Dalton School Essay ⋆ Education Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

The Dalton School is a coeducational, K–12 independent school located on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, founded by Helen Parkhurst as a progressive school in 1919. Today, Dalton is a competitive, elite, college preparatory school with tuition over $30,000 per year.

The school followed Helen Parkhurst’s philosophy, embodied by the Dalton Plan for education, which was designed to individualize instruction and create community. Parkhurst’s Dalton reflected the childcentered progressive movement of its time: often chaotic and disorganized, but at the same time caring and familial. It focused on child growth and development, community, and social service, and it strove to synthesize the affective and cognitive domains of the child. In 1942, Parkhurst was forced to resign due to financial irregularities. By the time she did, the Dalton Plan was internationally accepted as an important model for schooling.

Charlotte Durham, a teacher and administrator under Parkhurst from 1922, was headmistress from 1942 to 1960. Under her leadership, Dalton retained its child-centered pedagogy and its caring orientation, while placing more emphasis on academic rigor. It was more orderly and less experimental and more a part of the traditional New York City independent school community. Her genius was to create a tradition out of a progressive experiment, using the Dalton Plan as its guiding ritual.

Donald Barr served as Dalton’s headmaster from 1964 to 1974. Although a product of progressive education, Barr had developed an educational philosophy closer to conservative critics of progressivism. He thought progressive education was anti-intellectual and permissive, and he injected a rigorous and traditional curriculum into the Dalton Plan. Reflecting antipathy for progressive education, Barr began the transformation of Dalton into a large, academically competitive and trendy institution. His administration was rife with controversy, and in the end, he resigned under a cloud.

Gardner Dunnan served as Dalton s headmaster from 1975 to 1997. The first head to come from the public school sector, he continued Dalton’s transformation into an efficient, selective, and academically rigorous institution. He initiated the Dalton Technology Plan, which he promoted as the link between the progressivism of Helen Parkhurst and the Dalton of modernity. The school’s graduates entered prestigious universities, reflecting the goals of its parent body. By the time Dunnan resigned amid financial and personal problems in 1997, the Dalton School had become a traditional, elite college preparatory school with only vestiges of its progressive past.

After four years of uninspired leadership, Ellen Stein, a former Dalton student, became head in 2001. Stein has attempted to reconnect Dalton with its progressive past. Although the school still refers to the Dalton Plan, and the school is more progressive than most public schools, it is different from the school Helen Parkhurst founded.

Bibliography:

Semel, S. F. (1992). The Dalton school: The transformation of a progressive school. New York: Peter Lang.
Semel, S. F. (1999). The Dalton school. In S. F. Semel & A. R. Sadovnik (Eds.),“Schools of tomorrow,” schools of today: What happened to progressive education (pp. 171–212). New York: Peter Lang.
Semel, S. F. (2002). Helen Parkhurst. In A. R. Sadovnik & S. F. Semel (Eds.), Founding mothers and others: Women educational leaders during the progressive era. New York: Palgrave.

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