Progressive Era advocates of spelling reform argued that adopting "simplified" word forms would increase the efficiency of American schools. National education leaders and administrators sustained the movement as they discussed simplified spelling extensively in meetings of the National Education Association and state teachers' associations as well as in education journals. While emphasizing saving money and time, their arguments for spelling reform also infused social justice into social efficiency, and efficiency into child-centered pedagogy. Although leaders saw schoolteachers as the torchbearers for simplified spelling, teachers' subtle resistance undermined the movement. Teachers and the few administrators who opposed spelling reform occasionally voiced objections to efficiency itself, but their concerns about public scrutiny most influenced their opposition and thus the movement's ultimate demise. This examination of the public education sector's relationship to the simplified spelling movement illustrates the complexity of education leaders' relationship with efficiency as well as their vulnerability to teacher resistance and public censure.