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European History: 1600s-1800s

Parents Demand Schools!

Parents Demand Schools!
Reading Level
     edHelper's suggested reading level:   grades 5 to 8
     Flesch-Kincaid grade level:   8.39

Vocabulary
     challenging words:    penmanship, prep, mines, provided, mainly, nineteenth, writing, religion, mills, textile, reading, better, regularly, public, daily, recite
     content words:    Industrial Revolution, National Board

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Parents Demand Schools!
By Sharon Fabian 		  
1     As the Industrial Revolution progressed and more and more people moved into the city, the demand for services grew. Families needed and demanded services like education for their children.
 
2     Some forms of education had been available for years, and working class families had taken advantage of them, but in the mid-1800s, many factory children still received little or no education.
 
3     As far back as the 1600s, there had been charity schools and Sunday schools. By the nineteenth century, many factory families were sending their children to Sunday school on the one day that the family had free from work. Sunday schools taught religious values and maybe a little reading. The teachers were volunteers who usually had no training to be teachers.
 
4     By the 1830s, working class parents wanted more. They wanted a decent education for their children. In some cities, parents protested in the streets for better schools. The government of England began to take note and started to become involved in public education. It provided some money, mainly to church organizations, to establish schools.
 
5     In 1839, schools for training teachers appeared. Now, young women who wanted to teach could get a good background to prepare for their jobs.

Paragraphs 6 to 12:
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