ABSTRACT
Chicago brought Dewey under the influence of the social settlement work of Jane Addams and the progressive education of Francis Parker, then principal of the Cook County Normal. Dewey borrowed extensively from the practices and ideas of Parker, but it was to Ella Flagg Young that he attributed the greatest influence as she implemented progressive practices in the Laboratory School. Early progressives such as Parker disapproved of teacher unionization, but after 1900 unions developed anyway. They were to start in fall 1913, but that spring and summer it looked like they would be starting without her. Progressives like John Dewey were not enthusiastic about standardized tests for sorting the mass of pupils, but in practice testing, ability grouping and tracks of differentiated curricula became standard scientific features of school systems. Progressives tended to favor women's education and more equitable treatment of working class children and of those from minority cultural, ethnic, and racial backgrounds.
