Treatment of At-risk Students

Historically, the concept of compulsory education for all as an individual right and a societal necessity developed while the United States grew and matured into an industrialized nation. The changing way in which educators have looked on the problems presented by "at-risk" children represents a striking model for their refinement in thinking about education as a whole. From early Colonial times, when schooling was considered to be primarily the responsibility of the family, to the modern age of widespread societal involvement in educational systems that attempt to include the entire young population, the varying needs of the individual child continue to pose a complicated challenge to each successive generation.

Educators began to talk about "at-risk" students during the 1970s but still have

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e a large pool of workers with at least some basic skills; industrialists needed at least a marginally literate population to man the assembly lines. In Lowell, Massachusetts, for example, the town council mandated a minimum period of public education for children under the 15 who wanted to work in the mills. Cremin (1976) notes that public education arose out of "the interest of equalizing opportunity and encouraging individual development and at the same time achieving a certain measure of socialization for public ends" (p. 124). As cities and factories grew, American society realized the usefulness of being able to communicate with thousands of fellow citizens able to read street signs, calculate transactions, and record sales orders. Perhaps even more important, society began to see the value of schools in providing a sense of community, which was no longer possible to achieve in any other way within the swelling urban environment. The rise of cities and the new middle class made at least minimal education for the poor a social imperative; despite their best efforts, members of the upper class were unable to completely avoid contact with the lower classes in the modern world. Universal education helped ease their inter
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Approximate Word count = 2781
Approximate Pages = 11 (250 words per page)

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