Introduction / Diane Ravitch and Maris A. Vinovskis
Part one: Changes in education over time : Assimilation, adjustment, and access: an antiquarian view of American education / Patricia Albjerg Graham
Who's in charge? federal, state, and local control / Michael W. Kirst
Attitudes, choices, and behavior: school delivery of health and social services / Michael W. Sedlak
Part two: Equity and multiculturalism : Changing conceptions of education equity / David L. Kirp
Ethnic diversity and national identity in public school texts / Reed Ueda
American history reconsidered: asking new questions about the past / Gary B. Nash
Part three: Recent strategies for reforming the schools : The Search for order and the rejection of conformity: standards in American education / Diane Ravitch
Reinventing schooling / David Tyack
The New politics of choice / Paul E. Peterson
Part four: The Six national goals : School readiness and early childhood education / Maris A. Vinovskis
School leaving: dead end or detour? / Joseph F. Kett
Rhetoric and reality: the high school curriculum / David Angus and Jeffrey Mirel
Literate America: high-level adult literacy as a national goal / Carl F. Kaestle
Reefer madness and A Clockwork orange / William J. Reese.
