Female Leadership, Rural School Constituencies, and the Defeat of Western Administrative Progressives, 1912-1932

Abstract

While it is argued that administrative progressives won the education reform wars, examining how their reform agenda may have shaped state, rather than local, educational structures has not been well explored. Intertwined with rural school reform was the increasing visibility of women serving as elected school leaders. Taking the case of Washington State as its focus, this study shows how female leaders and their rural constituencies significantly limited the impact of administrative progressives like Ellwood Cubberley and his followers on state education policy during the Progressive Era. Exploring how reforms proposed by administrative progressives were met with resistance by rural constituencies provides insight into the resulting administrative structure of state education policies while giving evidence of the human complexity behind system-wide education reforms. It also demonstrates the importance of expanding the discussion of Progressive Era education reforms beyond urban schools.