Barbara Cervone · Work & Publications · Personal Writing · Progressive Education
The progressive education movement has been the water in which I have swum for five decades: centering student voice, real-world learning, and strong relationships; prioritizing critical thinking, agency, and purpose over rote instruction. My career has traced the arc of this movement: founding alternative high schools in the 1970s, supporting school innovation through the Rhode Island Foundation in the 1980s, coordinating the largest private investment in American public education in the 1990s, and creating What Kids Can Do to elevate youth voice in the 2000s.
What follows are notes on the broader movement in which my work took shape.
For those interested in a deeper dive, I’ve included links throughout to sources with which I am most familiar.
The intellectual lineage of progressive schools extends back to the late 19th and early 20th centuries. John Dewey (1859–1952) is often considered the founder of American progressive education, championing democratic learning environments and hands-on, experiential curricula. Yet Dewey was far from alone. Francis Parker, called the “father of progressive education” before Dewey, pioneered child-centered instruction in the late 1800s. Maria Montessori and Rudolf Steiner shaped alternatives to conventional pedagogy from Italy and Germany. And Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1968) introduced critical, dialogic frameworks that resonated deeply with social justice–minded American educators.
By the 1960s, the Civil Rights Movement and countercultural currents fueled renewed interest in schools as sites of social transformation. Grassroots “freedom schools” emerged in the South, while experimental “free schools” appeared in multiple regions. Though many were short-lived, they provided the seeds for a new generation of public-school innovators.
The 1970s marked a dynamic period for rethinking American public schools. Disillusionment with rigid, bureaucratic curricula and a desire for more human-scale institutions led pioneering educators to create small, alternative schools within — or adjacent to — traditional public systems.
“Open Classrooms” reorganized physical spaces to encourage collaborative, free-form learning rather than desk-bound rows. “Schools Without Walls” allowed students to use the city as a classroom, partnering with museums, workplaces, and local groups. “Community Control Movements,” like those in New York City’s Ocean Hill–Brownsville, gave localized boards authority over schools, influencing how educators responded to community needs.
These locally driven, teacher-led reforms formed the nucleus of a larger movement. The National Diffusion Network (1974–1995) was the first federally sponsored effort to identify and spread innovative education programs to America’s schools. (As a leader in the National Diffusion Network, I founded a network of alternative high schools in eight states in the 1970s.)
Across five decades, the movement’s schools shared a set of core commitments — even when they looked very different from one another.
Small, community-centered schools. Progressive reformers believed that large, impersonal schools undermine meaningful relationships. Small schools — often enrolling a few hundred students — could promote close teacher-student bonds, create individualized programs, and engage families in genuine collaboration.
Democratic and student-centered learning. Building on Dewey’s vision, these schools emphasized shared governance. Teachers, students, and parents collaborated in decisions about curriculum, assessment, and daily operations — through weekly community meetings, student committees, and teacher autonomy over what happened in the classroom.
Relationships as a cornerstone. In lieu of the “sage on the stage” model, progressive educators nurtured close relationships through advisory systems that paired small groups of students with a dedicated faculty advisor for multiple years, one-on-one conferencing focused on academic and social-emotional growth, and team teaching that modeled cooperative learning for students.
Project-based and experiential learning. These schools moved away from memorization and standardized testing, favoring hands-on, interdisciplinary projects. Students explored local environmental or social issues, engaged in real-world problem-solving through community partnerships, and presented portfolio exhibitions showcasing their mastery over time.
Equity and social justice. While some early progressive schools served predominantly white, middle-class populations, by the 1980s and 1990s there was a deliberate shift toward serving marginalized communities — emphasizing culturally responsive curricula, addressing power and privilege in the classroom, and developing leadership pathways for educators of color.
Theodore “Ted” Sizer, former dean at Harvard Graduate School of Education, wrote Horace’s Compromise (1984), criticizing American high schools for being impersonal and compliance-driven. He founded the Coalition of Essential Schools (CES), a nationwide network based on 10 Common Principles that championed depth over breadth, personalization, and democratic practice.
A champion of child-centered, inquiry-based learning, Deborah Meier founded Central Park East Elementary School in East Harlem in 1974. Her landmark book, The Power of Their Ideas (1995), illustrates how portfolio-based assessments, family engagement in school governance, and teacher autonomy can transform a school. She later established the Mission Hill School in Boston, continuing her focus on multi-grade classrooms and democratic structures.
In the 1990s, Dennis Littky and Elliot Washor co-founded The Met School in Providence, RI, developing the Big Picture Learning network. Littky’s model — interest-driven internships, small advisory groups, public exhibitions as assessment — illustrated how deeply personalized learning can thrive within a public-school context.
George Wood, an early Coalition of Essential Schools member, advocated teacher leadership and democratic governance. Linda Nathan, founding headmaster of the Boston Arts Academy, integrated progressive pedagogy with the arts. Michelle Fine, distinguished professor at the City University of New York, centered equity and student voice in her research on participatory action with urban youth. Michael Klonsky led the Small Schools Workshop in Chicago, guiding the conversion of large high schools into more intimate units. These figures, alongside countless teacher-activists, formed the grassroots engine that kept progressive ideals alive and evolving.
