One Best System: A History of American Urban Education (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1974); Maris Vinovskis, History and Educational Policymaking (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999).
28. David F. Labaree, The Making of an American High School: The Credentials Market and the Central High School of Philadelphia, 1838-1939 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988); William Reese, The Origins of the American High School (New Haven; Yale University Press, 1995); Tyack, The One Best System: A History of American Urban Education (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1974); Maris Vinovskis, History and Educational Policymaking (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999).
29. David F. Labaree, The Making of an American High School: The Credentials Market and the Central High School of Philadelphia, 1838-1939 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988); William Reese, The Origins of the American High School (New Haven; Yale University Press, 1995); Tyack, The One Best System: A History of American Urban Education (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1974); Maris Vinovskis, History and Educational Policymaking (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999).
30. David F. Labaree, The Making of an American High School: The Credentials Market and the Central High School of Philadelphia, 1838-1939 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988); William Reese, The Origins of the American High School (New Haven; Yale University Press, 1995); Tyack, The One Best System: A History of American Urban Education (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1974); Maris Vinovskis, History and Educational Policymaking (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999).
31. Barbara Jean Finkelstein, "Governing the Young: Teacher Behavior in American Primary Schools, 1820-1880: A Documentary History" (Unpublished dissertation, Teachers College, Columbia University, 1970): 134-35.
32. Ayres, Laggards in Our Schools, 3, 14, 72, 88.
33. Lewis Terman, The Measurement of Intelligence (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1916); Terman, Intelligence Tests and School Reorganization (Yonkers-on-Hudson: World Book, 1922); Paul Davis Chapman, Schools as Sorters: Lewis M. Terman, Applied Psychology, and the Intelligence Testing Movement, 1890-1930 (New York: New York University Press, 1988).
34. Lewis Terman, The Measurement of Intelligence (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1916); Terman, Intelligence Tests and School Reorganization (Yonkers-on-Hudson: World Book, 1922); Paul Davis Chapman, Schools as Sorters: Lewis M. Terman, Applied Psychology, and the Intelligence Testing Movement, 1890-1930 (New York: New York University Press, 1988).
35. Lewis Terman, The Measurement of Intelligence (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1916); Terman, Intelligence Tests and School Reorganization (Yonkers-on-Hudson: World Book, 1922); Paul Davis Chapman, Schools as Sorters: Lewis M. Terman, Applied Psychology, and the Intelligence Testing Movement, 1890-1930 (New York: New York University Press, 1988).
36. Zehm, Educational Misfits.
37. Quoted in Zehm, Educational Misfits, 200.
38. Terman, The Measure of Intelligence, Terman, Intelligence Tests and School Reorganization; Joel Spring, Education and the Rise of the Corporate State (Boston: Beacon Press, 1972); Clarence J. Karier, Paul C. Violas, and Joel Spring, Roots of Crisis: American Education in the Twentieth Century (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1973).
39. Terman, The Measure of Intelligence, Terman, Intelligence Tests and School Reorganization; Joel Spring, Education and the Rise of the Corporate State (Boston: Beacon Press, 1972); Clarence J. Karier, Paul C. Violas, and Joel Spring, Roots of Crisis: American Education in the Twentieth Century (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1973).
40. Terman, The Measure of Intelligence, Terman, Intelligence Tests and School Reorganization; Joel Spring, Education and the Rise of the Corporate State (Boston: Beacon Press, 1972); Clarence J. Karier, Paul C. Violas, and Joel Spring, Roots of Crisis: American Education in the Twentieth Century (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1973).
41. Terman, The Measure of Intelligence, Terman, Intelligence Tests and School Reorganization; Joel Spring, Education and the Rise of the Corporate State (Boston: Beacon Press, 1972); Clarence J. Karier, Paul C. Violas, and Joel Spring, Roots of Crisis: American Education in the Twentieth Century (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1973).
