In the reading for part two: 1900-1950-As American as Public School, there were so many irregulations in the education system. These irregulations include segregations, IQ tests, lack of space and nationalism. At the beginning of the chapter children did not attend school regularly and some attended school part time which was due to the lack of space for students. During the Great Depression, children preferred going to work instead of going to school. After the increasing number of students working, schools became a place for training under progressive ideals, which made students love school more. standardized testing such as the IQ test sorted students into categories for tracking. Children had to meet some academic requirements which was considered the IQ test to get accepted to good school. IQ tests were used to determine the quality of people by ethnicity and race. This was hard for immigrants as they were hardly able read or speak English.

 

Segregation was also present during that 1900s to 1950s. Black children were not able to enroll into public school because of segregation. Immigrants and black people were fighting for proper education and equality in receiving it. Segregated schools placed students of diverse ethnicities into industrial schools. By doing this, girls were put into household curriculum and boys were put in industrial curriculum. This was unfair to the immigrants because they were never given the chance to show their talents or to be creative. Julian Nava says “it has been an enormous loss for our country” talking about the children that were lost from minority groups and how they were not given a chance to show what they have got from talents and creativity.

 

In the article Civic Education 1900-19050s, the effect of nationalism and how it played a big role in education was discussed. Ethnic and civic nationalism are central to explaining a historical change. Ethnic nationalists argued that people of a nation are bound together by common descent and by ties of blood, these ties are not to be chosen; they are inherited. Civic nationalism defines a nation in terms of people regardless of their race, color, language and ethnicity. This nationalism is called civic because it pictures the nation as a united community that is granted equal rights. In the 1930’s the American society was tempered by the great failure of civic nationalism. In part two of the reading we see a lack of civic nationalism as people with different color, race, ethnicity and language were treated differently and they were segregated from the white students. The civil rights movement against segregation expanded nationalism that caused changes in civic education which was contributed to the defeat of ethnic nationalism.