Funding Chains: U.S. Imperial Schooling, Financial Neglect, and Autonomy in the Philippines

• In Event: Settler Colonial Educational Policies and Practices in the U.S. Empire

Abstract

This paper presents an argument about shallowness of the rhetoric of Benevolent Assimilation in the public school system during American imperial control in the Philippines in the early twentieth century. Despite repeated requests by administrators and pleas from Filipinos for more financial assistance, the Bureau of Education faced significant financial constraints in its first two decades while the U.S. held the purse strings. Even though U.S. policies were to blame for limiting educational opportunities, imperialists used the slow expansion of literacy to advocate continued control over the islands. Filipinos, however, argued the opposite, demanding more immediate autonomy to expand schooling. However, it was only when Filipinos were allowed more control over their budget that the education system became better funded.

Author

• Brianna Lafoon, University of Wisconsin - Eau Claire