Promise and Failure of Progressive Education

Norman Dale Norris is an assistant professor of education at Nicholls State University (Thibodeaux, Louisiana) where he teaches graduate courses in research, foundations, and school administration. Additionally, he continues to advocate for the arts by teaching undergraduate courses in music education.Norris has worked in public education for more than twenty years as a choral director at all levels, classroom teacher, teacher trainer, and university professor. As an passionate advocate for the performing arts he prepared many award winning choral ensembles over the years.

In his book, Norris critiques progressive theories of education and answers the question, 'How has progressive education become a caricature of what the founders intended?' He further argues that education has become so institutionalized, standardized, and alignment crazy that none of the elements of progressive education can bear fruit. Norris...goes to the heart of progressive education's development and shows how it was misinterpreted and taken to extremes. He analyzes the practices of some school systems relative to the true tenets of progressive education and notes that several influential governing agencies have skewed their ideals in a progressive direction with no consideration for any other approach. Norris analyzes why claims regarding the superiority of progressive education have not been borne out by the actual results. He examines various societal and sociological phenomena that progressive education claims to 'fix.'?explores the idea of schools (and progressive education) as a tool for social reform and compares the social problems of a century ago to those of today; [and]?discusses what must happen if progressive education is to survive and perform as promised.