A well-known example of this occurred in the early 1960s, when the Supreme Court ruled that racial segregation in schools was unconstitutional. This was a major victory for the Civil Rights Movement and paved the way for more comprehensive educational reforms.
The first education reforms were largely administrative and focused on the formal structure of school systems, standardized testing, and curriculum standards. These reforms were generally successful, but they failed to transform classroom teaching and learning. This relative failure can be partially attributed to the fact that reforms were aimed at the administrative structures of schools rather than at the teaching and learning within those structures. The administrative progressives were primarily school superintendents, and they targeted the elements of schooling that they had most control over, such as system organization and the curriculum.
One of the most significant aspects of these reforms was a shift in the emphasis from traditional academic disciplines to a broad preparation for work and life, and this included new courses like physical education and home economics that were designed specifically to prepare students for clerical and other occupational jobs. The administrators also emphasized intelligence testing and used it to match students up with the appropriate curriculum tracks based on their level of tested academic ability.
Changing classroom teaching and learning is a daunting task, however, because it requires changing many teachers in many individual classrooms. And transforming how teachers teach and what they teach is even more challenging because it requires modifying the way that educators think about teaching-as-work. This is not a policy area that will appeal to those who believe that the be-all and end-all of conservative education should be combating “wokeness” or shuttering the federal Department of Education.