9th Annual Penn Urban Doctoral Symposium (2012) The Roots of Educational Inequality: Germantown High School, 1907-2011

1. The Roots of Educational Inequality:
Germantown High School, 1907-2011
Erika M. Kitzmiller

2. Dr. Anne Mullikin, University of Pennsylvania ‘22
GGermantown High School, Faculty 1922-1959

4. February 2007

5. Germantown High School, 2007

6. The Roots of
Educational Inequality
• Examines the political, social, and economic
factors that contributed to the school’s
transformation.
• Analyzes daily events rather than key turning
points.
• Examines how inequalities were produced and
how individuals challenged and resisted them.

7. Chapter 1:
Campaigning
for a Public
High School in
the Suburban
Sanctuary,
1907 - 1914

8. Chapter 2:
Legitimizing
the New High
School in an
Increasingly
Fractured
Community,
1914 - 1928

9. Chapter 3:
The
Foundation
Begins to
Crack, 1929-
1937

10. Chapter 4:
The Rhetoric of
Wartime Unity
Masks
Inequality,
1938 - 1945

11. Chapter 5:
Meeting the
Needs of a
“Modern
Generation
Living in a
Modern Age,”
1946 - 1957

12. Chapter 6:
Urban
Renewal and
Racial Unrest,
1958 - 1967

13. Findings
• White flight, alone, did not lead to the school’s
transformation.
• Philadelphia never allocated enough funding for its
schools.
• Private funding for public schools and charitable
organizations.
• Educational institutions were sites that both replicated
and undermined structural inequalities.

14. Conclusion
14