Junior High Schools of Texas

Abstract

Concomitant with the rapid expansion of educational opportunity for the adolescent youth of this country, occurred a definite trend toward the administrative reorganization of the secondary schools. One phase of the reorganization movement, the junior high school idea, received its initial impetus during the second decade of this century. Since that time the junior high school movement has spread rapidly in many sections of the country. The Texas Educational Survey Commission, reporting in 1924, found very few reorganized secondary schools in the state.' The traditional four-year high school practically dominated the system. According to a report of the United States Office of Education, there were 704 separately organized junior high schools and 1,316 juniorsenior high schools in the United States in 1924.2 The progressive tendency in the reorganization of the traditional schools of San Antonio, Texas, was commented on by the Texas Educational Survey Commission.3 Indeed, by 1924, the junior high schools of that city had received national recognition. The tardy development of the junior high school movement in Texas may be accounted for, in the main, by the fact that the elementary schools of the state are seven-year schools. Accidentalism, together with trial and error, is largely responsible for this type of organization. The seven-four plan of organization has been the most prevalent plan among the schools of the Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools of the Southern States. Evidence of an increased interest in junior high schools in Texas