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The Tragedy of American School Reform Also by Ronald W. Evans The Hope for American School Reform: The Cold War Pursuit of Inquiry Learning in Social Studies This Happened in America: Harold Rugg and the Censure of Social Studies The Social Studies Wars: What Should We Teach the Children? The Handbook on Teaching Social Issues (coeditor) The Tragedy of American School Reform How Curriculum Politics and Entrenched Dilemmas Have Diverted Us from Democracy Ronald W. Evans Palgrave macmillan THE TRAGEDY OF AMERICAN SCHOOL REFORM Copyright © Ronald W. Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2011 978-0-230-10798-4 All rights reserved.

Portions of Chapter 1 are adapted from “National Security Trumps Social Progress: The Era of the New Social Studies in Retrospect. Evans, 2010, in Barbara Slater-Stern, (ed.), The New Social Studies: People, Politics and Perspectives, 1–40. Copyright 2010 by Information Age Publishing. Adapted with permission.

First published in 2011 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN® in the United States—a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world.

Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-29083-3 ISBN 978-0-230-11910-9 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/9780230119109 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Evans, Ronald W. The tragedy of American school reform : how curriculum politics and entrenched dilemmas have diverted us from democracy / Ronald W. Social studies—Study and teaching—United States.

Educational change—United States.719073—dc22 2011005469 A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library. Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd. First edition: May 2011 This book is dedicated to my late mentor, Richard E. Gross, who read a previous draft manuscript and remarked, “This is what we’ve been up against for all these years.” Contents List of Illustrations ix Acknowledgments xi Introduction: Challenges of Curriculum Development 1 The Problem 4 Part I Changes 1 The New Social Studies 9 Cold War Origins 9 Emergence 15 The Projects 20 Concerns and Critiques 23 Reform in Perspective 24 2 The Newer Social Studies 27 1968: The Year Everything Changed 28 The New-Wave Critique of Schooling 35 New Trends in Social Studies 46 Conclusion 57 3 Larger Trends in Schools 59 Open Education 60 Multicultural Education 64 Critical Pedagogy 68 Behind the Newer Social Studies 72 Influence in Schools 75 Conclusion 79 Part II Reaction 4 Aftermath: “We Face a National Conspiracy” 83 Academic Freedom Cases 84 The Fenton Textbook Controversy 86 viii Contents The Kanawha County War 91 Conclusion 97 5 The MACOS Controversy and Beyond 99 Initial Confrontations 100 Nationwide Controversy 114 Who Were the Critics? 119 Controversy in Congress 127 Conclusion 146 6 The Conservative Restoration 149 Books Burning in Indiana 149 The Conservative Restoration in School and Society 155 A Nation at Risk? 165 The Revival of Traditional History 171 Explaining the Conservative Restoration 178 Conclusion 182 Part III Making Sense 7 Can We Transcend the Grammar of Social Studies? 185 Status Studies 186 Constancy and Change 192 The Grammar of Social Studies 196 Failure of the New and Newer Social Studies 203 Conclusion: Reflections on Education for Democracy 209 Dissonance 210 Can We Make a Difference? 211 Lasting Impressions 213 List of Abbreviations 217 List of Manuscript Collections Abbreviated in Notes 221 Notes 223 Index 251 Illustrations (Following Page 98) 1 Jerome S.

Fenton 3 Alice Moore Reelection Poster 4 Mel and Norma Gabler 5 Robert Welch, founder of the John Birch Society 6 Peter B. Dow 7 Jigging for lake trout 8 John Steinbacher 9 Congressman John B. Conlan 10 Legislative aide George H. Archibald, with Vice President Gerald R.

Ford, at a 1973 fundraiser for Congressman Conlan 11 Ed Feulner introducing President Ronald Reagan at a Heritage Foundation dinner, November 30, 1987 12 Joseph Coors and President Ronald Reagan shaking hands while attending a dinner for the board of governors of the Ronald Reagan Library Foundation at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Washington, DC, December 14, 1985 13 George C. Wallace announces he is a presidential candidate, February 8, 1968 14 William J. Bennett, Secretary of Education, 1985–1988 15 Diane Ravitch, with Barbara Bush Cover photograph: Demonstrator holding sign in front of Kanawha County Board of Education, 1974. Courtesy of Bill Tiernan, photogra- pher, Nanya Friend, editor and publisher of the Charleston Daily Mail, and Trey Kay.

Acknowledgments As I send this book to press, I would like to acknowledge all of the people who made contributions to this project. First, the work could not have been completed without the helpful assistance of many archivists and the access to materials they provided. I would like to express my deep grati- tude to Jennie Benford at Carnegie Mellon University Archives; Nora Murphy of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Institute Archives; David Ment at Milbank Memorial Library and Archives at Teachers College, Columbia University; Janice Goldblum at the National Academy of Sciences Archives; Sharon Kelly of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library; and the reference staff at Harvard University Archives.

I thank the many archivists and support staff at each of these institutions and elsewhere who endured my endless requests, helped locate materials, and offered many wise suggestions. I would particularly like to acknowledge the helpful assistance of Alan Walker at the National Archives Civilian Record Unit, College Park, Maryland, who guided me to many helpful materials, and Peter Dow, who gave me full access to the EDC materials while they were in his care. Both were extremely helpful. I would also like to acknowledge the assistance of several archivists and others who supplied photographs and permissions including Bill Tiernan and Nanya Friend of the Charleston Daily Mail; Trey Kay, pro- ducer of “The Great Textbook War”; Jennie Benford of Carnegie Mellon University Archives; Debra Basham of the West Virginia State Archives; Danny Turner of Danny Turner Photography, Dallas, Texas; Scott Rook of the Oregon Historical Society; Peter Dow of Buffalo, New York; William Hulsey of the Education Development Center, Inc.

