The Struggle for Public Education

Ten Themes in American Educational History

The great pendulum of educational reform recently has begun its inexorable swing toward a new understanding of education. The thirty-year dominance of the authoritarian approach, complete with standardized assessments, distended bureaucracies and school consolidation based on the business model, appears to be over. Capped by the recent departure of the No Child Left behind Act and replaced with a new congressional authorization – the Every Child Achieves Act – we are witnessing a distinct move toward a more democratic model of education. This book places the tension between these two broadly defined archetypes in the context of the central themes of American education. These include the structure and organization of American schools, the struggle for diversity, curriculum and instruction, classroom discipline, moral education, testing and assessment, and the rights and responsibilities of teachers and students. By organizing these themes into a more understandable and relevant thematic context, readers will be able to appreciate the changes in the field of education over the years as well as the cacophonous bickering over education policy - today and yesterday.