ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how far our nation has come in the decade since in fulfilling its promise of educational equity for all students. It argues that the history of public education in the United States is also the history of the struggle for equal educational opportunity. The chapter focuses on three movements: desegregation, bilingual education, and multicultural education. It revisits what the author termed the "high hopes and broken promises" of these movements and of public education in general, alluding to the "still uncertain future" of equity and social justice in our schools. The other leg of the so-called reform movement, privatization, has come in the form of charter schools and for-profit education. Privatization brings up another dilemma: thinking of education as simply another commodity threatens the very basis of civic life in a democratic society. Multicultural education, a movement that began in earnest in the mid-1970s, has made an enormous contribution to both K–12 education and teacher preparation.