Central Park East (1974) sparked national attention by succeeding in a low-income, urban district historically characterized by high dropout rates. Collaborative teacher teams designed curriculum without standardized scripts. Performance-based assessments replaced traditional testing. Leadership was often shared or rotated. High graduation rates, high college attendance, and strong family-community ties fueled the replication of “East Harlem small schools.”
At High Tech High (2000) in San Diego, project-based learning joined design thinking.
The first International High School (1985) in New York City offered a school for newly arrived immigrants built around real-world learning.
At The Met (1996) in Providence, students devoted two days a week to internships aligned with personal passions, participated in advisories, and presented portfolio-based exhibitions.
The K-8 Mission Hill School (1997) in Boston featured child-centered inquiry with thematic units shaped by student interests, multi-grade classrooms, and collective decision-making involving teachers, families, and students.
Urban Academy (1986) in New York focused on inquiry, critical thinking, and problem-solving. It championed portfolio-based graduation, waived from most Regents exams.
Teacher-led initiatives underpinned the movement. Teacher Inquiry Groups and regional workshops helped educators share successes, troubleshoot, and build partnerships. These decentralized, peer-driven structures sustained reform on the ground.
Philanthropy played an amplifying role. Grants from Annenberg, Gates, and other foundations helped schools pilot new designs, invest in professional development, and document what worked.
The most important ingredient in sustaining and expanding the movement, however, were the school networks it engendered (still the case today). These networks connected and supported educators, advanced progressive pedagogy, promoted equity and democracy, supported professional development and resources, and shaped school culture.
For years, the Coalition of Essential Schools, formed in 1984, was the premiere network. It united hundreds of schools — urban, suburban, and rural — under principles like “Less Is More” and “Student-as-Worker, Teacher-as-Coach.” Its annual Fall Forums drew thousands of educators to share strategies and research.
Other networks followed, with the largest including: Aspire Public Schools, Big Picture Learning, Expeditionary Learning, Internationals Network for Public Schools, New Tech Network, and New Visions for Public Schools.
Regional hubs kept the energy concentrated. New York City’s District 4 in East Harlem incubated numerous small schools. Chicago hosted a strong small-schools movement supported by local universities. The Bay Area School Reform Collaborative linked progressive educators across Northern California. Boston developed pilot schools with district-approved autonomy.
Founded by Milwaukee public-school teachers, Rethinking Schools became a magazine and publishing house promoting social justice education — teacher-authored articles, lesson plans addressing race and class, and advocacy for grassroots reform.
Edutopia, backed by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, showcased innovative schools via video and online resources, introducing progressive concepts to a broad audience.
The Small Schools Workshop in Chicago, led by Michael Klonsky, provided technical assistance for converting large schools into smaller units, alongside governance training and local conferences.
Other organizations that carried the work forward included the Small Schools Coalition and the National Writing Project.
Between 1990 and the early 2000s, philanthropic interest and grassroots energy coalesced. Urban districts with high dropout rates looked to innovative, small-school models for solutions. The most ambitious effort was Walter H. Annenberg’s $500 million Challenge to reform American public education — the largest private initiative of its kind in the nation’s history. (Annenberg required that its grants be matched 2 to 1 by local foundations yielding a pool of close to $1.5 billion.) From 1994 to 2000, the Annenberg Challenge stimulated large-scale reform in the country’s ten largest school districts, along with a national initiative connecting rural schools with their communities. Alongside Annenberg, the Gates Foundation and other philanthropies further accelerated the movement.
The CES Fall Forum drew thousands of educators each year. Widely publicized successes — Central Park East, The Met — helped shift public perception of progressive methods from “alternative” to viable. Media profiles highlighted improved engagement, college acceptance rates, and positive community relationships.
The movement faced real headwinds. The 1990s saw significant growth in standardized testing and standards-based reform (e.g., from the 1980s), creating a conflict with the performance-based, qualitative assessments that progressive schools championed. Small schools often relied on grant funding, and when grants ended, maintaining staffing and programming became a struggle. District bureaucracies could limit scheduling autonomy, curtailing the very practices that made these schools distinctive.
In addition, while some areas of instruction were influenced by progressive ideas, the latter part of the decade saw this influence diminish due to federal and state accountability legislation focusing on basic skills.
Questions of equity ran through the movement’s history. Early iterations were criticized for insufficient attention to racial justice and cultural relevance. Over time, more educators of color emerged as leaders, though disparities persisted.
And there was competition for attention. The growth of charter schools and corporate-driven reforms overshadowed progressive approaches — even though some charters embraced progressive designs. Despite these challenges, many progressive schools adapted, merging district requirements with innovative practices like portfolios and advisories.
Even as the “golden era” waned in the late 2000s, the movement left an indelible mark. Student-centered learning is now a staple in education discourse. Distributed leadership — teachers as co-leaders — is increasingly common. Professional learning communities, originally a cornerstone of progressive practice, have found a place in some mainstream schools. Networks like Big Picture Learning, Expeditionary Learning, New Tech Network continue to prove the viability of alternative models.
Calls for flexible, personalized, and community-driven schooling — especially in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic — echo the core principles of the progressive reformers who shaped this half-century. The movement’s pedagogical ideals — relationships, personalization, experiential inquiry — remain a living blueprint for educators and communities committed to more caring, rigorous, and equitable learning environments.