Book review: The allure of order: high hopes, dashed expectations, and the troubled quest to remake American schooling

"The Allure of Order: High Hopes, Dashed Expectations, and the Troubled Quest to Remake American Schooling." Jal Mehta. Oxford University Press. May 2013. --- Worries about the quality of public schooling in America are not new. Present since the mid-nineteenth century, the issue became a perennial one after 1918, the year in which elementary school attendance became compulsory in every state. The Allure of Order attempts to trace the cyclical efforts to ‘order’ American schooling over the course of the twentieth century, from 1920s reform efforts up through No Child Left Behind and the current school accountability movement. Michael Bassey finds a powerful academic treatise written lucidly which demands a wide readership in this country.