Tyack, David and Cuban, Larry. Tinkering toward Utopia: A Century of Public School Reform. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997.

Summary
This book examines the tension “between Americans’ intense faith in education – almost a secular religion – and the gradualness of changes in educational practices” in the history of American public education policy (1) From Horace Mann’s concerns with moral dissolution to the report “A Nation at Risk,” Americans have translated their cultural anxieties into dramatic demands for educational reform. The authors argue that reformers have sought “utopia” through large-scale, top down reform, without much regard for the “grammar” of schooling – institutional structures, teachers, and disciple. Utopian thinking, these authors argue, is rooted in the revolution: schooling would be used to construct the citizens of the new country. With immigration, many groups have “contested with one another to define and create model citizens through school, and this political debate has shaped the course of public education.” (2) (Zimmerman) Throughout the 20th century, education elites saw themselves as social engineers, designing systems of education that, for example, President Johnson believed would be the “answer to all our national problems.” This strand of utopian thinking has had both positive and negative effects: it has persuaded citizens to create a comprehensive school system, but has also diverted attention from more costly and politically controversial reforms (as well as get caught up in lofty reform goals). It’s easier to offer vocational-ed., than discuss inequities in employment and gross disparities in wealth and income. Despite utopian thinking, most reform efforts have been gradual – a “tinkering” of the system. Thus, this tension – between utopian thinking and gradualism – have defined reform efforts and the politics concerning them.