David B. Tyack (1930–2016) was Vida Jacks Professor of Education, Emeritus, and Professor of History, Emeritus, at Stanford University.
Organized around the themes of unity, diversity, and democracy, the book ranges across the landscape of educational history. Among other things, it describes the quest for a common denominator of political and moral truths that informed the creation of the common schools; discusses the various ways in which educators have dealt with questions of social and educational diversity, focusing in particular on issues of race, immigration and ethnicity, gender and academic failure; and examines questions of educational governance, including an analysis of the struggle between democratic localism and bureaucratic centralism, as well as the history of private alternatives to public education with specific reference to current debates over vouchers and school choice. He looks at these in terms of two competing educational ideals: securing common values and respecting cultural differences, with an emphasis on how political leaders and school officials since the late eighteenth century have sought