UCLA began as the Los Angeles State Normal School, as did San José State, Eastern Michigan, and dozens of others. Each climbed the same ladder from normal school to teachers college to state college to comprehensive university, and most stopped caring about training teachers on the way up. The incentives were rational at every step, but model schools and single-purpose identity were casualties.
Who's who
- Cyrus Peirce+1 more episodeFirst principal of the first state normal school at Lexington, 1839
- George W. MinnsSan Francisco educator whose 1857 evening normal school became San José State
- Edward Augustus DicksonUniversity of California regent who engineered the 1919 Los Angeles conversion
- Ernest Carroll MooreNormal school president who ran the University of California's Southern Branch
- Grace Hoadley DodgePhilanthropist who founded the New York College for the Training of Teachers
- Nicholas Murray Butler+1 more episodeFirst president of the college that became Teachers College
- Jurgen HerbstHistorian who argued teaching was abandoned for prestige
- David LabareeHistorian who explains the climb as market behavior
Where it happens
- Lexington and Framingham, MassachusettsSite of the first normal school; now Framingham State University
- Ypsilanti, MichiganMichigan State Normal School, now Eastern Michigan University
- Normal, Illinois+1 more episodeTown named for Illinois State Normal University
- Los Angeles, California+13 more episodesNormal school that became UCLA
Timeline
- 1839First state normal school opens at Lexington, Massachusetts
- 1911-1930Eighty-eight normal schools convert to teachers colleges
- 1919Los Angeles State Normal School becomes the University of California's Southern Branch
- February 1, 1927Southern Branch becomes UCLA
- 1944-1947GI Bill floods campuses with veterans
- 2010Framingham State College becomes a university, 171 years after its founding
Still debated
Herbst reads the climb as abandonment, Christine Ogren sees engines of opportunity, and Labaree calls it a tragedy for professional education but a triumph for access. Whether university-based preparation made worse teachers is inference rather than measurement.
