Law and the Shaping of Public Education, 1785-1954

""Law and the Shaping of Public Education" argues forcefully that education has always been contested terrain. Litigation over schooling has certainly increased in the twentieth century, remarkably so. ... Education is always and inevitably political, as the last decade's rich scholarship in the history of education has demonstrated. Tyack, James, and Benavot underline that truth and join to it the certainty that law, too, even that related to education, is a creature of politics, and thus a key to patterns of power. ... An exciting, important study of the roots of current debates."--Ronald E. Butchart, Public Historian