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...difference, and how do they compare? by Dr. Liana Forest 2/98 In order to understand the idea of ungraded classrooms, we must go back to a time in American education when schools were without an age-graded system. Before the advent of compulsory education roughly during the period before the mid-nineteenth century public education consisted of loosely organized, ungraded common schools. This was the first era of the "little red schoolhouse," when children were all together, often in a one-room school, and learned essentially the same things in the same way. In the two decades between 1850 and 1870, many cities shifted to a system of graded public grammar schools (although in rural areas the one-room school system persisted). Graded schools are seen by Anderson (1993) as born of administrative practicality and puritanical traditions. Another, more economic, explanation is that they arose out of the employment situations in the mid-1800s. Sorting children by age and aptitude into separate grades came about to ensure a standard, graduated curriculum. This was, in turn, tied to the goal of having predictable levels of competence and skills to certify pupils' being able...