The State’s Spectacles: Education Statistics, Representations of Schooling, and the Federal Government’s Educational Sight

Abstract

In the aftermath of the American Civil War, the Reconstruction Congress sought to use the ascendant powers of the federal government to expand its capacity to enforce the law and unify the country. One small piece of that Reconstruction effort resulted in the creation of the U.S. Bureau of Education. Typically characterized by its diminutive responsibilities and capabilities relative to its European counter parts, the U.S. Bureau of Education was created to enhance the visual capacity of the state—to help, as James Scott has put it, the federal government “see like a state” in matters of schooling. As one advocate explained “A National Bureau would hold up to many school systems a mirror which would reveal attainable results and desirable changes.” While those at the time clearly considered the power to represent the varied and idiosyncratic American school system through statistics as directly related to the state’s power and capacity for reform, little attention has been given to the character, subject, and aims of these representations. This paper takes a step in this direction by providing an examination of the Bureau of Education’s first century of efforts to develop national representations of America’s schools. Setting aside the accuracy of the Bureau’s statistical production, the paper considers the character and form of the statistical tables included in the Bureau’s annual report. After providing a general characterization of these efforts, the paper considers several interpretations of these statistical representations—recognizing that then, as now, the numbers were widely understood to be inaccurate and inadequate. Given that the project of compiling these data were directly linked to the goal of developing the state’s capacity for sight, for uniformity, and for reform, an examination of these efforts provides an opportunity to reflect on the role of the education researcher in developing these capacities.

It too often happens when the thought of keeping records occurs, the workers in a given field adopt methods so diverse and incomplete that they form but the records of so many single experiences, incapable of being aggregated or contrasted with each other, and so their chief value is lost; especially is this true of educational statistics in this country.

—Commissioner John Eaton Educational Lessons of Statistics (1872).

It is worthy of remark that the countries in which the administration of public instruction is centralized have not been the first to organize a regular and permanent system of school statistics. The United States, which seems to have achieved this end the first, is precisely the one which it would seem would be delayed the longest by difficulties apparently insurmountable…These obstacles, however, have not prevented the organization, development, and continuous improvement of a system of comparative school statistics which may now be considered in many respects a model.

—Ferdinand Buisson French Commission on American Education (1875).

The other day the House Committee on Printing reported to authorize the publishing of 5,000 additional copies of General Eaton's report for 1876, and in the debate it was stated that this document has spread itself over 1,100 pages. It was admitted by the committee that 420 of these pages are packed with figures which will never be read, and which can be of no use to any inhabitant of this planet at least…If Congress would sit down very hard on General Eaton's inflated volume, and squeeze out of it all that is useless and worse than useless, there would be nothing left besides this abstract, which is issued months before the [report] is prepared.

—More Educational Reports New York Times (1878).