“Confessions of a School Reformer”(Part 1)
I am drafting chapters for my next book with the above title. I described the idea of the book and my experiences in the Pittsburgh schools during the Progressive reform era (see the five-part series “We Are All Reformers”on this blog).
In alternating chapters, the book will describe and analyze each of three reform movements during my lifetime and then trace my life in and out of school as a student, teacher, administrator and researcher who experienced these reforms for over three-quarters of a century.
Since 1939 when I entered first grade until 2020, three major reform efforts have swept across American public schools: the Progressive movement (1890s-1940s); Civil Rights movement (1950s-1970s), and business-inspired standards, testing, and accountability movement (1970s-present).
I have completed a draft chapter of my years as a teacher (1955-1972) in three school districts during the Civil Rights movement. I begin the multi-part series with this post. Comments appreciated.
As a teacher I was not a civil rights activist. While I did participate in a few marches, I was never arrested at a demonstration. Nor did I join any organizations at the forefront of the movement. I did work, however, for a few months at the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, a federal agency committed to desegregated schools in the 1960s. It was a disaster (see below).
While my wife Barbara and I contributed to civil rights groups and moved our family into an integrated Washington, D.C. neighborhood, my public CONTINUE READING: “Confessions of a School Reformer”(Part 1) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice