Power and the Promise of School Reform: Grass Roots Movements during the Progressive Era

Abstract

Now published by Teachers College Press, this classic text includes a new Introduction by Jeffrey Mirel as well as new photographs and references that bring the book up to date. Power and the Promise of School Reform remains the foremost volume to examine how grass-roots movements operated during the early twentieth century to shape urban education in the United States. Carefully researched and elegantly written, this volume moves effortlessly from impassioned Socialist party meetings to smoky union halls, from fervent gatherings of urban radicals to quiet teas with upper-class women reformers. Reese explores the ways in which these diverse community groups struggled to make local schools responsive institutions in a time of dramatic change.