In The Great Speckled Bird, Cornbleth and Waugh describe and interpret two recent and related "school wars"-to borrow a felicitous phrase from Diane Ravitch. The wars-or were they battles in a still ongoing struggle?-took place in the late 1980s and early 1990s in the states of California and New York. They were fought over proposed statewide curricula (or guidelines) for history and social science in the elementary or secondary schools in these states. The decisions were ultimately under the jurisdiction of the respective state boards of education. Subsidiary agencies, however, were involved in collecting information and making recommendations.Both authors served in the wars as upper-level, de facto officers in the forces of the social reconstructionists, one in California, the other in New York. As officers, they helped excite public and professional support for certain positions, attended innumerable public and private meetings, drafted proposals and counterproposals, served on official and unofficial advisory agencies, and tried to affect media and bureaucratic conduct and strategies. The Bird tells the story of the wars from the perspective of these highly invested combatants.Characterizing the authors as social reconstructionists-affiliated with the Left-is not intended to be invidious. It is simply descriptive. Forces on the Right were equally engaged in these wars. In each state, centrist and mildly leftist forces supported one version of the proposed guidelines; those with more liberal or social reconstructionist views favored the second version.To continue with the military metaphor, it should be recognized that the Left fell short of its battle aims in these conflicts. The Bird, itself, noted the comparative failure of the Left's California campaign. Furthermore, recent news reports state that New York state's proposed revised history standards © 1997 by The Ontario Institute for Studies in Education.
