Includes bibliographical references (pages 317-343) and index.
Contents
The one best system in microcosm : community and consolidation in rural education -- From village school to urban system : bureaucratization in the nineteenth century -- The politics of pluralism : nineteenth-century patterns -- Centralization and the corporate model : contests for control of urban schools, 1890-1940 -- Inside the system : the character of urban schools, 1890-1940 -- The one best system under fire, 1940-1973.