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2016年英语四级背诵经典短文二十六(含译文)

来源:考试网   2016-09-27   【

  Changing Roles of Public Education

  One of the most important social developments that helped to make

  possible a shift in thinking about the role of public education was the

  effect of the baby boom of the 1950's and

  1960's on the schools. In the 1920's, but especially in the Depression

  conditions of the 1930's, the United States experienced a declining birth

  rate -- every thousand women aged fifteen to forty-four gave birth to about

  118 live children in 1920,89.2 in 1930,75.8 in 1936, and 80 in

  1940. With the growing prosperity brought on by the Second World War and

  the economic boom that followed it young people married and established

  households earlier and began to raise larger families than had their

  predecessors during the Depression. Birth rates rose to 102 per thousand

  in 1946, 106.2 in 1950, and 118 in 1955. Although economics was probably

  the most important determinant, it is not the only explanation for the

  baby boom. The increased value placed on the idea of the family also helps

  to explain this rise in birth rates. The baby boomers began streaming into

  the first grade by the mid 1940's and became a flood by 1950. The public

  school system suddenly found itself overtaxed. While the number of

  schoolchildren rose because of wartime and postwar conditions, these same

  conditions made the schools even less prepared to cope with the flood. The

  wartime economy meant that few new schools were built between 1940 and

  1945. Moreover, during the war and in the boom times that followed, large

  numbers of teachers left their profession for better-paying jobs elsewhere

  in the economy.

  Therefore in the 1950's and 1960's, the baby boom hit an antiquated and

  inadequate school system. Consequently, the "custodial rhetoric"of the

  1930's and early 1940's no longer made sense that is, keeping youths aged

  sixteen and older out of the labor market by keeping them in school could

  no longer be a high priority for an institution unable to find space

  and staff to teach younger children aged five to sixteen. With the baby

  boom, the focus of educators and of laymen interested in education

  inevitably turned toward the lower grades and back to basic academic

  skills and discipline. The system no longer had much interest in offering

  nontraditional, new, and extra services to older youths.

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