Conrad Johnson

Education 355 – 001

Dr. Diaz

February 22, 2011

Journal

Part IV: Centralization and the Corporate Model: Contests for Control of Urban School

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Part V: Inside the System: The Character of Urban Schools

            While I was reading part iv of Tyack’s book, he stated that “ from the 1870’s forward reformers like Philbrick and partrician businessman Charles Francis Adams wanted to establish small “non-political” boards which would delegate the actual administration of the school experts. Was he trying to say that during this time there was too much political influence into the school system? I feel having too much political influence in the school system would make it more of a business instead of having the children interest at best. Then he also stated that “school boards after centralization were overwhelmingly composed of business and professional men. During my reading a part reminded me of Paulo Friere’s Banking System of Education when Tyack mentioned “too many reformers thought the school systems was being run as if it was a bank or the National Cash Register Company. In 1917, the National Education Association (NEA) was reorganized to better mobilize and represent teachers and educational staff.

            In the last part of Tyack’s book I read some interesting information, some I could not believe that it really happened. It was shocking to me to see that teachers were paid so little to teach students back then. Tyack mentioned that while ethnic differences in retardation and retention were cloudy, he found clear sex differences: 13 percent more boys repeated grades than girls, and 17 percent more girls completed elementary school. At such a young age why were boys being held back, what were they doing that was not enabling them to function in school to excel to the next grade. It was stated in the text that the schools were far better fitted to the needs of the girls than they are to those of the boys. Part V had alarming data, such as, the children of immigrants constituted 63 percent of the pupils in the slow track, 36 percent in the normal group, and 26 percent in the fast.  Also in the text it was saying depending on how long such an immigrant was in the country would determine the child’s retardation rate. An example is among children of immigrants whose fathers had lived for twenty years or more in the United States, the children of Russian Jews had a retardation rate of only 29.7 percent as compared with a rate of 55.4 percent for South Italians.