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Published: April 26, 2011

Committee of Ten



A NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION group formed in 1891 to study and recommend reforms for secondary school education in the United States. Formed in response to demands for educational reform by Harvard University president CHARLES W. ELIOT who became its first president, the committee published recommendations in 1894 that changed secondary school education for the next 30 years. The report urged high schools to adopt a required core curriculum of Latin, Greek, English, modern languages, mathematics, physics, astronomy, chemistry, biology, zoology, physiology, history, civil government, political economy and geography. Art and music were not mentioned.
At the time, American high schools had evolved into institutions in which all students living within a specific geographic area attended the same central, comprehensive institution, regardless of whether they intended to go to college or not. The report recommended that students in each high school be grouped by ability into one of four divisions or tracks, two for superior students and two for inferior, but that every subject in the core curriculum “should be taught in the same way and to the same extent to every pupil. . . .”
Aside from improving the quality of secondary school education, the committee’s goal was to standardize the curriculum to allow every college- bound student to begin college studies with the same academic background. For years prior to the committee’s formation, Eliot had used his position to attack the quality of American public school education. Stung by his attacks, the NEA organized three important committees: The Committee of Ten, to study secondary school education in 1891; the COMMITTEE OF FIFTEEN, to study elementary school education in 1893; and the COMMITTEE ON COLLEGE ENTRANCE REQUIREMENTS, appointed in 1895.
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