Article#5 >>>>> The Origins and Consequences of Wretched Public Education Throughout the United States

The Endurance of Academically Substantive Curriculum Amidst Warning Signals from Anti-Knowledge Education Professors, 1920-1970

Five decades ensued before the insidious anti-knowledge creed emanating from Teachers College/Columbia University--- and then education schools across the nation--- became the dominant influence in curriculun and pedagogy in the United States.

Knowledge-based, well-specified curriculum taught by subject area specialists continued to dominate in  school districts of the United States well into the 1960s.  Teachers varied in quality, and those of true excellence were not properly remunerated, but the ideal of knowledge-based education consonant with the Thomas Jefferson-Horace Mann vision persisted.  

Teachers in training had to endure anti-knowledge ideology spouted by education professors in courses necessary for certification, but most secondary teachers earned bachelor's degrees in major academic disciplines and, when they sought master's degrees, they did so in legitimate, field-specific, academic departments (mathematics, biology, chemistry, physics, history, political science, English literature, music, visual art, particular world language).

Elementary teachers had to endure more time spent with education professors, but the curriculum taught in their school districts featured specified knowledge and skill sets that imparted to students information in mathematics, natural science, history, geography, literature, spelling, grammar, and calligraphy.  And as was the case with many secondary teachers of this era, discrimination in business and the professions drove many a brilliant woman toward teaching and into the classroom.

The misappropriation of the appellation, "progressive," eventually belied by unprogressive consequences for students, was also revealed in the racism and classism demonstrated in the writing and pronouncements of many education professors.  The anti-knowledge creed took different forms in the course of 1920-1970 with, though, an array of consistently anti-progressive notions at each stage expressing doubt that African Americans and those immigrants from eastern and southern Europe were capable.of mastering academic subjects  >>>>>

Tracking according to academic versus  vocational curriculum was common, with typically those of western European provenance considered most fit for academic, college preparatory study. 

This racist, anti-immigrant attitude was an early and abiding signal that the moniker, "progressive," was ridiculous nomenclature for the ideology promulgated by education professors.

More unfortunate signals loomed in the 1960s and in the disaster that defined public education during 1970-2021.