Arkansas Fort Smith High School Diploma from 1927. Awarded to Imogene Edward Dunbar for completing Academic studies. Includes signatures from the Superintendent and Principal of the School, as well as the President and Secretary of the School Board. 

Size: 22 1/4 x 17 3/8 in. 

#7436 . 

Prior to the 20th Century, there was little standardized compulsory schooling in the United States. While many towns from the industrialized East to the frontier West had “common” schoolhouses, primarily led by women who either volunteered or worked under the auspices of a religious or regional organization, education past the age of ten or so was confined to academies, many of which eventually evolved into the modern colleges of today. Most high schools in the early 19th Century provided very basic education in reading, writing, and arithmetic, as originally designed by founding father Benjamin Franklin, but then directed people into specific apprenticeships or fields based on their determined merit. They also contained a “normal school” which trained students to become teachers in common schools. Most of those enrolled were young women planning to teach a few years before marriage. High school enrollment increased when schools at this level began to offer free tuition in the late 19th Century, and when compulsory education laws appeared that required teenagers to attend until a certain age. Policy dictated that every American student had the opportunity to participate, regardless of their ability. In 1892, in response to many competing academic philosophies being promoted at the time, a working group of educators, known as the “Committee of Ten” was established by the National Education Association. It recommended twelve years of instruction, consisting of eight years of elementary education followed by four years of high school. A physical document called a diploma would be awarded by the school, usually after successful completion of the 12th grade, when a student had fulfilled all requirements set by the school jurisdiction. Typically these requirements included a combination of selected coursework meeting specified criteria for a particular stream and acceptable passing grades earned on the state exit examination. Rejecting suggestions that high schools should divide students into college-bound and working-trades groups from the start, and in some cases also by race or ethnic background, they unanimously recommended that “every subject which is taught at all in a secondary school should be taught in the same way and to the same extent to every pupil so long as he pursues it, no matter what the probable destination of the pupil may be, or at what point his education is to cease.” Between 1910 and 1940 the high school movement resulted in rapidly increasing founding of public high schools in many cities and towns. Later, with further expansions in each locality with the establishment of neighborhood, district, or community high schools in the larger cities, enrollment and graduation rates increased markedly, mainly due to a practical curriculum based on gaining skills “for life” rather than “for college.” There was a shift towards local decision making by school districts, and a policy of easy and open enrollment. The shift from theoretical to a more practical approach in curriculum also resulted in an increase of skilled blue-collar workers. The open enrollment nature and relatively relaxed standards, such as ease of repeating a grade, also contributed to the boom in secondary schooling. There was an increase in educational attainment, primarily from the grass-roots movement of building and staffing public high schools. In 1954 the U.S. Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education made desegregation of elementary and high schools mandatory, although private Christian schools expanded rapidly following this ruling to accommodate white families attempting to avoid desegregation. By 1955, the enrollment rates of secondary schools in the United States were around 80%, higher than enrollment rates in most or all European countries, and the country continues to produce one of the leading education systems in the world.