This book considers how American public education came to be the way it is today. It helps students to have a better sense of how the past informs the present and how questions regarding who is served best by the schools tell us about the goals and aspirations of present-day schools in America.

Preface -- Introduction -- What are the Aims and Purposes of Education -- Conflict and Consensus Revisited -- A Past for the Present -- Intellectual Capital -- Learning from the Past -- We Want It All -- Part I Additional Resources -- What Should be the Content of the Curriculum? -- The Shifting Ground of Curriculum Thought and Everyday Practice -- But That's Just Good Teaching! -- The Banking Concept of Education -- Markets, Standards, God, and Inequality -- The Silenced Dialogue -- Part II Additional Resources -- What are the Roles and Responsibilities of Teacher Leaders? -- Teachers as Transformative Intellectuals -- On the Frontier of School Reform with Trailblazers, Pioneers, and Settlers -- How to Build Leadership Capacity -- Against the Grain -- What are we Doing Here? Building a Framework for Teaching -- Part III Additional Resources -- What are the Roles and Responsibilities of Students? -- Adequate Schools and Inadequate Education -- Educators, Homosexuality, and Homosexual Students -- At-Risk Children and the Common School Ideal -- Silencing and Nurturing Voice in an Improbable Context -- Standing for Students, Standing for Change -- Part IV Additional Resources -- What are the Issues that Impact Twenty-First-Century Schools? -- Grouping the Gifted and Talented -- Let's Declare Education a Disaster and Get on with Our Lives -- The Professionally Challenged Teacher -- The Educational Costs of Standardization -- From "Separate but Equal" to "No Child Left Behind" -- Closing the Achievement Gap by Detracking -- Still Separate, Still Unequal -- Talking About Race, Learning About Racism -- Come and Listen to a Story -- Rethinking Education in a Technological World -- Part V Additional Resources -- Credits