Chicago State University

Early history: 19th century Cook County Normal School was founded in 1867 as Cook County’s first teacher training school largely through the initiative of John F. Eberhart, the Commissioner of Schools for Cook County . [ 13 ] : 7 Eberhart noted that Cook County schools lagged far behind their counterparts in the City of Chicago , especially in terms of the quality and competence of instructors. He convinced the County Commissioners to hold a teacher training institute in April 1860; its success convinced the commissioners of the need for a permanent school to educate teachers. In September 1867, the Cook County Board of Commissioners created a Normal school at Blue Island on a two-year experimental basis; Daniel Sanborn Wentworth was appointed as the first principal. [ citation needed ] The school opened in 1869 as a permanent institution in Englewood , which at that time was a village beyond the city-limits of Chicago at that time. After Wentworth died in 1883, he was replaced by Colonel Francis Wayland Parker , a towering figure in the history of American education. Parker was an educational innovator who helped construct the philosophy of progressive education , which has decisively shaped American schooling over the past century. Dedicated to the proposition that the nature and interests of the child should determine curricular decisions, not vice versa, progressive reformers from the 1890s forward tried to banish what they saw as oppressive and authoritarian standards of instruction. Parker urged teachers to grant pupils the freedom to learn from their environment, to let curiosity rather than rewards or punishments provide their motivation, and to advance American democracy by democratizing their classrooms.

John Dewey wrote in The New Republic in 1930 that Parker, "more nearly than any other one person, was the father of the progressive educational movement." [ 14 ] : 204 Parker believed that education was the cornerstone of a democracy, and that to achieve this end rote memorization should be replaced with exploration of the environment. Parker's Talks on Pedagogics preceded Dewey's own School and Society by five years, and it is one of the foundational texts in the progressive movement. [ citation needed ] By the 1890s, Cook County was unable to provide the requisite support for its Normal School. Since many graduates found employment in the Chicago Public Schools system, it was natural that the city would take over, though initially it was very resistant to the idea. In 1897, the Chicago Board of Education assumed responsibility for what was now the Chicago Normal School . Shortly thereafter, Francis W. Parker, the school's renowned principal, resigned after the Board failed to implement the recommendations of a school system commission headed by William Rainey Harper of the University of Chicago . [ 13 ] : 28 Harper suggested raising the standards for admission to the Normal School, increasing the total number of teachers trained, and strengthening oversight of graduates once they were working in the public schools. Parker was replaced by Arnold Tompkins . Tompkins was an Hegelian who introduced key reforms that helped mold the institution's philosophy. Tompkins declared his dissatisfaction with the practice school then used as a laboratory for student-teachers. He wanted instructors to gain real world experience in Chicago's public schools, and he encouraged their placement in poor, immigrant communities. From that point forward, the school would be characterized not just by its innovative pedagogical practices, but also by its commitment to expanding opportunity to underserved sectors of society. [ citation needed ]

Tompkins was succeeded as president by Ella Flagg Young , a pioneering educator in her own right. Young received a PhD under John Dewey at the University of Chicago , and after leaving Chicago Normal School served as Superintendent of the Chicago Public Schools system. She attempted to expand the curriculum to three years, but was stymied by the Board of Education. After Young left to become Superintendent in 1909, William Bishop Owen became Principal of CNS. [ citation needed ] In 1913, the school was renamed Chicago Normal College, with higher admissions standards and several new buildings gradually added to the campus. In 1926, the college moved to a three-year curriculum, with heavier emphasis placed on traditional academic subjects as opposed to pedagogy. The school was an increasingly attractive educational avenue for Chicago's immigrant communities, who could get inexpensive preliminary schooling before transferring to a university. However, when the Great Depression began in 1929, severe budget shortages forced the college to curtail its operations, and almost eventuated in its closing. In 1932, the Board of Education budget shrank by $12 million. [ 13 ] : 44 To many, an obvious strategy for economizing was to close the Normal College, since there were no positions in the school system for trained teachers anyway. The faculty and students campaigned vigorously to keep the college open. Pep rallies, publications, and the efforts of immigrant communities were all part of the mobilization in favor of continued operations. As the economy stabilized, the threat to dissolve the college receded, though it did not disappear. Meanwhile, interest in the school rose, as financial destitution forced many Chicago-area students to forgo residential institutions elsewhere for a commuter campus closer to home. [ citation needed ] In 1938, the school again changed its name, this time to Chicago Teachers College to reflect the recent adoption of a four-year curriculum.

President John A. Bartky had ambitious plans for invigorating instruction through a new commitment to the liberal arts and a doubling of the time devoted to practice teaching. In addition, a Master of Education degree was offered for the first time. However, Bartky's reforms were interrupted by the outbreak of World War II , which depleted the faculty and student body alike. Bartky himself enlisted in the Navy in 1942, and never returned to the college. In his absence, the Chicago Board of Education reversed most of his curricular innovations. [ 13 ] : 51 After the war ended, Raymond Mack Cook was hired as Dean. Cook's primary achievement was to convince the state of Illinois to take over funding of the college. The city was no longer able to fund the institution adequately, and in 1951 Governor Adlai Stevenson signed legislation that reimbursed the Board of Education for its operating expenses on a permanent basis. In 1965, Cook succeeded in convincing the state take responsibility for the college entirely. [ citation needed ]