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Law and the Shaping of Public Education, 1785-1954
272 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 1987
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October 18, 2011
A useful book for several reasons:
1) First of all, it's a Wisconsin-style "law & society" study, and the authors--Tyack appears to be the main guy--aren't afraid to flash their Willard Hurst bona fides. The notes to this book are great, and link to a variety of interesting primary sources.
2) The treatment of education conflicts in mid-19th century California and Michigan--in which legislators were unafraid to make changes to their states' organic laws to vindicate their positions regarding taxation, textbook usage, centralization of administration, etc.--is pretty darn impressive, and provides a fine working model for my own work.
3) There are some tremendously helpful tables in here: evolution of state constitutional provisions for public education (p. 56), breakdown of rates of education litigation in the 19th century (p. 75) by region (the authors show that litigation increased in regions where systems had been established, and decreased soon thereafter) and by legal category (p. 70), litigation rates over time (p. 118; the authors argue that the increasing bureaucratization of the schools--made possible by what Daniel Rodgers termed the "opening up" of expert-led "pressure group politics" that filled a gap created by the decline of patronage ties to political parties--led many aggrieved persons to seek redress for their problems in the courts rather than with local boards of education), and a breakdown of litigation by legal category over the 19th and 20th centuries (p. 213, with data derived from a "mining" of the West headnotes, a process that must have been much more difficult in the mid-80s than it is now).
4) There's also an interesting section in here regarding the post-Reconstruction constitutional conventions in the 10 defeated southern states, and how constitutional language regarding education--amended in a few states immediately after the conclusion of the war to provide for equal access to education for all people regardless of race, then changed back in conventions held in the 1880s and 1890s by "Bourbon Redeemer" administrations--was one of many fronts in the racist South's war against carpetbagger policies.
1) First of all, it's a Wisconsin-style "law & society" study, and the authors--Tyack appears to be the main guy--aren't afraid to flash their Willard Hurst bona fides. The notes to this book are great, and link to a variety of interesting primary sources.
2) The treatment of education conflicts in mid-19th century California and Michigan--in which legislators were unafraid to make changes to their states' organic laws to vindicate their positions regarding taxation, textbook usage, centralization of administration, etc.--is pretty darn impressive, and provides a fine working model for my own work.
3) There are some tremendously helpful tables in here: evolution of state constitutional provisions for public education (p. 56), breakdown of rates of education litigation in the 19th century (p. 75) by region (the authors show that litigation increased in regions where systems had been established, and decreased soon thereafter) and by legal category (p. 70), litigation rates over time (p. 118; the authors argue that the increasing bureaucratization of the schools--made possible by what Daniel Rodgers termed the "opening up" of expert-led "pressure group politics" that filled a gap created by the decline of patronage ties to political parties--led many aggrieved persons to seek redress for their problems in the courts rather than with local boards of education), and a breakdown of litigation by legal category over the 19th and 20th centuries (p. 213, with data derived from a "mining" of the West headnotes, a process that must have been much more difficult in the mid-80s than it is now).
4) There's also an interesting section in here regarding the post-Reconstruction constitutional conventions in the 10 defeated southern states, and how constitutional language regarding education--amended in a few states immediately after the conclusion of the war to provide for equal access to education for all people regardless of race, then changed back in conventions held in the 1880s and 1890s by "Bourbon Redeemer" administrations--was one of many fronts in the racist South's war against carpetbagger policies.
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review