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From Teacher Improvement To Teacher Turnover: Unintended Consequences Of School Reform In Quincy, Massachusetts, 1872-1893, Jeremy T. Murphy

Education Department Faculty Scholarship

The “Quincy Method” is widely considered a successful nineteenth-century school reform. Pioneered by Francis Parker in Quincy, Massachusetts in 1875, it fostered broad pedagogic change in an ordinary school system, transforming Quincy into a renowned hub of child-centered instruction. This article revisits the reform and explores its interaction with the Massachusetts teacher labor market. In a market characterized by low wages and an oversupply of teachers but few experienced, well-trained ones, teachers used Quincy's reform to obtain higher-paying, higher-status positions while municipalities used it to recruit competent applicants. Both practices jeopardized Quincy's cohesive system. Though the ensuing turnover may have …