Nearly all Americans who receive a secondary education do so in one of the nation's 26,500 high schools. Some enter the high school after 8 years of \Tprimary education\t and attend for 4 years, whereas others enter the senior high school after 2 or 3 years attendance at a junior high school (see \Tmiddle schools and junior high schools\t) and attend for 3 years. The American high school is a 19th-century invention, but traditions of secondary education date back to the original colonies.

early forms of secondary education

Grammar Schools.

The Boston Latin School, established in 1635 by the Puritans, was founded to prepare students for Harvard College. Such early grammar schools assumed that children were literate upon entry. Only boys were admitted, at about 8 years of age. Their popularity had declined by the end of the 17th century, and many towns refused to support them. Many parents sent their children to private schools that gave instruction in writing and arithmetic to prepare them for trades. Whether secondary education should prepare students for college or equip them with practical skills for the marketplace has been an enduring question.

Academies.

The academy preceded the grammar school, coexisted with it for a while, and then lost its patrons. Created in 17th-century England to meet changing social and economic conditions, the academy offered a curriculum that included that of the grammar school--Greek and Latin grammar, Hebrew, logic, rhetoric, and other languages--as well as practical subjects suited to the then-emerging mercantile society. By 1850, at least 6,000 academies existed. Many of these admitted women, and some offered training in commercial subjects. Academies were not accessible to all students, however, and with the advent of the high school, their popularity declined. A few academies that have remained are independent secondary schools.

High Schools.

Boston's English High School (1824), originally opened in 1821 as the English Classical School, was probably the first high school in the United States. Boston opened a high school for girls in 1826 but closed it 2 years later. Girls were then offered additional schooling in the common schools. In 1827, James G. Carter convinced the Massachusetts legislature to require towns with 500 or more families to offer instruction in algebra, American history, bookkeeping, geometry, and surveying. Towns that had a population of 4,000 or more were required to add instruction in Latin, Greek, general history, rhetoric, and logic. The law was not observed in most towns but did serve as a model for other states. By the time of the Civil War about 300 high schools had been founded in the United States.

After the Michigan Supreme Court ruled in 1874 that it was constitutional for a school district to maintain tax-supported public high schools, the academy began to give way to the high school as the most popular form of secondary education. In 1880 the nation had about 800 high schools, and by 1890, at least 2,500. In 1890 high school enrollment (203,000) was more than twice as great as the enrollment in the academies (95,000). The percentage of the population aged 14-17 attending high school was, however, only 7%. Nonetheless, there was considerable debate about the purpose of the high school. Some thought of the high school, as W. R. Garrett said, as a "people's college" that would "level the distinction between the rich and the poor" and serve all classes. Others saw it as a preparatory school for the colleges.

In 1892 the National Education Association appointed a Committee of Ten, with Charles William \TEliot\t as its chairman, to examine the teaching of high school subjects. An important question addressed by the committee was: "Should the subject be treated differently for those who are going to college, for those who are going to scientific school, and for those who, presumably, are going to neither?" The committee concluded that those subjects which best prepared students for college were equally suited to prepare them to enter nonacademic jobs. The committee advised against separate curricula for those who were not planning to attend college. Students were allowed to choose electives, but only from those specified in the four curricula the committee suggested: the classical, the Latin-scientific, modern languages, and English. The emphasis on the study of languages was consistent with traditional forms of secondary education, but the committee did not agree that the study of Latin and Greek constituted the best possible education. Greek was required in only the classical curriculum, and Latin was required in only two curricula, the classical and the Latin-scientific. Algebra, geometry, physics, chemistry, and history were required in all.

