![]() But should they see a paradigm shift in the works, readers might conclude that a coherent alternative vision of public education has emerged and is having a profound influence on a range of interrelated subjects. Even if readers remain unconvinced that American public education is undergoing a paradigm shift, they will hopefully see, at a minimum, key contemporary issues of democracy and schools in a new light. Instead, Kuhn’s model is used because it has proved valuable for more than a half century in helping uncover and explain predictable but often hidden consequences of massive changes that result from revolutionary ideas. This paper’s findings also do not depend on the reader’s wholesale acceptance of this contention. While I believe that a paradigm shift is probably taking place, the primary purpose of this paper is not to defend that proposition instead, it is used as an analytical device. That is, if we are willing to see this era’s education-reform thrust as a paradigm shift, instead of just a series of unrelated developments, basic questions of state power, individual and community agency, and democratic control come back in play. 1 Kuhn’s insights about how and why major changes occur reveal important implications for the relationship between democracy and American K–12 public education. I use the “paradigm shift” model offered in Thomas Kuhn’s 1962 The Structure of Scientific Revolutions to describe and explain the transformations underway and ahead. Because this shift emanates from an intellectual departure on the most basic and long agreed-upon aspects of US public education and influences countless features of public school delivery and governance, a systematic approach to the analysis proves highly beneficial. This paper argues that a fundamental change may be taking place in how we understand public education and how public school systems are organized: we are moving away from the Progressive Era approach of monopolistic, state-created, traditional school districts and embracing a model that prioritizes diversifying school providers, redefines the government’s role in public education, prioritizes parental choice, and relies on civil-society activity. ![]() ![]() However, there have been few systematic explanations for the collection of changes underway in and on the horizon of public K–12 education-arguments that suggest something more comprehensive is afoot. Various initiatives can be explained as sensible responses to discrete forces, such as the increased demands of international competitiveness, our nation’s changing demographics, advancements in cognitive science, or innovations in technology. Efforts to continue such significant reforms show little sign of slowing down. In recent years, America’s system of public primary and secondary schooling has undergone major changes in areas including accountability, standards, testing, educator evaluation, and blended learning. The insights revealed have profound implications for democracy in public education, including how revolutionary change occurs in policy, the authority of civil-society organizations vis-à-vis state actors, the power of political minorities, and the consequences for democratic control when a democratic institution persistently underperforms. That application reveals valuable insights into the genesis of the “territorial exclusive franchise” model its enormous, century-long influence over our conception of public education its contributions to schooling the ascendance of the “differentiation and choice” model and the costs and benefits of this paradigm shift. This paper applies that model to one of the most important shifts in American K–12 public education: moving away from traditional, state-controlled, monopolistic school districts and toward systems of schools marked by an array of nonprofit school providers and parental choice. Thomas Kuhn’s seminal work The Structure of Scientific Revolutions offers an approach to identifying and analyzing “paradigm shifts,” which are dramatic changes in fields or disciplines.
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