Buy new:
-8% $35.75
FREE delivery Tuesday, July 30
Ships from: Amazon.com
Sold by: Amazon.com
$35.75 with 8 percent savings
List Price: $39.00

The List Price is the suggested retail price of a new product as provided by a manufacturer, supplier, or seller. Except for books, Amazon will display a List Price if the product was purchased by customers on Amazon or offered by other retailers at or above the List Price in at least the past 90 days. List prices may not necessarily reflect the product's prevailing market price.
Learn more
FREE pickup Tuesday, July 30. Order within 2 hrs 52 mins

1.27 mi | ASHBURN 20147

How pickup works
Pick up from nearby pickup location
Step 1: Place Your Order
Select the “Pickup” option on the product page or during checkout.
Step 2: Receive Notification
Once your package is ready for pickup, you'll receive an email and app notification.
Step 3: Pick up
Bring your order ID or pickup code (if applicable) to your chosen pickup location to pick up your package.
Only 3 left in stock (more on the way).
$$35.75 () Includes selected options. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Details
Price
Subtotal
$$35.75
Subtotal
Initial payment breakdown
Shipping cost, delivery date, and order total (including tax) shown at checkout.
Sold by
Amazon.com
Sold by
Amazon.com
Returns
30-day refund/replacement
30-day refund/replacement
Returnable Yes
Resolutions Eligible for refund or replacement
Return Window 30 days from delivery
Refund Timelines Typically, an advance refund will be issued within 24 hours of a drop-off or pick-up. For returns that require physical verification, refund issuance may take up to 30 days after drop-off or pick up. Where an advance refund is issued, we will re-charge your payment method if we do not receive the correct item in original condition. See details here.
Late fee A late fee of 20% of the item price will apply if you complete the drop off or pick up after the ‘Return By Date’.
Restocking fee A restocking fee may apply if the item is not returned in original condition and original packaging, or is damaged or missing parts for reasons not due to Amazon or seller error. See details here.
Returns
30-day refund/replacement
Returnable Yes
Resolutions Eligible for refund or replacement
Return Window 30 days from delivery
Refund Timelines Typically, an advance refund will be issued within 24 hours of a drop-off or pick-up. For returns that require physical verification, refund issuance may take up to 30 days after drop-off or pick up. Where an advance refund is issued, we will re-charge your payment method if we do not receive the correct item in original condition. See details here.
Late fee A late fee of 20% of the item price will apply if you complete the drop off or pick up after the ‘Return By Date’.
Restocking fee A restocking fee may apply if the item is not returned in original condition and original packaging, or is damaged or missing parts for reasons not due to Amazon or seller error. See details here.

Return instructions

Item must be in original condition and packaging along with tag, accessories, manuals, and inserts. Unlock any electronic device, delete your account and remove all personal information.
Read full return policy
Payment
Secure transaction
Your transaction is secure
We work hard to protect your security and privacy. Our payment security system encrypts your information during transmission. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. Learn more
Payment
Secure transaction
We work hard to protect your security and privacy. Our payment security system encrypts your information during transmission. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. Learn more
Kindle app logo image

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

QR code to download the Kindle App

Follow the author

David B. Tyack
Follow
Something went wrong. Please try your request again later.

The One Best System: A History of American Urban Education Paperback – Illustrated, January 1, 1974

by David B. Tyack (Author)
See all formats and editions
{"desktop_buybox_group_1":[{"displayPrice":"$35.75","priceAmount":35.75,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"35","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"75","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"FdzKTBq6qzniQRygKHOB6%2FPiT3W1hQsQ08j4jJ6lyqlh04PaA6pyLwKOWROXwptZXrTbzTGsWOGgMGKwU8VLzRbYGw7d15v1RH%2FGaNDHEhRq5mxgVBZWYgUcSK%2B8LC1YgwB8y0bjlCA%3D","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"NEW","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":0}, {"displayPrice":"$9.91","priceAmount":9.91,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"9","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"91","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"FdzKTBq6qzniQRygKHOB6%2FPiT3W1hQsQ6%2FLy10q8m5CuhNOMYsABST0YAHzn%2FJPqoNO6Iz0wSJMHhZ4DbodsrIzkA05e4CtY1OJC1DxY%2F%2FtVjN%2Bphun7ICpDb0DLz9zYG3Mgt4Zvld1Dvyqs6B7PENUH0hCtWAJRNeZKFpRV6ZoEfBGStr10vw%3D%3D","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"USED","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":1}],"desktop_buybox_group_2":[{"displayPrice":"$35.75","priceAmount":35.75,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"35","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"75","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"FdzKTBq6qzniQRygKHOB6%2FPiT3W1hQsQ08j4jJ6lyqlh04PaA6pyLwKOWROXwptZXrTbzTGsWOGgMGKwU8VLzRbYGw7d15v1RH%2FGaNDHEhRq5mxgVBZWYgUcSK%2B8LC1YgwB8y0bjlCA%3D","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"PICKUP","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":2}]}

Purchase options and add-ons

The One Best System presents a major new interpretation of what actually happened in the development of one of America's most influential institutions. At the same time it is a narrative in which the participants themselves speak out: farm children and factory workers, frontier teachers and city superintendents, black parents and elite reformers. And it encompasses both the achievements and the failures of the system: the successful assimilation of immigrants, racism and class bias; the opportunities offered to some, the injustices perpetuated for others.