The committee's recommendations met with resistance. Those who had adopted the views of Herbert \TSpencer\t believed that science and practical subjects should receive greater emphasis. Some charged that the committee had founded its curricula on the erroneous belief that training in one subject would make students proficient at other tasks. In 1901, Edward L. \TThorndike\t and Robert S. Woodworth published the results of their studies on "transfer of learning." They reported that training in one task was not likely to lead to improvement in the performance of another task unless there was a clear similarity between them. The controversy about the purpose and the curriculum of the high school continued. Contrary to the recommendation of the Committee of Ten, high schools began to add commercial and vocational curricula.

the creation of the modern high school

Standardization of secondary education was achieved in the early 20th century. In 1901 college entrance examinations began to assume a standardized form when the College Entrance Examination Board of the Middle States and Maryland gave its first examinations. The "Carnegie unit" came into being in 1909 when Charles W. Eliot, chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, persuaded educators to agree that a unit would consist of 120 hours of instruction or one-fourth of a year's work and that a year's work in high school should consist of not more than 4 full units. When colleges agreed to exclude students who had not completed 14 or 16 units, the high school diploma became the entrance pass to college. As colleges specified which subjects students needed for admission, the electives available to students were effectively limited. Thus high school students were segregated according to their socioeconomic standing, and the high school became susceptible to charges that it denied true equality of opportunity.

Vocational Education.

Attempts to render the high school something more than a school for college preparation have persisted. At the turn of the century, social problems prompted many reformers to turn to \Tvocational education\t. In 1906 the National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education was formed and began to lobby for vocational education, which, it claimed, was a "wise business investment for this nation." Its efforts were successful in 1917 when President Woodrow Wilson signed the Smith-Hughes Bill.

The Smith-Hughes Act provided funds to the states on a matching basis to support high school programs in agricultural education, home economics education, and vocational programs. The vocational education movement had a significant impact on secondary education, convincing many Americans that the primary purpose of the secondary school was to prepare students for the marketplace. A recent development in vocational education is \Tcareer education\t.

Social Principles of Secondary Education.

Americans received an enduring statement about the purpose of secondary education in 1918 when the National Education Association's Commission on the Reorganization of Secondary Education presented its report, The Cardinal Principles of Secondary Education. The CRSE's recommendation that all children remain in high school until age 18 was not accepted immediately. It was not until 1930 that more than half of children aged 14-17 years were enrolled in secondary schools. The figure was merely 15% in 1910 and 32% in 1920. Enrollments continued to increase during succeeding decades: 73% in 1940; 77% in 1950; 87% in 1960; and 94% in 1970.

Secondary education, claimed the CRSE, should be shaped by changing social and economic conditions, the characters of the students, and knowledge of educational theory and practice. In place of curricula and courses, the CRSE recommended seven objectives (generally called the seven cardinal principles): (1) health; (2) command of fundamental processes (reading, writing, speaking, and arithmetic); (3) worthy home-membership; (4) vocation; (5) citizenship; (6) worthy use of leisure; and (7) ethical character.

Rising Attendance and Declining Ability.

As high school attendance increased, educators expressed concern that students' abilities and levels of achievement had declined. As early as 1890 some were speculating about the effect the enrollment of the "masses" was having on the high school. During the 1930s and '40s, as enrollments increased still further, similar sentiments were expressed. Some responded by introducing a wider range of courses, whereas others developed more extracurricular activities for students. Besides athletic programs, a variety of clubs and other activities were introduced in an attempt to simulate adult social life.

At the end of World War II, James Bryant \TConant\t and Vannevar Bush began to warn the nation that it was facing a serious shortage of scientists. Numerous critics argued that nothing short of mastery of the traditional disciplines would enable students to understand the modern world. In October and November 1957 the \TUSSR\t launched Sputniks 1 and 2, and in December the first attempt of the United States to launch a satellite failed. Those events supported the claims the critics had been making.

In 1957, Conant agreed to direct a study of the nation's secondary schools. His report, The American High School Today (1959), was a set of recommendations for improvement that were designed to use the already existing "comprehensive high school" to prepare all students for citizenship through general education; equip the majority with useful skills; and provide appropriate courses in mathematics, science, and foreign languages for the 15% who were "academically talented."

