School Reform and the Metaphor of Redemption

The social construction of a redemptive culture of schooling From Horace Mann's crusade for the common school to the 1983 federally commissioned report, 'A Nation at Risk,' to the contemporary assimilation of state standards into planning and assessment, the history of American education expresses the belief that schools are the primary vehicle for social change. Public consensus and commonsense agree that, once correctly identified, problems in the social, economic, political, or moral sphere can be effectively resolved through the schools. Lying barely submerged beneath the language of school reform is the metaphor of redemption. Education is the source of individual improvement and eventual success as well as of societal progress towards the ideal society. Through education the individual is saved from the failures, pitfalls, and vices of her time. Society is saved through the aggregate success of its members.'