Déjà vu all over again: A lesson from the history of school reform
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This was written by Mike Rose, who is on the faculty of the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies and is the author of “Why School?: Reclaiming Education for All of Us” and “Possible Lives: The Promise of Public Education in America.”
By Mike Rose
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” —George Santayan
In the early decades of the twentieth century, public schools came under severe attack, with magazines like Saturday Evening Post andLadies’ Home Journal leading the way. Schools were assailed as being antiquated and inefficient. “]T]he American public-school system…,” wrote one critic, “is an absolute and total failure.”
Modern business was in ascendance, and this was the era of scien