Conant wanted school boards to require "academically talented" students to complete a program of not less than 18 courses that would include 4 years of mathematics, 4 years of 1 foreign language, 3 years of science, 4 years of English, and 3 years of social studies. Although Conant refused to label this program a college preparatory program, that is what it was. Conant's recommendations closely resembled those of the Committee of Ten. While Conant was conducting his study, the United States Congress was working on the National Defense Education Act and appropriating large sums for science and education. The National Science Foundation supported the efforts of the Physical Science Study Committee to produce a new physics course for the high schools. By 1960 the PSSC had produced the "new physics," and public schools used funds made available through NDEA to purchase materials and equipment necessary for teaching it. In 1958 the School Mathematics Study Group decided that the teaching of mathematics needed reform and that new textbooks were needed. By the fall of 1959, SMSG had written a new series of books for grades 7 through 12, and more than 25,000 students encountered the "new math" for the first time. Soon students were offered "new biology" and "new chemistry." To ensure that the right students would enroll in mathematics, science, and foreign language courses, NDEA funds were used to train guidance counselors to administer tests that would identify those students who had the appropriate aptitudes for such studies.

Secondary Education and Contemporary Social Needs.

Secondary education was characterized by a quest for excellence during the late 1950s and early '60s. Secondary schools tried to direct able students toward studies that would prepare them to join a technical elite. After World War II, however, social pressures demanded other changes. The marketplace required that entrants possess a maturity and mastery of basic skills equivalent to those of a high school graduate. In effect, the marketplace was neither providing job training nor completing the task of socialization. At the same time, unemployment was becoming a serious problem. In a second report on the high school, Slums and Suburbs (1961), Conant brought these problems to the attention of the public, urging that the education offered to youth in the inner city (areas excluded from his first study) be directly related to "subsequent employment." He argued that schools should provide vocational courses and guidance and assume responsibility for job placement. Recognizing that schools could not carry out such a charge unless jobs existed in which students could be placed, he emphasized that programs to offer jobs and training to youth had to include nondiscriminatory legislation, and he urged that Congress appropriate funds to create 300,000 jobs for youths between the ages of 16 and 21. His proposals for a new era in the nation's social and economic development were not new; they were a summary of the tensions and contradictions that had existed in American secondary education for nearly a century.

Responding to the complaints of students (see \Tstudent movements\t), parents, and professional educators, the Final Report and Recommendations of the National Panel on High School and Adolescent Education (The Education of Adolescents, 1976) proposed an "orderly reform" of secondary education. The National Panel recommended that all responsibility for secondary education be removed from the "comprehensive high school"; that other means be used to provide comprehensive education; and that programs for education in the arts, job training, and government include adults. The panel also challenged traditional patterns of schooling, calling for specialized, part-time schools to meet particular interests and recommending "that compulsory daily attendance be reduced to an academic day of 2-4 hours."

In the early 1980s the perception of a crisis in education prompted several major studies. A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform, issued by the National Commission for Excellence in Education in 1983, reported a continuing decline in educational standards and achievement and called for sweeping changes. These included the strengthening of high school graduation requirements in the "five new basics:" English, mathematics, science, social studies, and computer science. The commission also recommended steps to improve the education as well as the status of teachers. The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, in its report entitled High School: A Study of Secondary Education in America (1983), found that improvements had already begun but that major reforms were needed. The report cited mastery of the English language, including writing, as the central curriculum objective. It also recommended the adoption of a core curriculum for all students, the improvement of teacher preparation and compensation, and the requirement for all high school students to participate in community service programs. ERWIN V. JOHANNINGMEIER

Bibliography: Clifford, Geraldine J., The Shape of American Education (1975); Cohen, Sol, ed., Education in the United States: A Documentary History, 5 vols. (1974); Ebel, Robert L., Encyclopedia of Educational Research (1970); Goodlad, John I., A Place Called School (1983); Johanningmeier, Erwin V., The Americans and Their Schools (1980); Krug, Edward A., The Shaping of the American High School? (1964) and The Shaping of the American High School, 1920-1941 (1972); Meyer, Adolphe E., An Educational History of the American People (1967); Mitzel, Harold E., ed., Encyclopedia of Educational Research, 5th ed. (1982); Pearson, Jim B., and Fuller, Edgar, eds., Education in The United States: Historical Development and Outlook (1969); Ravitch, Diane, The Troubled Crusade: American Education, 1945-1980 (1983).