Age Grading

Age grading is based on the notion that children of the same age are at the same level of social and intellectual maturity and therefore should be taught at the same pace. Most American schools did not implement age grading until the second half of the 19th century. The first “graded” school began in 1848 when the Quincy Grammar School opened in Boston, Massachusetts. A number of educators, including Horace Mann, impressed with the graded schools they had visited in Prussia, proposed the adoption of the technique in the United States. The graded system eventually replaced the more traditional, multi-age grading system of colonial America, as practiced in “one-room” schools where students of various ages were taught by one teacher with no standard curriculum or instruction.

Age grading embraces the principle that there are set chronological ages at which students should be learning particular items of knowledge. Students of a particular age are grouped together and taught the same content with a single curriculum because they are considered to be on the same mental, social, and emotional levels. The concept of age grading began in Prussia in the early 1800s. Mandatory schooling for Prussian students began at kindergarten and grouped students in “grades” by age levels with a set curriculum in each grade. Horace Mann, a well-known educator of his day, visited Prussia in 1843. Impressed with Prussia's progressive system, he advocated a factory model to prepare students to fit into an industrialized society. Mann felt the graded system would bring “efficiency” to American schools and ensure that all Americans would receive an education. Mann, along with a list of other notable educators, was instrumental in opening the Quincy Grammar School in 1848, which showcased a graded, curriculum-centered approach that set the stage for future graded systems in schools across the United States. Its organizational arrangement was simple: Children were grouped by chronological age, assigned one teacher per year, and expected to acquire a specified section of learning for each year. This system is still the primary structure of the U.S. school system. Critics of “graded education” charge that the system is unable to meet the needs of individual students, particularly exceptional students. Many also believe that children of the same chronological age have different rates of learning and different learning styles, and that the lack of proper attention to individualized instruction often leads to academic failure and lowered self-esteem for some students and a slowed pacing for students who learn at “accelerated” levels.

The graded system developed by Mann and his colleagues was considered an innovative, cost- and time-efficient answer to the multi-age system that had developed in colonial America. During the colonial era, children grew up surrounded by other children and adults of different ages. Families tended to be larger, and higher rates of fertility and infant mortality resulted in a wide variance in sibling age. Before the 1850s, schools were founded, financed, and controlled by churches, voluntary groups, and private individuals, not by local governments. Different schools offered distinct types of curricula, and for practical purposes, schools and classrooms contained considerable age diversity. [Page 34]The school as it emerged in the 18th century was often a dedicated, one-room building. A full-time teacher would use individual and tutorial methods to instruct a group of 10 to 30 pupils ranging in age from 6 to 14 years.

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