High Schools

William G. Wraga

Expansion of purpose, access, offerings, enrollment, and support characterize the development of the high school in the United States. By the early twenty-first century, however, reform proposals challenged some or all of those developments. Latin Grammar Schools were the first form of secondary education in America. Adopted from the English model, from the late seventeenth century to the late eighteenth century, these schools offered the sons of the social elite a classical curriculum that emphasized formalistic study of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew languages and literature. A Latin Grammar School education prepared students for postsecondary study toward positions in the clergy, law, and politics. With the founding of the new nation in the late eighteenth century, a new form of secondary education emerged, the academy. In response to the demands of a rising mercantile middle class, the academy offered a relatively diversified curriculum that emphasized practical subjects over the classical curriculum. ...

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