The History of The School System in The United States

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Introduction Education experts have spent many years planning and revising learning material and assessment tools to meet the ever-changing social and economical teaching and learning demands in the United States. Rapid growth in technology means that change is constant in the field of education. Educators learn very quickly that change is one aspect of their position that is inevitable, and that effective transformation by stakeholders at every level is necessary in keeping with these demands. Whether one approaches the crisis in American schooling from the perspective of experience in schools, or from analysis of the market forces in the private sector and the factors necessary for institutional innovation, or from the movement to empower poor and minority communities, it is clear that what we call “public education” must change (Grego, 2011). The history of the school system in the United States shows that the standard for teaching was centered on meeting the challenges of both the Agricultural Age and the Industrial Age, and according to Duffy (2010), was a fixed approach to teaching, designed for sorting students rather than for learning, in order to educate large numbers of children and to determine laborers from managers. However, the Knowledge Age is requiring stakeholders to reevaluate the requirements necessary for educating our children going forward. This societal paradigm shift is large and pervasive, requiring institutions to co evolve in creating more customized approaches to organization design, serving customers, and providing services so that students can succeed in the twenty-first century Knowledge Age (Duffy, 2010). The purpose of this paper is to share a planned and an unplanned change that has tak... ... middle of paper ... ...m! Create! Sustain! Mastering the art and science of transforming school systems. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Grego, D. (2011). The changing meaning of "public education" in Milwaukee: Converting a school system into a system of schools. Encounter, 24(3), 1-10. Huang, T., Beachum, F. D., White, G. P., Kaimal, G., Fitzgerald, A., & Reed, P. (2012). Preparing urban school leaders: What works?. Planning & Changing, 43(1/2), 72-95. Office of Vocational and Adult Education. (2012). Investing in America's future: A blueprint for transforming career and technical education. Office Of Vocational And Adult Education, US Department Of Education. Retrieved from http://www.eric.ed.gov/contentdelivery/servlet/ERICServlet?accno=ED532493 Richter, K. B., & Reigeluth, C. M. (2007). Systematic transformation in public school systems. The F. M. Duffy Reports, 12(4), 1-24.

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