This book introduces the reader to the study of philosophy and how it can illuminate the understanding of education. Throughout the nation's 25,000 school districts, Americans, the inventors of public education, are engaged in a fierce debate over the design of curriculum, the mode of instruction, and the overall aims of education. The authors argue that the study of educational theory is directly relevant to educational decision making. They propose three models of education, three general strategies currently argued for by distinct groups of educational theorists and practitioners. Philosophy and the American School offers an awareness of what is involved in the philosophical enterprise as it relates to the understanding and evaluation of contemporary movements in educational thinking. This is a reprint of the 1976 Houghton Mifflin edition.