David Tyack has placed his colorful, wide-ranging view of history within a broad new framework drawn from the most recent work in history, sociology, and political science. He looks at the politics and inertia, the ideologies and power struggles that formed the basis of our present educational system. Using a variety of social perspectives and methods of analysis, Tyack illuminates for all readers the change from village to urban ways of thinking and acting over the course of more than one hundred years.

Previous slide of product details
  1. Print length
    368 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Harvard University Press
  4. Publication date
    January 1, 1974
  5. Dimensions
    5.46 x 1.04 x 8.31 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0674637828
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0674637825
  8. See all details
Next slide of product details
The Amazon Book Review
The Amazon Book Review
Book recommendations, author interviews, editors' picks, and more. Read it now.

Frequently bought together

The One Best System: A History of American Urban Education
This item: The One Best System: A History of American Urban Education
$35.75
Get it as soon as Tuesday, Jul 30
Only 3 left in stock (more on the way).
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
+
Pillars of the Republic: Common Schools and American Society, 1780-1860 (American Century)
Pillars of the Republic: Common Schools and American Society, 1780-1860 (American Century)
$12.30
Get it as soon as Thursday, Aug 1
Only 1 left in stock - order soon.
Sold by ANDERSON BOOK STORE and ships from Amazon Fulfillment.
+
Education for Extinction: American Indians and the Boarding School Experience, 1875–1928
Education for Extinction: American Indians and the Boarding School Experience, 1875–1928
$24.99
Get it as soon as Tuesday, Jul 30
In Stock
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
Total price:
To see our price, add these items to your cart.
Details
Added to Cart
Some of these items ship sooner than the others.
Show details Hide details
Choose items to buy together.

Customers who bought this item also bought

Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1
Previous page
  1. Pillars of the Republic: Common Schools and American Society, 1780-1860 (American Century)
    Carl Kaestle
    4.4 out of 5 stars 37
    Paperback
    $12.30
    Get it as soon as Thursday, Aug 1
    FREE Shipping on orders over $35 shipped by Amazon
    Only 1 left in stock - order soon.
  2. Punished for Dreaming: How School Reform Harms Black Children and How We Heal
    Bettina L. Love
    4.8 out of 5 stars 98
    Hardcover
    $12.77
    Get it as soon as Tuesday, Jul 30
    FREE Shipping on orders over $35 shipped by Amazon
  3. Fugitive Pedagogy: Carter G. Woodson and the Art of Black Teaching
    Jarvis R. Givens
    4.7 out of 5 stars 186
    Paperback
    $21.95
    Get it as soon as Tuesday, Jul 30
    FREE Shipping on orders over $35 shipped by Amazon
  4. The Education of Blacks in the South, 1860-1935
  5. Tinkering toward Utopia: A Century of Public School Reform
    David B. Tyack
    4.3 out of 5 stars 128
    Paperback
    $33.22
    Get it as soon as Tuesday, Jul 30
    FREE Shipping on orders over $35 shipped by Amazon
    Only 2 left in stock - order soon.
  6. Jim Crow Moves North: The Battle over Northern School Segregation, 1865–1954 (Cambridge Historical Studies in American Law an
Next page

Editorial Reviews

Review

“This brilliant and readable book opens a variety of new perspectives on the development of public education in this country…Tyack does the most responsible, nonsentimental social history yet seen, and I think it highly likely that readers will find themselves educated, enlarged, and excited by what he says.”―Maxine Greene, Today's Education

About the Author

David B. Tyack (1930–2016) was Vida Jacks Professor of Education, Emeritus, and Professor of History, Emeritus, at Stanford University.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Harvard University Press; Revised edition (January 1, 1974)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 368 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0674637828
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0674637825
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 14.4 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.46 x 1.04 x 8.31 inches
  • Customer Reviews:

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.
David B. Tyack

David B. Tyack

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read author blogs and more

Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5 stars
4.3 out of 5
42 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Mornixuur
5.0 out of 5 stars Oldie but a goodie. I had to read this ...
Reviewed in the United States on July 17, 2018
Verified Purchase
Oldie but a goodie. I had to read this for my History of Education course. This really hit on how our education system was developed in the early 20th century. Most of us think this system has been in place since the 1800s but it hasn't. It also shows that basically our public school system has been "reforming" since it began.
One person found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
Doc2Be
5.0 out of 5 stars Spot on
Reviewed in the United States on January 9, 2010
Verified Purchase
I was looking for a historical framework to view my community's local educational history. This book has been an outstanding aid in this effort. I live in the South where the education systems contain both urban and rapidly urbanizing schools and tend to be more consolidated organizationally. My state's and local events were known but this book brought them into context for me.

