Introduction: An American Faith 1
The United States and Schooling 1
The Creed of Education 3
Plan of the Book 8
1 Religions, Political and Civil 10
Rousseau and the Origins of the Concept of Civil Religion 10
Durkheim's Contribution 11
Political and Civil Religions 13
Bellah and American Civil Religion 15
2 Before Progressivism: Belief in Education in a Divided Nation 21
Early American Schooling and Religion 21
Education and Belief in the New Nation 22
Growth of the Common Schools 27
Regionalism and Localism: The Limits to Nationwide Schooling 34
3 Public Education in the Progressive Era 40
The Prelude to Progressive Education: Spread of Schooling in the South 40
Immigration and Americanization Through Schooling 42
The Schools and the Cult of the Nation 47
Faith, Science, and the Nation in Progressive Schooling 51
The Beginning of Active Federal Involvement 59
Schools at the Center of Civil Religion 61
4 Public Schooling Between World Wars: Management, Design, and Varieties of the Faith 62
Schools in an Industrial Society: A Commitment to Organization 62
Traditional and Progressive Ideologies in the Interwar Period 65
Education for Patriotism and Social Prophylaxis 66
Faith in Social Education: Intimations of Things to Come 70
The Single Faith of Traditional and Progressive Educators 74
5 After World War II: The Education Boom, Cold War, and Growing Calls for Equality 77
The Postwar Attention to Education 77
Education in the Economic Superpower 79
Government Sends America to School 86
The City on a Hill as Citadel of Freedom 90
The New Emphasis on Equal Opportunity 97
The Post-World War IIYears: An End and a Beginning 102
6 Education for Equality and Education as Redistribution in the 1960s and 1970s 103
A Turning Point in the Faith 103
The War on Poverty and the New Assimilation 114
The Educational Front in the War on Poverty 115
Equality, the Judiciary, and the Schools 123
Impact of the Crisis in American Faith in Education 129
7 Anxiety and Standards: A Nation at Risk and the Equity-Excellence Dilemma in the 1980s and 1990s 131
Lamenting the Quality of Education 131
The Threat of Decline and the Quest for Renewal 137
Globalization and the Japanese Threat 139
The Equity and Excellence Dilemma 141
8 Where All the Children Are Above Average: Entering the 21st Century 146
No Child Left Behind 146
The Professional Reaction to No Child Left Behind 153
Mandating Equal Education in an Unequal Society 154
2001 and the Renewal of Civil Solidarity 161
A 21st-Century Civil Religion 164
Conclusion: American Civil Religion and the Schools 166
Development and Nature of the Faith 166
Problems and Paradoxes 172
References 179
Index 191
About the Authors 205
