There was a time when almost every American child learned in a one-room school. In the 1700s, John Adams taught in a one-room school near Boston; Abe Lincoln was educated at a one-room school; and Henry Ford loved his so much, he had it moved to his Greenfield Village museum grounds. Other well-known students of one-room schools are President Herbert Hoover, Pulitzer Prize winning writer Joyce Carol Oates, and author Laura Ingalls Wilder.
As late as 1913, half of the country’s schoolchildren were enrolled in the country’s 200,000 one-room schools. But after the First World War, one-room schools started to close as people moved into cities and small schools started to consolidate.
Today, some one-room schools are still in operation. Strange School near Lansing, Michigan (highlighted in the September 7, 2014 CBS Sunday Morning program) is one. This school was established in 1879, and today 18 students are enrolled in grades kindergarten through fifth. It is a School of Choice for the Eaton Intermediate School District.
There are some key similarities between a one-room schoolhouse and your neighborhood school. One is that the cost is roughly the same per student, and all the schools have to meet the same state and national standards.
CBS Sunday Morning
