Elizabeth Todd-Breland, A Political Education: Black Politics and Education Reform in Chicago since the 1960

Abstract

in this book (efficiency and meliorism), the reader is once again reminded just how deeply intertwined Progressivism can be with other seemingly unrelated circles. While I would not hasten to call Franklin Bobbitt a poster child for the term (at least by my definition), Christou shows how, under certain conditions, the founder of scientific management in curriculum fits under the Progressive umbrella. By the same token, Christou also displays how a paragon of Progressivism like C. C. Goldring could, by his own admission, opt for more traditional educational techniques. By the time the book reaches its climax -a case study of one of Ontario's interwar Deputy Ministers (Duncan McArthur) -the reader is eager to see where in Christou's typology this self-professed Progressivist fits.Having my own favourites of this time period, I was disappointed that Christou did not give more play to the more garden-variety examples of Ontario Progressives such as Peter Sandiford, Stanley Watson, or John Althouse. However, this seemed to be the whole point of Christou's book. In a bid to avoid pat labels, he chose to come to terms with Progressivism as Blatz did with intelligence quotient (IQ) testing: In its function rather than its form. Christou's definition does not lie solely in listing a series of appropriate die-hards or dogmas. Instead, meaning is derived from the pure rhetoric found in the Ontario sources, no matter the origin. In that way, Christou answers the question "Who is not a progressive reformer, anyway?" The implied response must be "Nobody, given the right context."