Court-ordered desegregation never happened in Woodville, Mississippi, and Black and White students continue to attend separate (public versus private) schools today. Analysis of local newspaper stories, 1959-70, suggests that the racial identities of residents remained relatively unchanged and that the local media played a major role in…

Jacob Eschbach Yoder was one of the many northern schoolteachers who went south to assist in educating the newly freed African American population in the years immediately following the Civil War. Impelled by a religious fervor stemming from his upbringing in the Mennonite faith and especially by the educational ideals he had absorbed from his…

The 14 symposium papers presented in this document provide a diverse historical and personal interpretation of Alaska's educational development. Titles and authors are: "Conflicting Priorities, Conflicting Opinions: Alaskan Development and Sheldon Jackson, Educator" (Ted Hinckley); "Sheldon Jackson and the Constitutionality of the…

Many of the shortcomings of the high school system have been attributed to the fact that the popularization of secondary education has necessitated the establishment of a large number of very small high schools. No one has known with any degree of certainty however, just how small these schools are, how many of them exist, how extensive a program…

The school farm is a small plat of ground at or near the public schoolhouse, cultivated by a volunteer association, in the interest of the public school. The purpose of the school farm is threefold: (1) to give the school a new meaning as a factor in the socialization of rural life; (2) to vitalize school life by the introduction of new practical…

This article defines historical and contemporary rural schools, outlines three sociological and political economy perspectives essential for understanding why school consolidation and rural school reform are abiding themes in rural America, and examines the political and economic context of a vigorous new school consolidation program in West…

This book documents the history of the prairie schoolhouse through text and photographs. The prairie schoolhouse was a product of the Western Homestead Era, those years beginning late in the 19th century when the federally owned grass prairies east of the Rockies and the sagebrush country of the interior Northwest were opened to farming.…

Since the Soviet Union disbanded in 1991, the schools of the new Republic of Kazakstan have focused on rediscovering national history and culture, while the form and structure of schooling have also undergone major changes. This paper describes the current situation at a rural school--Tokash Bokin--in the context of the history of Russian and…

This book describes the teaching experiences of Helen Hussman Morris, who taught in a one-room school in rural Oklahoma during the early 1930s. Her story calls attention to some of the educational issues that were present in the 1930s and that are still being addressed at the local, state, and national levels, including curriculum, facilities,…

This book tells the story of the 1989-90 basketball season at Northfield High School, a small rural school in Wabash County, Indiana. That year, Steve McClure began his fourth season as varsity basketball coach at Northfield with a 56-14 record. For McClure, basketball was more than team play; basketball was an integral part of personal growth for…

Three surveys deal with the architectural aspects of country schools in eastern, western and northeastern Kansas. Although country schools of the late 1800's and early 1900's often sprang up before there were pupils to attend them, the surveys reveal that many early schools were 3-month subscription schools which generally did not have their own…

This bulletin is one of a series reporting the findings of investigations undertaken during 1936-37 under the Project in Research in Universities of the Office of Education. The project was financed under the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act of 1935, and conducted in accordance with administrative regulations of the Works Progress…

The whole movement in Baltimore, Maryland, owes it beginning to Mrs. Francis K. Carey, wife of a prominent attorney of that city. Mrs. Carey, prompted by the wish for a proper school for her own child without separating him from the influences of home, worked out the idea of an all-day country school for city boys, perhaps combined with a boarding…

Though many maintain that current standards-based school reform is unprecedented, an educational reform effort begun nearly a century ago set standards for improving rural midwestern schools. Begun during the tumultuous Progressive Era, the standard-school initiative emerged from a larger concern for the quality of American rural life. A…

The factory model of organization that resulted from the ascension of industry and economic expansion between 1897 and 1921 was applied to education as well as business. National recommendations aimed to standardize rural education, but local application of these unilateral templates reflected local rural cultures. Examples discussed are…