Intro to Next Book (Part 2)
Here is another segment of the Introduction to my next book, “Confessions of a School Reformer.” Part 1 was published July 9, 2020
Since the early 1900s, three overlapping social and political movements have churned across the U.S. and left marks on government, business, and community institutions, including public schools: The Progressive movement (1900s-1950s), the Civil Rights Struggle (1950s-1970s), and Binding Schools to the Economy (1980s-present).
In all three movements, the dominant but often unspoken assumption was that human behavior can be made perfect. Faith that individuals and institutions can improve and correct errors has been at the center of American reform for centuries.
Religious dissenters carried that belief across the Atlantic Ocean on the Mayflower. Nineteenth century anti-slavery advocates fought for abolition and succeeded with the end of the Civil War. Along with “abolitionists” other social reformers flourished in New England and the Midwest fighting for prison reform, ending poverty, building Utopian communities, and caring for the mentally ill. Joining these social reformers were Horace Mann, Henry Barnard, and a cadre of school reformers who envisioned a Common School for American children that would make a “more perfect union.”
Progressives like President Theodore Roosevelt, settlement house founder Jane CONTINUE READING: Intro to Next Book (Part 2) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice
