Early career Counts' first position was head of the Department of Education at
Delaware College from 1916–1918, then as a professor at
Harris Teachers College in 1918. Counts taught at the
University of Washington in 1919, then
Yale in 1920. Then, in 1926, he taught at the University of Chicago. In 1924 he published
The Principles of Education, (1924) with
J. Crosby Chapman. During this period Counts favored Dewey's
progressive education model of
child-centered learning, and this book provided a broad overview of education from that perspective. In 1926 Counts returned to the University of Chicago. The next year he began a remarkable tenure at
Columbia University Teachers College. He remained here until he was forced to retire in 1955. In 1930 Counts wrote
American Road to Culture a global perspective on education. In this book he identifies ten "controlling ideas" in U.S. education. He also talks about individual success, national solidarity, and philosophic uncertainty. Regarding this book's case about
American schools,
H. G. Wells said, "the complete ideological sterilization of the common schools of the Republic is demonstrated beyond question. The sterilization was deliberate."
Dare the School Build a New Social Order? After publishing two comparative studies of the
Soviet education system,
The New Russian Primer. (1931) and
The Soviet Challenge to America. (1931), Counts was invited to address to the
Progressive Education Association. His papers, delivered over three separate speeches, formed the core of the book,
Dare the School Build a New Social Order?, published in 1932. Counts provides a clear examination of the
cultural,
social and
political purposes of education, and proponents the deliberate examination and navigation of teaching for political purposes. In his address Counts proposed that teachers "dare build a new social order" through a complex, but definitely possible, process. He explained that only through schooling could students be educated for a life in a world transformed by massive changes in science, industry, and technology. Counts insisted that responsible educators "cannot evade the responsibility of participating actively in the task of reconstituting the democratic tradition and of thus working positively toward a new society." Counts' address to the PEA and the subsequent publication put him in the forefront of the
social reconstructionism movement in education. Conservative educators attacked the premise of Counts' assertion, and progressive educators recoiled at his criticism of their practices.
W. E. B. Du Bois issued a rebuttal to Counts' assertions that teachers were capable of building a "new social order". In 1935 he spoke to a Georgia African American teacher's convention, curtly discounting the nature of the education system today.
Later career Counts continued teaching at Columbia. Several of his students, including
William Marvin Alexander, went on to notability in the field of education themselves. Counts retired in 1956. From 1942 to 1944 Counts served as New York State chairman of the
American Labor Party. In 1945 he established the
Liberal Party in New York, he ran as its candidate for the
United States Senate in 1952. Counts was the chairman of that party from 1955 to 1959. He was a member of the National Committee of the
American Civil Liberties Union from 1940 to 1973, and was President of the
American Federation of Teachers from 1939 to 1942. Counts traveled to the
Soviet Union several times in the course of his life, writing several books about Soviet education and comparing Soviet and American education systems. In the 1930s
William Randolph Hearst used select statements from interviews with Counts to portray American university faculty as
Communist Party sympathizers. After retirement Counts served as a visiting professor at the University of Pittsburgh,
Michigan State University and
Southern Illinois University. == Legacy ==