Editing Education reform (section)

===Modern reformist===

Although educational reform occurred on a local level at various points throughout history, the modern notion of education reform is tied with the spread of [[compulsory education]]. Economic growth and the spread of democracy raised the value of education and increased the importance of ensuring that all children and adults have access to free, high-quality, effective education. Modern education reforms are increasingly driven by a growing understanding of what works in education and how to go about successfully improving teaching and learning in schools.<ref>Whelan, Lessons Learned (2009)</ref>  However, in some cases, the reformers' goals of "high-quality education" has meant "high-intensity education", with a narrow emphasis on teaching individual, test-friendly subskills quickly, regardless of long-term outcomes, developmental appropriateness, or broader educational goals.<ref>{{Cite news|last=Kohn|first=Alfie|title=The trouble with calls for universal 'high-quality' pre-K|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2014/02/01/the-trouble-with-calls-for-universal-high-quality-pre-k/|access-date=2016-05-26|newspaper=The Washington Post}}</ref>

==== Horace Mann ====
[[File:Horace Mann.jpg|thumb|180px|[[Horace Mann]], regarded as the father of American public education]]
In the United States, [[Horace Mann]] (1796 – 1859) of Massachusetts used his political base and role as Secretary of the [[Massachusetts State Board of Education]] to promote public education in his home state and nationwide.<ref>Jonathan Messerli, ''Horace Mann: A Biography'' (1972)</ref>  Advocating a substantial public investment be made in education, Mann and his proponents developed a strong system of state supported [[Common Schools Act of 1871|common schools]].<ref name=":2">{{Cite journal|last1=Gruver|first1=Rebecca Brooks|last2=Kaestle|first2=Carl F.|date=1983|title=Pillars of the Republic: Common Schools and American Society, 1780-1860|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3122899|journal=Journal of the Early Republic|volume=3|issue=4|pages=501|doi=10.2307/3122899|jstor=3122899|issn=0275-1275}}</ref>'''.'''

His crusading style attracted wide middle class support. Historian [[Ellwood P. Cubberley]] asserts:
: No one did more than he to establish in the minds of the American people the conception that education should be universal, non-sectarian, free, and that its aims should be social efficiency, civic virtue, and character, rather than mere learning or the advancement of sectarian ends.<ref>Ellwood P. Cubberley, ''Public Education in the United States'' (1919)  p.  167</ref>
In 1852, Massachusetts passed a law making education mandatory.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Compulsory Education Laws: Background|url=https://www.findlaw.com/education/education-options/compulsory-education-laws-background.html|access-date=2021-04-14|website=Findlaw|language=en-US}}</ref>  This model of free, accessible education spread throughout the country and in 1917 Mississippi was the fina<big>l</big> state to adopt the law<big>.</big><ref>{{Cite web|title=History Of Education Timeline {{!}} Preceden|url=https://www.preceden.com/timelines/331186-history-of-education|access-date=2021-04-11|website=www.preceden.com|language=en}}</ref>

==== John Dewey ====
[[File:Eva Watson Schütze John Dewey.jpg|thumb|200px|John Dewey]]
[[John Dewey]], a philosopher and educator based in Chicago and New York, helped conceptualize the role of American and international education during the first four decades of the 20th century. An important member of the American [[Pragmatism|Pragmatist]] movement, he carried the subordination of knowledge to action into the educational world by arguing for [[experiential education]] that would enable children to learn theory and practice simultaneously; a well-known example is the practice of teaching elementary physics and biology to students while preparing a meal. He was a harsh critic of "dead" knowledge disconnected from practical human life.<ref>Alan Ryan, ''John Dewey and the high tide of American liberalism'' (1997).</ref>

Dewey criticized the rigidity and volume of humanistic education, and the emotional idealizations of education based on the child-study movement that had been inspired by Rousseau and those who followed him. Dewey understood that children are naturally active and curious and learn by doing.<ref>{{Citation|last=Hildebrand|first=David|title=John Dewey|date=2018|url=https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2018/entries/dewey/|encyclopedia=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy|editor-last=Zalta|editor-first=Edward N.|edition=Winter 2018|publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University|access-date=2021-04-21}}</ref> Dewey's understanding of logic is presented in his work "Logic, the Theory of Inquiry" (1938). His educational philosophies were presented in "My Pedagogic Creed", ''The School and Society'', ''The Child and Curriculum'', and ''[[Democracy and Education]]'' (1916). [[Bertrand Russell]] criticized Dewey's conception of logic, saying "What he calls "logic" does not seem to me to be part of logic at all; I should call it part of psychology."<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Russell|first1=Bertrand|date=January 2, 1919|title=Professor Dewey's "Essays in Experimental Logic"|journal=The Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods|volume=16|issue=1|pages=5–26|doi=10.2307/2940531|jstor=2940531}}</ref>

Dewey left the [[University of Chicago]] in 1904 over issues relating to the Dewey School.<ref>{{Cite web|title=John Dewey, Philosophy and Education|url=https://www.lib.uchicago.edu/projects/centcat/fac/facch08_01.html}}</ref>

Dewey's influence began to decline in the time after the [[World War II|Second World War]] and particularly in the [[Cold War]] era, as more conservative educational policies came to the fore.

====Administrative progressives====
The form of [[educational progressivism]] which was most successful in having its [[policies]] implemented has been dubbed "administrative progressivism" by historians. This began to be implemented in the early 20th century. While influenced particularly in its [[rhetoric]] by Dewey and even more by his popularizers, administrative progressivism was in its practice much more influenced by the [[Industrial Revolution]] and the concept [[economies of scale]].

The administrative progressives are responsible for many features of modern American education, especially American high schools: counseling programs, the move from many small local high schools to large centralized high schools, curricular differentiation in the form of electives and tracking, curricular, professional, and other forms of standardization, and an increase in state and federal regulation and bureaucracy, with a corresponding reduction of local control at the school board level. (Cf. "State, federal, and local control of education in the United States", below) (Tyack and Cuban, pp.&nbsp;17–26)

These reforms have since become heavily entrenched, and many today who identify themselves as progressives are opposed to many of them, while conservative education reform during the Cold War embraced them as a framework for strengthening traditional curriculum and standards.

More recent methods, instituted by groups such as the think tank [[Reform (think tank)|Reform]]'s education division, and [[S.E.R.]] have attempted to pressure the government of the [[United Kingdom|U.K.]] into more [[modernism|modernist]] educational reform, though this has met with limited success.