In the Beginning: The 1893 Report of the Committee of Ten (1893) Creating the Comprehensive High School (1959)

In the Beginning: The 1893 Report of the Committee of Ten (1893) 

Creating the Comprehensive High School (1959)

Its hard to believe that in 1890 only 6.7 percent of fourteen to seventeen year olds attended high school and today in 2010 it is mandatory for anyone under the age of sixteen to attend school. Growing up being forced to wake up early everyday to go to school definitely made me detest the whole education process but reading this has made me realize how much work and time went into creating the subjects and purpose of secondary schools. I never took the time to realize all the factors that go into creating the guidelines of education or what goes into creating the course schedule. Things like how many hours a week should school, what topics should we study, should we be required to graduate high school and go into college level courses, etc. So many issues had to be covered in order to create the educational system that most of us take advantage of because of the time that we have to wake up in the morning or the work we have to do at home. In most of the matters brought before the conferences, that took place to created the guidelines of education that we still follow today, the decision of the conference was unanimous. This is incredible when you consider the different institutions, professional experiences and personalities represented in each meeting. This holds great weight because deciding on what type of pizza to get at a slumber party with five different girls can get tricky enough with all the different personalities and preferences, and that is only pizza, I cant even fathom creating an entire system of education and having the decisions be unanimous for the most part.  

I had no idea the high school I went to in known as a “specialized” high school, New World provided a vocational education and admits students on a very selective basis. But a comprehensive high school is much different. Comprehensive high schools have three main objectives; to provide a general education, provide good elective programs and to provide satisfactory programs for those whose future depends on this education that will lead them into a university. James B. Conant, a former leading education researcher in the United States, did a survey and found eight schools that were in his judgement satisfactory in fulfilling the these three main objectives. What I found interesting were his results on gender in these schools. The academic inventory showed that more than half of the academically talented boys had studied at least seven years of mathematics, science, English and social studies while in no school had a majority of academically talented girls studied that same amount. But on the other hand boys did not choose to study more than two years of a foreign language while a majority of the girls studied foreign language for three or more years. I find these findings fascinating given the gender unit we just finished with, and I wonder if we studied more into these findings if gender role is a larger issue not just in how we act and what we do but also in what we choose to study.