[lbo-talk] School Debate: Central Focus

[David Green]

"Schools of education have always been seen as rather secondary, sneered at, 
historically.. My hometown had a normal school, later converted to a state 
college specializing in education. They were built mainly for the 
instruction of women to enter teaching, which was always seen  as something 
one did temporarily until marriage. It was treated as a form of babysitting 
(working class mothers worked until their kids reached school age, then 
they dropped out of the labor face once kids were school/work age). The big 
push behind public education in the late 1800s didn't get much traction 
until two forces got involved: unions (to keep workers out of the labor 
force) and industry (who wanted to spread the cost of training their 
workforce across the public). (Forgotten the historian of all this, Apple 
was his name? )"
 
Michael W. Apple, University of Wisconsin
http://www.amazon.com/Teachers-Texts-Political-Relations-Education/dp/0415900743