ABSTRACT
For much of the 20th century, government efforts to build comprehensive public school systems relied on the instruments of central control and standardized practice. In centralized polities such as France and the Soviet Union, national ministries worked to extend public school systems to all corners of the nation, and to manage those systems under direct central authority (Archer, 1979). In developing countries, international agencies including UNESCO and the World Bank sought to extend State capacity and authority to deliver educational opportunities to all children (Bruns, 2003). Even in less centralized nations, including the United States, schools established and administered by local communities were steadily consolidated into professionally managed bureaucracies, often characterized as “the one best system” (Tyack, 1974; Katz, 1975). Through these developments, education systems around the world enrolled ever-growing numbers of children for an increasing number of years, and provided them with an expanded array of services (Meyer & Hannan, 1979). Schools were expected to serve as the standardized, regulated constituents of a system seeking to ensure equality by delivering prescribed educational services under similar conditions to all.
