The Failed Promise of the American High School, 1890-1995 by David L. Angus

O’Connor, “RE: Techniques to employ,” February 29, 1972, folder 1, box 1, 1933–1973, Series X Special Projects, NCSS Evaluations at Denver Clinic, folder 14, box 1, 1933–1973, Series X Special Projects, NCSS. Browne to Vivian Johnson, Sam Turner, Doreen Wilkeinson, and Wm. Changing Racism and Injustice,” “Teaching of Values” folder 2, “Teaching of Values” folder 1, box 1, Series X Special Projects, NCSS. Browne to Participant, undated 1971, “Clinic I. Hertzberg, “Issues in Teaching about American Indians,” SE 36, no. Hertzberg, “Editorial Reflections: The Challenge of Ethnic Studies,” SE 36, no. Banks, “Relevant Social Studies for Black Pupils,” SE 33, no. Angus and Jeffrey Mirel, The Failed Promise of the American High School, 1890–1995 (New York: Teachers College, 1999), 48, 50. Martin Luther King, Jr., 1967, as cited in David L. Hamilton, Black Power: The Politics of Liberation in America (New York: Random House, 1967), 5, 37, 159, 167. Melvin Arnoff to Shirley Engle, January 24, 1969, “Impromptu Speakout: NCSS 1968,” 1–2, box 6, Series IV B, NCSS. Jules Whitcover, The Year the Dream Died: Revisiting 1968 in America (New York: Warner, 1997). Todd Gitlin, The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage (New York: Bantam, 1987). This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors.

The struggle for civil rights also crossed gender lines and spread into the women’s liberation and gay rights movements. The struggle for civil rights changed from a period of marches, protests, and sit-ins to the era of Black Power and morphed from a focus on Black civil rights to a multicultural effort for equality and justice involving several historically oppressed groups, including Latino Americans, Asian Pacific Americans, and Native Americans.

During the 1960s, the war in Vietnam had grown from a relatively minor police action engaging a contingent of US advisors to a major American overseas involvement that included a military draft, half a million US troops in Vietnam, and massive protests at home. Both the rhetoric and the practice of social studies instruction were deeply altered in many classrooms by the events and issues of the times, albeit temporarily. During the late 1960s and early 1970s, social studies changed in numerous ways. The projects and materials of the new social studies ran into problems almost instantaneously, in part because their vocabulary and conceptual level were high, but largely because they frequently failed to address the pressing matters of the 1960s: civil rights, the war in Vietnam, and campus turmoil.

The Failed Promise of the American High School, 1890-1995 by David L. Angus