Teacher Education, Educational Leadership & Policy ETDs

Publication Date

4-14-1970

Abstract

Statement of problem. While the migration of the rural poor to the urban ghetto is an important and much-discussed demographic movement which has challenged the adaptiveness of the American public school, a less-noticed migration, spawned by the rapidly expanding technology, has been occurring. Defense industries, particularly those related to space exploration and atomic energy have developed new sites for expansion. This expansion has brought with it a steady flow of scientists and technicians into the new localities, placing great stress on local institutions, including the schools. This study investigated the impact of a large in-migration of scientists and technicians on the educational policies of a single community, Albuquerque, New Mexico, during the years 1945-1965. It was the purpose of the study to analyze the educational politics of Albuquerque during this period, particularly as related to the increasing tempo of demands for a more academic curriculum. Secondarily, the study attempted to explore the utility and viability of the Easton model as instrument for the analysis of politics.

Methodology. An historical and case study methodology was employed in gathering, authenticating, and analyzing data. Extensive documentary materials were utilized, including board minutes, journals, newspapers, professional periodicals, and statistical abstracts. In addition, intensive interviews were conducted. Many of these explored the roles played by the participants in charge. These participants included educational authorities such as superintendents, and principals, as well as important individuals in the community.

Results. The results clearly indicated a basic distortion of the Albuquerque Public Schools in the direction of a more academic curriculum—one which stressed the values of college entrance and of competency in mathematics and science. The full impact of this distortion did not occur systemwide, but was concentrated in those schools whose students were predominantly the sons and daughters of the technocrats. Some spillover extended to the rest of the system, however. This was particularly evident in the paucity of programs in schools servicing lower economic areas of the community, due, in part, to the excessive expense of the new academic programs. The data also demonstrated that the local educational authorities were able to blunt the technocratic demands from 1945 to 1957, hence staving off curricular distortion for a considerable period of time. But, the impact of Sputnik legitimized the demands of the scientists and enabled them to secure strong political allies. The resultant curricular distortion produced an educational system committed to the notion of academic excellence. It also produced a system which largely ignored the educational needs of a single lower-class minority. From 1962 on, however, the attention of the cosmopolitan technocrats was focused on the nationally-sponsored program of compensatory education and vocational training for disadvantaged students and the local curricular distortions began, slowly, to dissipate.

Conclusions. This study suggests a need for a more careful analysis of the effect of major demographic shifts on local institutions, including schools. A number of basic demographic variable of relevance to schools were isolated and several migration patterns were identified which sorely need study in terms of their effects on local schools. Finally a number of ex post facto hypotheses were generated from the application of the data to the Easton model. In general, the utility of this model in the analysis of educational politics was confirmed.

Document Type

Dissertation

Language

English

Degree Name

Educational Leadership

Level of Degree

Doctoral

Department Name

Teacher Education, Educational Leadership & Policy

First Committee Member (Chair)

Martin Burlingame

Second Committee Member

James Gordon Cooper

Third Committee Member

Richard Lee Holemon

Fourth Committee Member

Joseph Benedict Zavadil

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