(EDC); Wendy Saul and Inda Sachaenen of the University of Missouri-St. Louis; Wendy Goen of the Arizona State Historical Archive; Kathy White of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, Auburn, Alabama; Bonnie Burlbaw of the George H. Bush Presidential Library; Steve Branch and Michael Pinckney of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library; John Steinbacher; Ted Fenton; and George H. I would also like to thank Trey xii Acknowledgments Kay, Carole Mason, Jim Haught, Ron Miller, Kay Michael, Stan Bumgardner, Steve Fesenmaier, Debra Basham, Karl Priest and the many others who helped in tracking photos and permissions.

I would also like to thank Jerome Bruner, Peter Dow, and Ted Fenton for generously agreeing to interviews and for their many helpful insights. As key leaders of in the new social studies, nothing could substitute for meeting them in person and hearing their stories and answers to my ques- tions. I found each extremely generous with time, resources, memories, and perspectives. In each case, my visit was a memorable experience.

I am very appreciative. My colleagues at San Diego State University have been very supportive of my research for many years, and of this project as well. I received con- sistent and invaluable support in the form of research assigned time, small grants to fund archival visits, and a sabbatical leave, which pro- vided ample time for writing. I would especially like to thank David Strom and Nancy Farnan for their support and encouragement.

I would also like to acknowledge the support I received from countless other col- leagues and staff, and the steadfast assistance of John Rizzo, Marc Pastor, Jim Edwards, and Ricardo Fitipaldi at Instructional Technology Services. Several colleagues provided thoughtful comments on various portions of this work, or offered helpful comments and resources. In that regard, I would especially like to thank Geoff Scheurman, Barbara Slater-Stern, Gregg Jorgensen, Barry Franklin, Catherine Broom, Lynn Burlbaw, and Jared Stallones. The path-breaking work of several other scholars con- tributed in laying a strong foundation for this work, notably books by Peter Dow, John Rudolph, and Eugene Provenzo, Jr.

I would like to thank Gene Maeroff, William Reese, and John Rudolph for their wise counsel as I negotiated the path to publication. I would also like to express my gratitude to my colleagues in the Issues-Centered Education Community of the National Council for the Social Studies for their friendship and support. I would especially like to thank Mike Dorfi, Kim Cohn, Jason Leichter, Kris Wardwell, and Gregg Jorgensen for their generous and careful help with proofreading. While many others contributed to the work, I take full responsibility for any errors or omissions.

I would also like to acknowledge the support of my family and friends who put up with this preoccupation over many years and offered encour- agement as well as supportive questions and comments. I would espe- cially like to thank my wife Mika, and my children, Kathryn, Mira, and Kai who have patiently endured many rambling discussions of this proj- ect. I would also like to express my appreciation to my men’s support group and the Men’s Fellowship of the First Unitarian Universalist Acknowledgments xiii Church of San Diego for listening to me talk at length about this project and offering their generous and unflagging support. The research project behind this book aimed to cover the entire era of social studies curriculum reform from its inception in the 1950s through its undoing in the late 1970s.

Because the initial draft was quite lengthy, my editor at Palgrave Macmillan asked whether I had considered break- ing the work into two volumes. The first volume, The Hope for American School Reform: The Cold War Pursuit of Inquiry Learning, examines the origins and development of the reform, the projects, and reactions from academics through the early 1970s. This, the second volume, focuses on changes in the direction of reform from the late 1960s through the 1970s, and the academic freedom battles and entrenched dilemmas that brought the era of the new social studies to a close. I will be forever grateful to my editor at Palgrave, Burke Gerstenschlager, editorial assis- tants Samantha Hasey and Kaylan Connally, and production assistants Richard Bellis and Rohini Krishnan, for the opportunity to publish my full treatment of the topic and for their efforts to help bring the project to completion.

Evans San Diego, California Introduction: Challenges of Curriculum Development As a social studies teacher in the 1970s and early 1980s, I found that students were often excited by my experiments with inquiry and issues- oriented approaches to teaching. I was given tremendous freedom to create interesting lessons and courses within broad parameters. That freedom allowed me to explore a variety of modes of teaching, to go for depth when warranted, to engage students frequently in wide ranging discussions of inquiry and value questions, Socratic seminars, debates, mock trials, and simulations. Teaching was a compelling, dynamic, and creative experience, deeply intellectual work combined with the opportunity to influence a rising generation.

This history of the new social studies, the newer social studies, and its aftermath, the conservative restoration, highlights two important dilemmas in the fields of social studies and curriculum, both of which are related to my early teaching experience and the experiences of teachers today. The first quandary, curriculum politics, is colorful and controversial, especially in social studies. It is, in essence, a blood sport in which armies of citizens struggle over whose version of the American way will prevail in our schools and culture. The second puzzle, which I am calling the “grammar” of social studies, embodies the entrenched dilemmas of schooling, the institutional obstacles that seem to stifle attempts at reform, and against which we have made little progress.