Too Many Students.

The baby boom after World War II traumatized the education system during the 1950s. School enrollment had been more or less unchanged from year to year from the 1930s until 1952, when the first wave of baby boomers hit. Every year thereafter elementary school population increased by 1.5 to 2 million students, and between 1950 and 1960 the number of students in elementary school had increased by 50 percent. Concerns over the supply of teachers and school buildings to educate those students began well before 1952. In February 1950 the U.S. Office of Education warned in its annual report that the nation's educational system had "shocking disorder and ineffectiveness." The report estimated that $10 billion would be needed to improve and build school buildings and increase the teacher supply; by 1951 estimates had increased to $14 billion. The nation needed to build approximately 270,000 new classrooms to meet enrollment increases.

Threatened Standards.