<Dd> In the space of only a generation, public education had left behind a highly regimented and politicized system dedicated to training children in the basic skills of literacy and the special discipline required of urban citizens, and had replaced it with a largely apolitical, more highly organized and efficient structure specifically designed to teach students the many specialized skills demanded in a modern, industrial society . In terms of programs this entailed the introduction of vocational instruction, a doubling of the period of schooling, and a broader concern for the welfare of urban youth . </Dd> <P> The social elite in many cities in the 1890s led the reform movement . Their goal was to permanently end political party control of the local schools for the benefit of patronage jobs and construction contracts, which had arisen out of ward politics that absorbed and taught the millions of new immigrants . New York City elite led progressive reforms . Reformers installed a bureaucratic system run by experts, and demanded expertise from prospective teachers . The reforms opened the way for hiring more Irish Catholic and Jewish teachers, who proved adept at handling the civil service tests and gaining the necessary academic credentials . Before the reforms, schools had often been used as a means to provide patronage jobs for party foot soldiers . The new emphasis concentrated on broadening opportunities for the students . New programs were established for the physically handicapped; evening recreation centers were set up; vacation schools were opened; medical inspections became routine; programs began to teach English as a second language; and school libraries were opened . </P> <P> The leading educational theorist of the era was John Dewey (1859--1952), a philosophy professor at the University of Chicago (1894--1904) and at Teachers College (1904 to 1930), of Columbia University in New York City . Dewey was a leading proponent of "Progressive Education" and wrote many books and articles to promote the central role of democracy in education . He believed that schools were not only a place for students to gain content knowledge, but also as a place for them to learn how to live . The purpose of education was thus to realize the student's full potential and the ability to use those skills for the greater good . </P> <P> Dewey noted that, "to prepare him for the future life means to give him command of himself; it means so to train him that he will have the full and ready use of all his capacities ." Dewey insisted that education and schooling are instrumental in creating social change and reform . He noted that "education is a regulation of the process of coming to share in the social consciousness; and that the adjustment of individual activity on the basis of this social consciousness is the only sure method of social reconstruction .". Although Dewey's ideas were very widely discussed, they were implemented chiefly in small experimental schools attached to colleges of education . In the public schools, Dewey and the other progressive theorists encountered a highly bureaucratic system of school administration that was typically not receptive to new methods . </P>

When did the us education system began to fail