The Struggle for the American Curriculum, 1893-1958 Book

I enjoyed this broad overview of the history of education. It identifies the primary movements and parties over the decades. It only implicitly relates them to public education today, but you can see the trends and patterns.

This book doesn't get into the specific content of the curriculum (whether certain formulas are taught, or how much time to allocate to the Revolutionary War). It's big picture.

There are pragmatic concerns and theoretical concepts in play, but at its core, there are worldview issues that really drive some of these trends:

"The question may then be raised as to why this struggle was so bitterly fought. The most immediate answer is that it was a battle for control over the forms of knowledge as well as the values that an important social institution would pass on to the next generation." (page 248, right at the end of the book).