The document summarizes the major debates around curriculum in American education from 1900 to the present. It discusses four major perspectives: the humanists who advocated for a classical curriculum focused on the humanities; the social efficiency educators who wanted schools to produce students ready for the workforce; the developmentalists who believed curriculum should follow child development; and the social meliorists who saw schools as vehicles for social change. Key figures like Dewey attempted to synthesize these perspectives, while advocates for progressive education criticized rigid, subject-focused curriculum.

1. The Struggle for the American Curriculum Curriculum Ferment 1900-Present

12. Joseph Mayer Rice

23. Lester Frank Ward Dynamic Sociology 1913

43. Colonel Francis Parker Applied Dewey’s principles to a create a Progressive school in Chicago. Dewey sent his own children to Parker’s school