One comprehensive way of viewing America's educational upheavals since WW II--without actually coming to grips with them. Ravitch (The Great School Wars, The Revisionists Revised) leads off with the barriers to federal aid to education in 1945 and for years thereafter--preeminently, fear of federal intervention. After taking note of the many ways the government and courts did intervene in the ensuing years (integration, compensatory education, open schools), she concludes: ""To the extent that the pursuit of good ends jeopardized equally valuable ends, like academic freedom, institutional autonomy, and diversity; to the extent that absorption by educators in bureaucratic practice overshadowed the educational function of the schools; and to the extent that government programs gave new responsibilities to academic institutions while depriving them of the authority needed to carry out those responsibilities, there remained a compelling agenda for educational reformers."" The reader, blinking, can only be certain that Ravitch isn't happy about what's happened--and, with one distinct exception, can't or won't say why. Early on, she reviews progressivism's ascendancy in the 1920s and '30s, and its eclipse in the late '40s--piling on evidence of its fatuities, then deriding that it died mostly of old age. There followed, after Sputnik, a brief ""pursuit of excellence""--soon, however, to be ""overshadowed by concern about the needs of the disadvantaged."" And, by the mid-1960s, ""the new progressivism burst forth."" If Ravitch disliked the old progressivism, she dislikes the new progressivism more (lots of jabs, as in The Revisionists Revised, at Kozol et al.)--but nowhere does she consider what this supposedly played-out impulse had to offer. Her chief objection to federal intervention also seems to be its support of ""innovative practices,"" its prodding of school districts ""to move away from traditional methods of teaching and learning."" Where she does speak out loud and clear, however, is in opposition to the idea that the ""middle-class bias of schools alienated poor children""--and the schools should change. (""Historically, the public schools have performed a vital socializing role, teaching children of diverse origins the skills, knowledge, and values necessary for participation in the mainstream of American society."") Withal, Ravitch has a mass of material here--of particular utility in those areas that immediately concern her, of little value on the periphery (loyalty investigations, 1960s campus unrest). And she has inarguably voiced discomforts that many share. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.