ain problematic features of American societal organization in the 19th century remained un-interrogated by policy makers and others not only then but well into the 20th century, even in the context of deliberate efforts to institute (and bureaucratize) educational change. Tyack suggests that the changes were at once decisive and superficial, or "gross," in his terms (30) a reflection of failures of perception and sufficiently complex thought about the consequences of public-education-policy actions that would result in an educational bureaucracy with a life of its own.
Tyack structures The One Best System according to historical periods during which educational policy was directed at cycles of educational reform. At the turn of the century, the dominant structure of American public education was the common school, the name given American coeducational public schools, including both grade schools and secondary schools, in both urban and rural areas. But it was felt by the schoolmen, whose values and experience were largely urban, that curriculu
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