ABSTRACT
Reforming the public schools has long been a favorite way of improving not just education but society. Many groups have contested with one another to define and create model citizens through schooling, and this political debate has shaped the course of public education. Millennial thinking about schooling has also been a favored solution to social and economic problems. Faith in the power of education has had both positive and negative consequences. It has helped to persuade citizens to create the most comprehensive system of public schooling in the world. Educational reforms are intrinsically political in origin. Groups organize and contest with other groups in the politics of education to express their values and to secure their interests in the public school. Although many groups have entered school politics, especially in the protest movements of the last half-century, this apparent pluralism is misleading. Policy talk about educational reform has been replete with extravagant claims for innovations that flickered and faded.
