单项选择题
| The effect of the baby boom on the
schools helped to make possible a shift in thinking about the role of public
education in the 1920’s. In the 1920’s, but especially in the Depression of the
1930’s, the United States experienced a (31) birth rate.
Then with the prosperity (32) by the Second World War
and the economic boom that followed, young people married and (33)
households earlier and began to (34) larger
families than had their (35) during the Depression. Birth
rates rose to 102 per thousand in 1946, 106.2 in 1950, and 118 in 1955.
(36) economics was probably the most important (37)
, it is not the only explanation for the baby boom. The
increased value placed (38) the idea of the family also
helps to (39) this rise in birth rates. The baby
boomers began streaming (40) the first
grade by the mid-1940s and became a (41) by 1950. The public
school system suddenly found itself (42)
The wartime economy meant that few new schools were built between
1940 and 1945. (43) , large numbers of teachers left their
profession during that period for better-paid jobs elsewhere. (44) , in the 1950s, the baby boom hit an antiquated and (45) school system. Consequently, the custodial rhetoric of the 1930s no longer made (46) ; keeping youths aged sixteen and older out of the labor market by keeping them in school could no longer be a high (47) for an institution unable to find space and staff to teach younger children. With the baby boom, the focus of educators (48) turned toward the lower grades and back to basic academic skills and (49) The system no longer had much (50) in offering nontraditional, new, and extra services to the older youths. |