Educational Reform during the Great Depression

When the American economy unraveled in the early 1930s, the prospects for educational reform [Page 311]dimmed as soon as elementary and secondary schools had to retrench. With most of their annual budgets derived from local property taxes, school expenditures dropped slightly in 1931 and fell sharply in the next 2 years. The severity of the contraction was greatest in rural and Southern districts, where taxable property values had lagged behind the rest of the nation long before the Depression began. Black schools in the rural South suffered the most. Per–pupil expenditures were 20% of the national average, 40% of the classrooms lacked desks, and 50% of African American youth were not in school.

As manufacturing output fell by two thirds, urban districts also cut their spending. Lower salaries, larger class sizes, fewer supervisory staff, the elimination of optional programs such as evening classes, and other savings helped the city systems survive. The scope of the pullbacks varied considerably among the largest cities, shaped by local political and fiscal conditions. The same disparities marked the nearby suburbs—some towns endured the early 1930s much better than others, but nearly everyone felt the pain of the worst economic downturn in American history.

What made the leaner budgets especially challenging was the rise in enrollments. Elementary schools continued to expand slowly in the wake of population growth in the 1920s. High school enrollment, in contrast, surged as the labor market for teenagers collapsed. For the first time, more than half of the country's adolescents stayed in high school until they were 17. By the end of the decade, secondary school enrollments were 50% higher than in 1930.

Although high school enrollment had climbed rapidly since the 1890s, most educators saw the increase of the 1930s as unprecedented. More vocational education for skilled and semi–skilled trades seemed pointless (and prohibitively expensive) in light of the bleak labor market. College preparatory fare was supposedly irrelevant for youth without the means or the desire for postsec–ondary education. What could interest and benefit the hordes of students who in prosperous times would have preferred to work?

Practical coursework for coping with the demands of everyday life: that was the solution most educators preferred. The curriculum should include required and elective courses about the issues on the minds of teenagers; for example, instruction on getting along well with friends and family promised to hold the attention of otherwise apathetic students. The traditional academic courses should be revised to feature direct applications and useful lessons for “life adjustment,” as that utilitarian point of view was called after World War II. Gym, art, music, and extracurricular clubs and sports would promote the constructive use of leisure time. Those inexpensive reforms struck some critics as “frills,” but to most educators they were worthwhile additions to the curriculum.

Most high schools tinkered with their curriculum in the 1930s. Augmenting the nonacademic courses, especially health and physical education, and paring some traditional offerings, foreign language above all, was widespread. The familiar academic courses remained firmly in place; colleges and universities still required them for admission. The greatest erosion of serious expectations was in the “general” track for students of modest ability unsure of what they might do after graduation. Educators welcomed their presence but doubted their appetite and capacity for hard work.

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