Panic at the Schoolhouse: How the Politics of Fear Shaped the Nation’s Public School Reform Agenda, 1950-present

• In Event: Navigating the Politics of Education in the 20th and 21st Centuries

Abstract

This paper will offer an overview of how the politics of fear about public schools was created following the Second World War as well as the political purposes it severed by focusing on the discourses of fear that surfaced in presidential elections from 1952 to the present. This historical research will demonstrate the various ways education – and fears about the nation’s school children – were used as political tools by politicians and lobbyists to animate voters, raise funds, and win elections. After the elections were won and lost, the fears remained. This research also explores how those sentiments made their way into the nation’s classrooms, informing curricula, assessment, and zoning by drawing on local and state archival collections.

Author

• Diana D'Amico Pawlewicz, University of North Dakota