< Education, then, beyond all other devices of human origin, is a great equalizer of conditions of men -- the balance wheel of the social machinery.
-- Horace Mann, 1848
How noble the dream, how ignoble the modern reality. Mann's crowning achievement was the 19th century American common school, a place where children from all backgrounds could nurture democracy through a shared educational experience. Not very long ago, that vision seemed an eternal verity, enshrined in the public-school system. But over the past generation, the balance wheel of the social machinery began to wobble badly. American schools today, as any parent...