 “California
presents the promise and challenge contained at the very heart of
the original American dream: here probably more than at any other
place or time, the shackles of the past are broken. In helping to
create the society of the future, man is limited only by the strength
of his ambition, the dimension of his concern and the depths of is
courage to face the dangers of his own creation.”
George B. Leonard, 1962
Look Magazine
In 1962, California - with a population of 17 million
- became the most populous state in the nation. At the time it was
drawing between 1,000 and 1500 new residents a day and was widely
seen as the embodiment of American's future. (p.27, Peter
Schrag, Paradise Lost: California's Experience, America's
Future)
An important
part of that future was education. As Kevin
Starr says in First to Worst, “There was a mood
that California had to educate the work force for this wonderful future
that awaited it. Public schools were being built by the hour. An entire
generation of talented men and women went into Public School teaching
and administration.”
 In
the late fifties to the mid-sixties, Publlic school classrooms were
being contructed at a rate of 20 a day to house the 200,000 new elementary
and high school students who were entering the schools every year.
California's teachers were the highest paid in the country,
and were better educated than most of the nation's teachers
(91% had 4 or more years of college). The state was also consistently
in the top ten in spending per pupil. In the early 1960s, half of
California graduates went on to college, compared to a third in the
rest of the country.
(Peter Schrag, Paradise Lost, pp.
34-41)
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In 1960, California approved the “Master Plan for Higher Education.”
This revolutionary scheme guaranteed a free higher education for any
California student who wanted it, and led to the contruction of new
campuses for the University of California and California state colleges,
as well as numerous junior colleges.
Overall, says Kevin Starr, in California in the 1950s and 60s “there
was a sense that a utopia was being formed in the classroom.”
For more information on California's Golden Era, read Peter
Schrag's book “Paradise
Lost: California's Experience, America's Future.”
For data comparing California public school trends performance then
and now, see Stephen Carroll's upcoming RAND study on the topic
(RAND.org). (study
to be released in March 2004)
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