42. Oscar T. Corson, Our Public Schools, Their Teachers, Pupils, and Patrons (New York: American Book Company, 1920).
43. Tyack, The One Best System.
44. William Ryan, Blaming the Victim (New York: Pantheon Books, 1971); Robert G. Newby and David Tyack, "Victims Without 'Crimes': Some Historical Perspectives on Black Education," Journal of Negro Education 40 (Summer 1971): 192-206.
45. William Ryan, Blaming the Victim (New York: Pantheon Books, 1971); Robert G. Newby and David Tyack, "Victims Without 'Crimes': Some Historical Perspectives on Black Education," Journal of Negro Education 40 (Summer 1971): 192-206.
46. Zehm, Educational Misfits.
47. Tyack and Hansot, Managers of Virtue, part 3.
48. See Tyack, "Constructing Difference" for discussion of individual versus group identity in the history of education and social diversity.
49. Ryan, Blaming the Victim; Terman, Intelligence Tests and School Reorganization; Karier, Violas, and Spring, Roots of Crisis.
50. Ryan, Blaming the Victim; Terman, Intelligence Tests and School Reorganization; Karier, Violas, and Spring, Roots of Crisis.
51. Ryan, Blaming the Victim; Terman, Intelligence Tests and School Reorganization; Karier, Violas, and Spring, Roots of Crisis.
52. See David Wallace Adams, Education for Extinction: American Indians and the Boarding School Experience, 1875-1928 (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1995).
53. Marvin Lazerson, Origins of the Urban School: Public Education in Massachusetts, 1870-1915 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971).
54. David Tyack and Michael Berkowitz, "The Man Nobody Liked: Toward a Social History of the Truant Officer, 1840-1940," American Quarterly 26 (1977): 321-354.
55. Frank Forest Bunker, Reorganization of the Public School System, U.S. Bureau of Education Bulletin No. 8 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1916); Lawrence A. Cremin, The Transformation of the School: Progressivism in American Education, 1876-1957 (New York: Knopf, 1961).
56. Frank Forest Bunker, Reorganization of the Public School System, U.S. Bureau of Education Bulletin No. 8 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1916); Lawrence A. Cremin, The Transformation of the School: Progressivism in American Education, 1876-1957 (New York: Knopf, 1961).
57. Edward A. Krug, The Shaping of the American High School (New York: Harper & Row, 1964); Ellwood P. Cubberley, Changing Conceptions of Education (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1909).
58. Edward A. Krug, The Shaping of the American High School (New York: Harper & Row, 1964); Ellwood P. Cubberley, Changing Conceptions of Education (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1909).
59. William H. Dooley, The Education of the Ne'er-Do-Well (Cambridge: Houghton Mifflin, 1916).
60. Leonard Covello, The Heart Is the Teacher (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1958).
61. John Ogbu, Minority Education and Caste (New York: Academic Press, 1982); Kenneth Clark, Dark Ghetto (New York: Harper & Row, 1965); Elizabeth Eddy, Walk the White Line: A Profile of Urban Education (Garden City: Doubeday, 1967); William Labov, The Social Stratification of English in New York City (Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics, 1982); Raymond P. McDermott, Kids Make Sense, Ph.D. dissertation, Stanford University, 1976.
62. John Ogbu, Minority Education and Caste (New York: Academic Press, 1982); Kenneth Clark, Dark Ghetto (New York: Harper & Row, 1965); Elizabeth Eddy, Walk the White Line: A Profile of Urban Education (Garden City: Doubeday, 1967); William Labov, The Social Stratification of English in New York City (Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics, 1982); Raymond P. McDermott, Kids Make Sense, Ph.D. dissertation, Stanford University, 1976.
63. John Ogbu, Minority Education and Caste (New York: Academic Press, 1982); Kenneth Clark, Dark Ghetto (New York: Harper & Row, 1965); Elizabeth Eddy, Walk the White Line: A Profile of Urban Education (Garden City: Doubeday, 1967); William Labov, The Social Stratification of English in New York City (Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics, 1982); Raymond P. McDermott, Kids Make Sense, Ph.D. dissertation, Stanford University, 1976.
