Public Education in the Twentieth Century and Beyond: High Hopes, Broken Promises, and an Uncertain Future

Abstract

Public education and democracy have been firmly linked in the popular imagination since at least 1848, when Horace Mann, in his twelfth annual report to the Massachusetts State Board of Education, declared, “Education then, beyond all other devices of human origin, is a great equalizer of the conditions of men” (1868, p. 669). Half a century later, and just a few short years before the Harvard Educational Review published its inaugural issue, John Dewey’s (1916) progressive notions about education cemented the link between education and democracy. According to Dewey, schools could serve not only to level the playing field, but also as an apprenticeship for civic life. Current proclamations about public education seem strangely at odds with these sentiments. Now the talk is more about testing and rubrics than about democracy and equality, making it clear that we have strayed far afield from the ideals articulated by Mann and Dewey. In commemorating the Harvard Educational Review’s 75th anniversary, it is useful to reflect on how and why the goals of public education have seemingly shifted in such a dramatic way. In this article, I argue that the quintessential questions of public schooling over the past seventy-five years, and the answers to them, have emerged primarily from the changing demographics in our nation and schools. That is, changes in population in terms of race, ethnicity, social class, and other differences have helped to shape the educational experience of all students in our schools. I also suggest that the history of the past seventy-five years will influence how, as a nation, we view, design, and implement public education in the coming century.