1. Thinking critically about history : ideological management, culture wars, and consumerism -- Reasons for studying American school history -- My perspective on educational history -- Culture and religion as central themes in educational history -- Schools as one form of ideological management -- The role of racism -- Economic goals -- Consumerism and environmental education -- 2. Religion and authority in colonial education -- The role of education in colonial society -- Authority and social status in colonial New England -- Colonialism and educational policy -- Language and cultural domination -- Native Americans : education as cultural imperialism -- Enslaved Africans : Atlantic Creoles -- Enslaved Africans : the plantation system -- The idea of secular education : freedom of thought and the establishment of academies -- Benjamin Franklin and education as social mobility -- The family and the child -- Conclusion -- 3. Nationalism, multiculturalism, and moral reform in the new republic -- Noah Webster : nationalism and the creation of a dominant culture -- Thomas Jefferson : a natural aristocracy -- Moral reform and faculty psychology -- Concepts of childhood : protected, working, poor, rural, and enslaved -- Charity schools, the Lancasterian system, and prisons -- Institutional change and the American college -- Public versus private schools -- Conclusion : continuing issues in American education --
4. The ideology and politics of the common school -- Three distinctive features of the common school movement -- Workingmen and the struggle for a Republican education -- The Whigs and the Democrats -- The birth of the high school -- The continuing debate about the common school ideal -- Conclusion -- 5. The common school and the threat of cultural pluralism -- The increasing multicultural population of the United States -- Irish Catholics : a threat to Anglo-American schools and culture -- Slavery and freedom in the North : African Americans and schools in the new republic -- Native Americans -- Conclusion -- 6. Organizing the American school : the nineteenth-century schoolmarm -- The American teacher -- The maternal model of instruction -- The evolution of the bureaucratic model -- McGuffey's readers and the spirit of capitalism -- Female teachers civilize the West -- Conclusion -- 7. Multiculturalism and the failure of the common school ideal -- Mexican Americans : race and citizenship -- Asian Americans : exclusion and segregation -- Native American citizenship -- Citizenship for African Americans -- Issues regarding Puerto Rican citizenship -- Puerto Rican American educational issues -- Conclusion : setting the stage for the great civil rights movement --
8. Growth of the welfare function of schools : school showers, kindergarten, playgrounds, home economics, social centers, and cultural conflict -- Immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe -- Integrated time line -- The kindergarten movement -- Home economics : education of the new consumer woman -- School cafeterias, the American cuisine, and processed foods -- The play movement -- Summer school -- Social centers -- The new culture wars -- Resisting segregation : African Americans -- The second crusade for Black education -- Resisting segregation : Mexican Americans -- Native American boarding schools -- Resisting discrimination : Asian Americans -- Educational resistance in Puerto Rico -- Conclusion : public schooling as America's welfare institution -- 9. The school and the workplace : high school, junior high school, and vocational guidance and education -- The high school -- Vocational education, vocational guidance, and the junior high school -- Public benefit or corporate greed? -- Adapting the classroom to the workplace : Herbart, Dewey, and Thorndike -- Conclusion : the meaning of equality of opportunity -- 10. Meritocracy : the experts take charge -- Meritocracy and efficient management -- Measurement, democracy, and the superiority of Anglo-Americans -- Closing the door to immigrants : the 1924 Immigration Act -- "Backward" children and special classrooms -- Eugenics and the age of sterilization -- The university and meritocracy -- Conclusion -- Integrated time line --
11. The politics of knowledge : teachers' unions, the American Legion, and the American way -- Keep the schools out of politics : the politics of education -- The politics of professionalism : teachers versus administrators -- The rise of the National Education Association -- The political changes of the Depression years -- The politics of ideological management : the American Legion -- Selling the "American way" in schools and on billboards -- Conclusion -- 12. Schools, media, and popular culture : influencing the minds of children and teenagers -- Educators and the movies -- Should commercial radio or educators determine national culture? -- Creating the super hero for children's radio -- Controlling the influence of comic books -- Educating children as consumers -- The creation of teenage markets -- Children and youth from the 1950s to the 21st century -- Conclusion -- 13. Education and national policy -- The Cold War and national educational policy -- Meritocracy and The Big Test -- Ideological management : anticommunism -- Back to the basics : scholars and conservatives take charge -- The National Defense Education Act -- The war on poverty -- Children's Television Workshop and Sesame Street -- Conclusion --
14. The great civil rights movement, the new immigration, and the new culture wars
The reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Asian Americans : educating the "model minority"
Hispanic/Latino Americans
Bilingual education : the culture wars continued
The Immigration Act of 1965 and the new American population
Multicultural education, immigration, and the culture wars
Schools and the women's movement
Children with special needs
The coloring of textbook town
Liberating the textbook town housewife for more consumption
Conclusion : the Cold War and civil rights
15. Education in the twenty-first century
The religious right and school prayer
Environmental education : the radical paradigm
The Nixon administration and the conservative reaction
Accountability and the increasing power of the standardized test
The Reagan, Bush, and Clinton years : national standards, choice, and savage inequalities
The end of the common school : choice, privatization, and charter schools
The commercialization of schools and education for consumption
Textbooks : environmentalism as the new enemy
No Child Left Behind : fulfillment of the American educational dream?
