The Great Curriculum Debate

Tom Loveless

Since the early twentieth century, American educators have been engaged in a heated debate over what schools shoudl teach and how they should teach it. The partisans--"education progressives" and "education traditionalists"--Have usually kept their disagreements within the walls of the nation's schools of education. Periodically, however, arguments have erupted that have generated headlines and attracted public attention, making clear the potential for bitterness and rancor in education politics. In the 1990s, progressives and traditionalists squared off in a dispute over reading and mathematics. Arguments over how best to teach these two subjects are detailed in this book. The book includes contributions from distinguished scholars from both sides of the debate, as well as influential nonpartisans.