History of IDEA
Jeannie Oakes, Founder and Former Director
Youth Voice in School Finance
NEW REPORT: Los Angeles' road to A-G for all
Without Dollars and Sense Powerpoint
Past Educational Opportunity Reports
Déjà vu all over again: A lesson from the history of school reform
- 03-28-2011
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Guest blog by Mike Rose/Washington Post
“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 and Ladies’ 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 scientific management and the efficiency expert. The nation was abuzz with talk of economizing and making more efficient everything from factory work to running a household to the practice of the ministry. So it was the notion of efficiency that shaped both the direction and language of the school reform of the time. School administrators began to see themselves as “school executives.” There was a call for “‘educational engineers’ to study this huge business of preparing youth for life. (more...)
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