Despite periodic reform movements, the American educational system has remained essentially unchanged since about 1885, when it was established as "universal, tax-supported, free, bureaucratically organized, class-biased, and racist." Bureaucracy emerged as the dominant structure because it is the most practical method of keeping the lower orders orderly and regulating social mobility. Their failure to recognize the integral relationship between the bureaucratic organization of educational and certain class-bound values accounts for the failure of educational reformers past and present. In the various chapters, the book concentrates on the years between 1800 and 1885, which was the critical period for the formation of the American educational system. It attempts to show how and why that structure came to be and, at less length, point out the continuities throughout the past century. Chapter I presents the major organizational alternatives proposed for urban public education at a time when its structure was problematical. Chapter II complements the essentially static analysis of organizational models. The final chapter considers the proposed thesis in relation to present educational reform and concludes with a few concrete suggestions for reformers. (Author/SB)