The Irony of 21st Century School Reform
On Friday, September 5, 2014, The New York Times carried the obituary of Michael Katz, the University of Pennsylvania professor, historian and social theorist probably best remembered today for his influential 1990 book, The Undeserving Poor: From the War on Poverty to the War on Welfare. In that seminal book and other writings, Professor Katz was harshly critical of the Reagan and later Clinton administration take on the poor and programs aimed at poverty.
Both Reagan and Clinton held a narrow view of poverty, he said, that essentially blamed the poor for their own poverty because of their moral failings. Poverty, Katz posited, is better understood as the result of large historic and economic trends, such as war and peace and the shifting interest of capital that favored some people and disadvantaged others.
You may wonder why I would be writing about Professor Katz on this education blog. It turns out that Katz had written a much earlier book in 1968 called The Irony of Early School Reform. With such a provocative title, I knew I had to learn more. What I discovered is astonishing. Katz examined the public school reform movement of the 1820s to 1860s in Massachusetts. What he learned may well echo in the ears of those critical of education reform today.
To boil down the gist of Katz’ argument, I have enlisted the aid of some reviewers of his original text, Jack K. Campbell in The Teacher’s College Record and Laurence R. Veyzey and Peter Kenez in the Oxford Journals.
First of all, Campbell asks, “Who were these reformers?” The answer? “Analysis of their class interests showed they were those who controlled Russ on Reading: The Irony of 21st Century School Reform:
