The Progressive Education Association was a group dedicated to the spread of

progressive education Progressive education, or protractivism, is a pedagogical movement that began in the late 19th century and has persisted in various forms to the present. In Europe, progressive education took the form of the New Education Movement. The term ''pro ...

in American public schools from 1919 to 1955. The group focused on pedagogy in elementary schools through the twenties. The group turned towards public schools and sociopolitical issues in the early 1930s, and launched three commissions into progressive school topics. The

Eight-Year Study The Eight-Year Study was an experiment that tested how American progressive secondary schools would prepare their students for college when released from the curricular restrictions of college admissions requirements. Between 1933 and 1941, the Pro ...

tested how American progressive secondary schools would prepare their students for college when released from the curricular restrictions of college admissions requirements. The other two commissions addressed curriculum towards the needs of democracy and students, and teaching materials to serve children's psychological needs. After a peak of activity in the late 1930s, the group struggled to regain its position of thought leadership and reconcile the competing interests within the group. It collapsed in the mid-1950s amidst rising anti-progressive education sentiment in cultural trends including political

conservatism Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilizati ...

and

anti-intellectualism Anti-intellectualism is hostility to and mistrust of intellect, intellectuals, and intellectualism, commonly expressed as deprecation of education and philosophy and the dismissal of art, literature, and science as impractical, politically mo ...

, school standardization, and emphasis on

vocational education Vocational education is education that prepares people to work as a technician or to take up employment in a skilled craft or trade as a tradesperson or artisan. Vocational Education can also be seen as that type of education given to an ind ...

Origins

The Association for the Advancement of Progressive Education was founded in early 1919 by a group of wealthy Washington women and staff from private and public schools to bring

to public schools across the United States. Led by Stanwood Cobb, attendees of the first meeting included

Marietta Johnson Marietta Pierce Johnson (18641938) was an educational reformer and Georgist. Johnson was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, and moved with her family to Fairhope, Alabama, in 1902. In 1907, she founded a progressive school called the School of Orga ...

( Fairhope School) and affiliates of the Lincoln School of Teachers College, the

Park School of Baltimore The Park School of Baltimore, known as Park, is a private, coeducational, non-sectarian, progressive day school for children in Pre-Kindergarten (age 4) through grade twelve. Park is located in Brooklandville, Maryland, near the city of Baltimo ...

, and the Washington Montessori School. The next year, the group adopted seven guiding tenets to drive growth and focus their organization, known as the Seven Principles of Progressive Education:

# Freedom for children to develop naturally # Interest as the motive of all work # Teacher as guide, not taskmaster # Change school recordkeeping to promote the scientific study of student development # More attention to all that affects student physical development # School and home cooperation to meet the child's natural interests and activities # Progressive school as
thought leader A thought leader has been described as an individual or firm recognized as an authority in a specific field and also as business jargon. Meanings Go-to expert From the perspective of a thought leader as the 'go-to expert', being a thought leader ...
in educational movements

Elementary education was the group's initial focus, with common interest in the

project method The project method is a medium of instruction which was introduced during the 18th century into the schools of architecture and engineering in Europe when graduating students had to apply the skills and knowledge they had learned in the course of th ...

and child-centered education. Their conferences and discussions were based on themes of freedom and creative opportunity. Headmasters of small, private, high social class schools guided the organization through the twenties. Former

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

president

Charles W. Eliot Charles William Eliot (March 20, 1834 – August 22, 1926) was an American academic who was president of Harvard University from 1869 to 1909the longest term of any Harvard president. A member of the prominent Eliot family of Boston, he transfo ...

served as its first honorary president, a title the philosopher

John Dewey John Dewey (; October 20, 1859 – June 1, 1952) was an American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer whose ideas have been influential in education and social reform. He was one of the most prominent American scholars in the f ...

would later hold. Towards the decade's end, public school administrators and education academics associated with

Teachers College A normal school or normal college is an institution created to train teachers by educating them in the norms of pedagogy and curriculum. In the 19th century in the United States, instruction in normal schools was at the high school level, turni ...

replaced the headmasters as the organization turned to public schools. Likewise, the group traded its focus on pedagogy for focus on social and political issues, as embodied in

George Counts George Sylvester Counts (December 9, 1889 – November 10, 1974) was an American educator and influential education theorist. An early proponent of the progressive education movement of John Dewey, Counts became its leading critic affiliated with ...

's 1932 address, " Dare Progressive Education Be Progressive?" This grew the Association and membership quadrupled between 1924 and 1930 to 7,600 members. The organization's activity peaked in the late 1930s, as membership reached 10,000. In 1931, the group became known as the Progressive Education Association.

Activities

The Association initiated three commissions with lasting impact on American education scholarship. The Commission on the Relation of School and College (1930–1942) issued a five-volume assessment of its

, which reported that students who attended thirty progressive, secondary schools with experimental curriculum had fared as well in college as their peers from traditional preparatory secondary schools. The Commission on the Secondary School Curriculum (1933–1940) addressed how curriculum could meet democratic ideals and student needs. The Commission on Human Relations (1935–1942) reported on teaching materials to serve children's psychological needs in six volumes. The effects of these commissions were dulled by cultural factors. The Progressive Education Association additionally supported two publications: the quarterly journal ''Progressive Education'' (1924–1957) and ''The Social Frontier'' (1934–1943, renamed ''Frontiers of Democracy'' in 1939). After

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, leaders of the progressive education movement were less involved in the Association. The group renamed as the American Education Fellowship in 1947, which was meant to reflect their expanded purpose and international reach. They could not, however, reconcile the opposed factions of their membership: those who either sought radical social change or practical school reform. Six years later, in 1953, they returned to the Progressive Education Association name for the organization's last two years. The

John Dewey Society The John Dewey Society was founded in 1935, and was the first organization focused on philosophy of education. Its goal is to "keep alive John Dewey's commitment to the use of critical and reflective intelligence in the search for solutions to cruci ...

supported the Association during this time. The Association's cause for decline remains disputed. In 1955, the organization shuttered amidst a surge of criticism towards progressive education, in cultural trends including rising

and

in the political sphere and emphasis on

and standardization in the schools as Progressive Education Association membership shriveled below 1,000. The Association has no archives.

Origins

Activities

References

Further reading