In this essay I will look at three such reform efforts: the "boy problem," identified in the Progressive era when critics charged the schools with being too "female"; a concurrent discussion of the "woman question," when critics worried that women were not being adequately prepared for their adult vocations of wife and mother; and the critique of coeducation in the 1960s and 1970s, when feminists argued that the curriculum and training of girls was intentionally or inadvertently sexist.

In this chapter we seek to do two things. First, we suggest how policy making changed in three key periods of our educational history: the common school movement of the mid-nineteenth century; the turning to experts to make policy in the early twentieth century; and further shifts in policy making in the last generation. Second, we explore how changing conceptions of the past history as selective interpretation—influenced educational policy makers in these three periods.

Educational innovations from the mid-1800s are briefly reviewed and a framework for projected change strategies in the next decade is given.