Cold War & 1950's Effects

The Cold War & 1950'S Effects

            Going through the eras, starting with the Gilded Age, education changed. It went through major low points up until The Cold War and The 1950's. The Effects on Education in the U.S. Due to The Cold War reads, “At first, the effects of the Cold War on American education were minimal. Mandatory public schooling to the completion of elementary school was only a generation old. In 1910, 28% of school-age children still did not attend school, and only 9% of Americans had graduated from high school. The first public junior high school did not exist until 1909..” With the new mandatory mandate that's when everything turned. Families saw the importance of education and the need. Now that the wars were over it was time to move on. It was time to prosper. Which is exactly what American families did.

            Though families started sending their children to school, that opened up the gateway of using propaganda to change the views of many, with the ideas of communism. Schooling was the new way to spread 'ideas'. The children would go home and tell their parents what the learned at school. In turn, the parents would tell their friend, who would tell their friends, and so on.

            Up until the 1950's the idea of high school wasn't huge. With there only being 9% of Americans graduating from high school. But in the 1950's everything changed. High school became somewhat of a normalcy. In high school they really tried to redirect the learning of American teenager. In the article, The Effects on Education in the U.S. Due to the 1950's it states, “In parallel with this new direction, students learned that getting a good education was their patriotic duty to help win the war against communism."

           

The United States of America today has remade their education system in every way possible. Relating to The Cold War and the 1950's we still have the same retrospect of learning. ' Good education is the best education.'

End of Depression with New Problems

  During the Great Depression the public education system was immensely effected. When the Depression began according to the magazine article Education, "Retrenchment became the buzzword for budget cutbacks, resulting in reductions in the hours schools operated, increased class sizes, and decreases in teachers' salaries. Poor school districts in rural areas closed their doors." These problems didn't stop when the Depression ended though. They just weren't by passed and not seen as a priority. These issues and problems all were caused by a snow ball effect. When the economy crashed so did the American way of life of young and old citizens. With the failures of mass production, the stock market, and New American Polices it was only a matter of time before the education aspect was effected for the worse. 

  In today's 21st century though the changing in our economy actually effects education aspects for the better. With the United States advancing in so many ways; there has to be people/young adults trained properly to fill any positions needed. Stated in a Forbes article, "If history is a reliable guide, the technologies that are eliminating one set of jobs will create others: jobs that require twenty-first century—mainly digital—skills." For these so called new jobs being made the only way they will be filled will be by students completing and advancing their schooling. 

 As times change, Education in American history is effected for the good and bad. 

Great Depression .VS. Education

  During the late 1920's The Great Depression began to take place. Education was effected immensely throughout this era as it has since the Gilded Age. With this came multiple instances: the baby boom, which led to the demand of teachers going up, bigger schools needing to be built, undernourishment in students attending schools, and the effect of children dropping out of school who would rather work for money to support them and their families. 

  The simple factor that involved each and everyone of those instances was the drastic change in the public schools at this time. Many saw the conditions at there worst in 1931. The students didn't have the right clothing, supplies, or textbooks. Their parents couldn't afford to purchase these needs for them. It got to an extreme low point of students attending school malnourished. Finally, the children made the decision to drop out of school to help their families in working and making money. 

  Families not being able to afford the needs of sending their children to school is actually a problem in today's time. From the article, Back-To-School Costs Soar, Burdening the Poor states, “The cost of everything keeps going up…. Then it makes everything else a struggle.” The fact that public schools are costing families over a couple of hundred dollars in supplies, and clothing, and food is a huge problem; that some organizations are working on. Organizations are stepping in to provide as much as possible. Clothing to help students abide by the dress code stipulations, supplies such as binders, pencils, pens, and erasers to keep the students prepared, and even donating canned goods for families to precook the food for the student's lunch the next day. As this isn't a permanent solution,it is one that can help these problems from reaching the drastic issues of 1931. Moving from Era to Era one common thing is being effected: education. 

Note* now that I am in homebound services I'm not getting to see my teacher but three hours a week and only 1 history lesson a week. It's really hard to prepare a blog outline, but she told me what we would be learning so I could research ahead. That way I could make this Blog post. Next time I will be able to do a outline because I will have had more lessons ,but I just got my first literally two page packet this week. I attached my two cites that would have been on an outline turn in to the bottom.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nbcnews.com/business/economy/amp/back-to-school-costs-soar-burdening-poor-n175546
https://prezi.com/m/-lq4874bqnx-/education-in-the-1920s-great-depression/

Progressive Era/Keating-Owen Act 1916

            Progressive Era/Keating-Owen Act 1916
  Families coming from lower income households or of poverty tend to not excel or attend a place of education where better off families don't ever face this problem. 

  How a family who had the problem of financial issues would deal with it would simply be to send their child or children to work. No matter their age or education level they had reached, they would simply send them to the factory, someone's home to do the simple errands of the higher class family, or to send them to do something that would bring financial means to the family. This would cause the child to not attend school as they would be at work for 12 hours a day. When they were off of work was there time for school; no. These children had to hurry home to get sleep, eat what little dinner they would get, and maybe even fix the injuries they obtained in their place of work. 

  This problem truly came to the surface during the Gilded Age, but it is still present in the 21st century. In a recent article of 2015 it states," ... working full time can shrink the chance that students will graduate at all, by cutting into the time available for studying and attending classes." In the Progressive Era a means to a stop was tried. This was known as the Keating-Owen Act of 1916. This act regulated child labor by making illegal the sale of goods produced by children under the age of fourteen. Yes, it didn't face the problem of children not attending school first hand, but it would keep business owners from hiring these children harder. Which this gave the families no choice, but to send their kids to school for a chance of higher education or break the law. Turns for a better were made, but the issue was at large. As only time would tell if and when these children would receive better education or an education at all!

Gilded Age/Modern Times Same Problems

           Families coming from Lower income households or poverty tend to not excel or attend a place of education; where as better off families don't ever see this problem. This is represented in many statics with the reasonings varying. Reasons being: they might not be able to afford means of transportation for the student, they might need the extra income from the student picking up a job, or the student has to work many waking hours before and after a school day. This is causing the students, when in school; concentration hard to find. Many of these points can relate back to the children of the Gilded Age,

        but one final explanation to these statistics are: the students might see how their parents or grandparents went to school and completed it, but they are still considered a poverty proportion of the world, so what would be the point of completing school. The outcomes seem to differ very slightly : complete it; be poor, or skip; make money, but not enough to keep your family afloat. What would be the point of putting in extra work for less credit. Stated from the National Center of Education Statistics," Low income families fail to graduate at five times the rate of middle income families and six times that of higher income youth."

            This can relate to the Gilded Age in many ways. The families kept their children home from school to make more money for the household. But when not going to school they don't receive an education. Resulting in the children not being able to do much with their lives to obtain more money. Therefore, the poor people stayed poor and the wealthy people wealthy, unless you made a stand for yourself.