Chapter Overview

Chapter 8 documents the emergence of the modern American secondary school–the comprehensive high school–in the post--World War II period of the United States. The analysis is grounded in the political-economic and ideological context of the Cold War, but the components of modern liberalism remain explicit. Thus, the fundamental objectives of school reform that emerged in the Progressive Era–employable skills, social stability, meritocracy, and equal educational opportunity–remain central to the thinking of the Cold War--era reformers. Chief among these was Professor James B. Conant, president of Harvard University and later U.S. ambassador to Germany. Conant provides a lens through which the nationalism of the social and educational thinking of his day is examined. In contrast to Conant, the chapter presents a primary source reading by Professor Mark Van Doren, who provides students with a different way to think about the central role of education in modern democratic society. This contrast suggests parallels with similar contrasts elsewhere articulated in the book–Dewey versus Eliot, Washington versus Du Bois, Mann versus Brownson, and others.