The American republic will survive only if its citizens are educated—this was an article of faith of its founders. But seeking common civic ground in public schools has never been easy in a society where schoolchildren followed different religions, adhered to different cultural traditions, spoke many languages, and were identified as members of different "races."
In this wise and enlightening book, filled with vivid characters and memorable incidents that make history but don't always make history books, David Tyack describes how each American generation grappled with the knotty task of creating political unity and social diversity.
Seeking Common Ground illuminates puzzles about democracy in education and chronic conflicts that continue to make news. Americans mistrusted government, yet they entrusted the civic education of their children to public schools. American history textbooks were notoriously dull, but they were also highly controversial. Although the people liked local control of schools, educational experts called it "democracy gone to seed" and campaigned to "take the schools out of politics." Reformers argued about whether it was more democratic to teach all students the same subjects or to tailor curriculum to individuals. And what was the best way to "Americanize" immigrants, asked educators: by forced-fed assimilation or by honoring their ethnic heritages?
With a broad perspective and an eye for telling detail, Tyack lets us see that debates about the civic purposes of schools are an essential part of a democratic culture, and integral to its future.
David B. Tyack (1930–2016) was Vida Jacks Professor of Education, Emeritus, and Professor of History, Emeritus, at Stanford University.
Table of Contents
Windows on the Past
I. Unity
1. Schools for Citizens: Preserving the Republic
2. Patriotic Literacy: History Textbooks
II. Diversity
3. Same or Different? School Policies and Social Diversity
4. Thoroughly Trained in Failure: Mismatch of Pupil and School
III. Democracy
5. Democracy in Education: Who Needs It?
6. Choices about Choice: No Simple Solution
Reflections
Notes
Acknowledgments
Index
What People are Saying About This
A life's work informs this little book, and the book is vintage Tyack: impeccably researched, thoughtful, gracefully written. In these times of such narrow national vision, we very much need Tyack's long view of the conflicting but generative forces that have driven the grand and flawed American experiment in mass education.
Theodore Sizer
A wise and timely book that asks Americans to ponder the meanings of unity, diversity, and democracy as these values have played out and should play out in the nation's schools. Tyack brings badly needed perspective to the currently super-heated debates over public education. — Theodore Sizer, co-author of "The Students are Watching: Schools and the Moral Contract"
Michael B. Katz
With characteristic grace, David Tyack reminds us how much America's diverse and contentious democracy has depended on education, and warns of the danger of transforming public education into a giant marketplace that ignores civic purposes. SEEKING COMMON GROUND should be read by everyone who believes that public education is, ultimately, about the making of citizens. — Michael B. Katz, Walter H. Annenberg Professor of History, University of Pennsylvania
David Hollinger
What most distinguishes this work is the relentless good sense and compassion with which Tyack explores the various tensions that attend upon the very project of a "common" school in a society like ours. It is designed to enlighten and persuade, rather than to denigrate the other side. — David Hollinger, University of California, Berkeley, author of Postethnic America
Mike Rose
A life's work informs this little book, and the book is vintage Tyack: impeccably researched, thoughtful, gracefully written. In these times of such narrow national vision, we very much need Tyack's long view of the conflicting but generative forces that have driven the grand and flawed American experiment in mass education. — Mike Rose, author of "Lives on the Boundary: The Struggles and Achievements of America's Underprepared" and "Possible Lives"
Deborah Meier
In this small but in many ways, startling book, David Tyack reminds us what many of us didn't know, or had forgotten: that today's most pressing issues in schools have old and tenacious roots, and that Americans in the past faced many of the fears and hopes we have now. I finished the book feeling considerably more able to take on the unending struggle to create a democratic system of schooling. It's a struggle fraught with peril, confusion, hypocrisy--and triumphs as well--and as Tyack reminds us, it always has been. — Deborah Meier, educator and author of The Power of Their Ideas and In Schools We Trust
