New Deal Educational Planning and State Support of "Equal Educational Opportunity," 1933–1943

• In Event: 31.030 - National Crisis and Educational Policy

Abstract

In light of the conference theme of "Toward Justice," this historical paper situates a particular kind of justice talk– that of “equal educational opportunity”– in New Deal era conversations about how to plan a ‘modern’ educational system that could equip all students with the skills to fit into an emergent social and economic order. Would district boundaries need to be altered to ensure access? Would rural schools and urban schools look fundamentally the same or different? At what scale– federal, regional, state, local– should schools be administered and regulated? I focus my study on three educational planning projects of the Washington State Planning Council, which operated under the guidance of the National Resources Planning Board between 1933-1943.

Author

• Michael Bowman, Iowa State University