I wish this book has been one of the texts used in my history of urban schools class and have since recommended it to my university.
5 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
Ruby B
4.0 out of 5 stars Honest listing and good delivery time
Reviewed in the United States on December 29, 2018
Verified Purchase
Book has no marking but has signs of wear. Not bad though. Delivery was on time.
Helpful
 Report
Sandra Perls
5.0 out of 5 stars Fast shipping
Reviewed in the United States on September 5, 2019
Verified Purchase
Great
Helpful
 Report
Amazon Customer
3.0 out of 5 stars Three Stars
Reviewed in the United States on October 1, 2016
Verified Purchase
Good Condition
Helpful
 Report
John C. Turner
5.0 out of 5 stars Phenomenal Book!
Reviewed in the United States on June 18, 2017
Verified Purchase
Amazing read for Urban Educators!
Helpful
 Report
B. Lack
5.0 out of 5 stars Another Painstaking Masterpiece
Reviewed in the United States on August 7, 2006
Tyack, D. B. (1974). The one best system: A history of American urban education. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Ellen Lagemann (1989) has observed, "One cannot understand the history of education in the United States in the twentieth century unless one realizes that Edward L. Thorndike won and John Dewey lost" (p.185). Put differently, in the words of David Tyack (1974), it was the administrative progressives who won and all the others who lost. In his classic work on the bureaucratization of schools in the late 1800s and early 1900s--The One Best System--Tyack suggests that school reformers of the late 19th century saw efficiency as the sine qua non to human progress, and therefore borrowed and amalgamated concepts like regularity, hierarchy, docility, punctuality, assessment, and conformity into evolving administrative structures of schools, for these qualities seemed to unequivocally spur the booming production in industrial outfits of the time. In short, schools became corporations. His thesis is clear and iterative, his prose distinctly rich, his revision of early historical accounts legitimate (especially those proffered by the likes of Elwood Cubberly), and perhaps most important, the literary arsenal from which he draws support is diffuse.

As cities grew rapidly at the close of the 19th century, the need for social control became more imperative than ever. Tyack shows how school centralization in the early 20th century was merely microcosmic of broad shifts occurring in large cities (e.g., police, public health, welfare systems). In education, systematization of schools was veiled behind the banner of "taking schools out of politics"--a movement led by Wealthy Anglo Saxon Protestants (WASPs) who did not see themselves as "political" but as crusaders for an obvious good with objective means. Put differently, why democratize the governance and organization of schools when experts (WASPs) clearly believed there was one best system that would work anytime and anywhere? In the struggle for control over schools between 1890 and 1920, among the losers were board members representing local wards, teachers, and pedagogical progressives (all representing ethnically and culturally diverse perspectives about schools) who were thoroughly defeated by a powerful conglomerate of WASPs and media muckraking of the graft of machine politics. Among the greatest losers were Blacks, South Italians, and Poles, whose encounters with the bigotry of the one best system seemed most difficult. Tyack's paraphrasing of segregationist Theodore Bilbo captured the movement to a tee: "All this talk about taking the schools out of politics is a huge joke to intelligent people.... It means nothing except to take the schools out of your politics and put them in [mine]" (p. 284). Clearly, there was never such a thing as one best system for all.

While Tyack's scholarship is unquestionably first-rate, his ability to deploy strong arguments and have fun at the same time is ingenious: Whether it is brawny students in one-room school houses beating up their schoolmasters in front of 5-year olds (and being demoted by the local school board not for fighting, but losing!), school janitors engaging in espionage for superintendents who wanted to insure implementation fidelity amongst teachers, textbook companies sending "alluring women as accomplices to blackmail school officials into favoring their wares" (p. 95), or explaining the literal origin of the expression, "toe the line," Tyack seamlessly weaves these disparate pieces back into his main thesis: social control of the young through the most formidable institution of enculturation--the school.

Throughout my reading of Tyack, I couldn't help but think of the annoying but popular and indiscriminate use of the term "Best Practices" (originally a business term, by the way) in educational parlance. Tyack's book reminds us of the need to take such claims with a grain of salt. Instead of taking the hard-nosed and misleading high road to an unequivocal science of education (also known as the one best system), ideals of pluralism and decentralized decision-making should be embraced by school reformers, especially if schools are to be touted as truly democratic institutions.

This should be a required reading for anyone interested in urban education.
32 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
Marshall Fritz
4.0 out of 5 stars Good analysis--but no plan to eliminate boodlers
Reviewed in the United States on March 13, 2007
David Tyack---like so many past and present government school critics---sees the problems and describes them well.

However, he fails to see the solution: get government out of schooling. That is, go to free-market education.

One delightful part of his description of the olden' days is this gem:

"To many schoolmen, lay decision-making at its best tended to be inefficient meddling in the proper province of the expert; at its worst, the school system became just another source of patronage and graft to boodlers. L.H. Jones, superintendent of schools in Cleveland, complained in 1896 that 'the unscrupulous politician is the worst enemy that we now have to contend with in public education.'" (page 79)

Also, I think the review by B Lack is superb.
3 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report