Radical Reformers: the Influence of the Left in American Education

I have structured this book to end with an essay on the parameters of educational history . My research in this and other books leads me to believe that there were three great reform movements in education and that there will be no more : an end to educational history . These movements have been the Progressive movement in the early part of the century , the Equity movement of the !960?s and 1970?s , the Excellence Reform, movement of the 1980?s and 1990?s . The influence of the left in American education parallels emergence of these three great movements occasioned by societal pressures.

I begin the book with a consideration of the major progressive educators most socially minded : John Dewey and George S. Counts and their huge influence on American education . I proceed to the radicalism of the American Federation of Teachers Afl-CIO . I examine as case studies the two teacher unions in New York City : the Communist led Teachers Union and the Socialist led Teachers Guild , which reemerged as the United Federation of Teachers . The influence of the teacher unions emerges in the Equity reform movement shaped by the Civil Rights Movement.

Next , I examine the life and work of the major Critical Theorists in education Stanley Aronowitz , Henry Giroux and Michael Apple . They emerge during the conservative Excellence Reform Movement as major critical voices on the Left whose influence has now become mainstream .. For example , three recent textbooks by mainstream educators indicate the power of the these Critical Theorists . Eliot W. Eisner THE EDUCATIONAL IMAGINATION : ON THE DESIGN AND EVAULATION OF SCHOOL PROGRAMS (3rd Edition 2002) , David C. Armstrong?s CURRICULUM TODAY (2003) and Howard A. Ozman and Samuel M. Craven?s PHILOSOPHICAL FOUNDATIONS OF EDUCATION (7th Edition 2003) are but a few of the textbooks that prominently feature the work of Aronowitz , Giroux and Apple . There is even THE CRITICAL PEDAGOGY READER edited by Antonia Darder , Marta Baltodano and Rodolfo D. Torres published in 2003.

I conclude in the final essay that there has been a legacy of the Left in American education that benefits America?s schoolchildren.