Public Education,” Daedalus 110, no. 2 (Summer 1981): 1, 12.
21 Henry M. Levin, “Educational Reform: Its Meaning?” in Martin Carnoy and
Henry M. Levin, The Limits of Educational Reform (New York: McKay,
1976), 24.
22 Walter Karp, “Why Johnny Can’t Think,” Harper’s, 6/1985, 73.
23 Among many sources on the power elite, see C. Wright Mills, The Power
Elite (New York: Oxford University Press, 1956); Beth Mintz and Michael
Schwartz, The Power Structure of American Business (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1985); G. William Domhoff, Who Rules America Now? (New
York: Simon & Schuster, 1986); and Laurie David, “Science à la Joe Camel,”
Washington Post, 11/26/2006.
24 Robert Heilbroner, “Who’s Running This Show?” New York Review of
Books, 1/4/1968, 18-21.
25 E.D.C. Campbell Jr., ed., Before Freedom Came (Richmond, VA: Museum
of the Confederacy, 1991).
26 I use subversive in the sense of Neil Postman and Charles Weingartner,
Teaching as a Subversive Activity (New York: Delacorte, 1969).
Conspiratorial Marxists might claim that the rich, having denied a thoughtful
presentation of American history to most Americans, want it for their own
children. More sophisticated Marxists know that false consciousness, of which
false history is a key ingredient, is equally important for those who run society:
upper-class children, no less than sons and daughters of the working class,
need to believe that our society is just and progressive. More likely
explanations for the mildly subversive history teaching in prep schools may be
that most prep school teachers graduated from prep schools and elite private
colleges and are simply replicating the teaching style they experienced. Also,
prep schools are more likely to hire history majors rather than education
majors, resulting in teachers who are better prepared and feel more
comfortable exploring issues in history with their students. Moreover, the
smaller size of prep school classes—sometimes as few as five to ten pupils—
facilitates individual research on issues and projects, while public high school
classes range from twenty-five to forty students, according to Karp, “Why
Johnny Can’t Think,” 70, 72, citing Ernest L. Boyer’s High School.
27 Lee H. Ehman, “The American School in the Political Socialization
Process,” Review of Educational Research 50, no. 1 (Spring 1980): 99-119.