Urban school reform, professionalization, and the science of education -- The rural school problem and the complexities of national reform -- Redefining state responsibility in education -- Public interest and parental authority in the compulsory school -- Creating citizens and workers: curriculum reform and the aims of education in a democracy -- Conclusion: School, society, and state
Summary
& Ldquo;Democracy has to be born anew every generation, and education is its midwife, & rdquo; wrote John Dewey in his classic work The School and Society. In School, Society, and State, Tracy Steffes places that idea at the center of her exploration of the connections between public school reform in the early twentieth century and American political development from 1890 to 1940. American public schooling, Steffes shows, was not merely another reform project of the Progressive Era, but a central one. She addresses why Americans invested in public education and explains how an array of refo