64. John Ogbu, Minority Education and Caste (New York: Academic Press, 1982); Kenneth Clark, Dark Ghetto (New York: Harper & Row, 1965); Elizabeth Eddy, Walk the White Line: A Profile of Urban Education (Garden City: Doubeday, 1967); William Labov, The Social Stratification of English in New York City (Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics, 1982); Raymond P. McDermott, Kids Make Sense, Ph.D. dissertation, Stanford University, 1976.
65. John Ogbu, Minority Education and Caste (New York: Academic Press, 1982); Kenneth Clark, Dark Ghetto (New York: Harper & Row, 1965); Elizabeth Eddy, Walk the White Line: A Profile of Urban Education (Garden City: Doubeday, 1967); William Labov, The Social Stratification of English in New York City (Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics, 1982); Raymond P. McDermott, Kids Make Sense, Ph.D. dissertation, Stanford University, 1976.
66. James Banks, Multicultural Education (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1989); Ray C. Rist, The Urban School: a Factory for Failure (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1973); Shirley Brice Heath, Ways with Words: Language, Life, and Work in Communies and Classrooms (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983); K. Au, "Participation Structures in a Reading Lesson with Hawaiian Children: Analysis of a Culturally Appropriate Instructional Event," Anthropology and Education Quarterly 11, 1980.
67. James Banks, Multicultural Education (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1989); Ray C. Rist, The Urban School: a Factory for Failure (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1973); Shirley Brice Heath, Ways with Words: Language, Life, and Work in Communies and Classrooms (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983); K. Au, "Participation Structures in a Reading Lesson with Hawaiian Children: Analysis of a Culturally Appropriate Instructional Event," Anthropology and Education Quarterly 11, 1980.
68. James Banks, Multicultural Education (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1989); Ray C. Rist, The Urban School: a Factory for Failure (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1973); Shirley Brice Heath, Ways with Words: Language, Life, and Work in Communies and Classrooms (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983); K. Au, "Participation Structures in a Reading Lesson with Hawaiian Children: Analysis of a Culturally Appropriate Instructional Event," Anthropology and Education Quarterly 11, 1980.
69. James Banks, Multicultural Education (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1989); Ray C. Rist, The Urban School: a Factory for Failure (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1973); Shirley Brice Heath, Ways with Words: Language, Life, and Work in Communies and Classrooms (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983); K. Au, "Participation Structures in a Reading Lesson with Hawaiian Children: Analysis of a Culturally Appropriate Instructional Event," Anthropology and Education Quarterly 11, 1980.
70. National Research Council, High Stakes.
71. Robert C. Johnson, "Turning Up the Heat," Education Week, January 11, 1999; National Research Council, High Stakes.
72. Robert C. Johnson, "Turning Up the Heat," Education Week, January 11, 1999; National Research Council, High Stakes.
73. Robert M. Hauser, "What If We Ended Social Promotion?" Education Week, April 7, 1999.
74. Quoted in M. Sandra Reeves, "'Self-Interest and the Common Weal': Focusing on the Bottom Half," Education Week, April 27, 1988, 21.
75. John Goodlad, The Non-Graded Elementary School (New York: Teachers College Press, 1987).
76. Dewey, The School and Society (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1909).
77. John W. Meyer, The Impact of the Centralization of Educational Funding and Control of State and Local Organizational Governance (Stanford: Institute for Research on Educational Finance and Governance, 1980).
78. Covello, The Heart Is the Teacher.
79. See Lisbeth B. Schorr, Common Purpose: Strengthening Families and Neighborhoods to Rebuild America (New York: Anchor Books, 1997).
80. Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, An Imperiled Generation: Saving Urban Schools (Princeton, NJ: Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 1988).
81. Covello, The Heart Is the Teacher, 124.