"...to write now the reforming of Education, though it be one of the greatest and noblest designs that can be thought on, and for the want whereof this Nation perishes, I had not yet at this time been induc't, but by your earnest entreaties, and serious conjurements..." --John Milton, "Of Education; To Master Samuel Hartlib" (1644)

Education is ever being reformed -- a phenomenon good to recall during our current round of ferocious, even vitriolic, debates in the U.S.A. about how best to educate our young people (not to speak of our adults as formal learning ceases to be something confined to schools). No endpoint can exist, though we insist on trying to reach one by restoring a prelapsarian paradise.

In 1983, the President's National Commission on Excellence in Education issued A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform.

In 1963, Admiral Hyman Rickover's American Education: A National Failure prompted much soul-searching, and in 1955, Rudolf Flesch likewise with his Why Johnny Can't Read; And What You Can Do About It.

In 1953, Arthur Bestor launched a scathing attack on Progressive education theory in his Educational Wasteland: The Retreat From Learning In Our Public Schools.

One could go on, back through the Progressives themselves to Mann, then to Froebel, Pestalozzi and Basedow, to Locke...Erasmus, Comenius, Aquinas, and so on until we encounter the lamentations of Cato the Elder and the acuity of Aristotle. And that is only within the Eurocentric tradition--I have no doubt that all cultures pursue perfection in the education of their youth, with similar frustrations and fiercely felt urges to overthrow past attempts.

None of this should surprise us. We argue so fervently and believe so firmly in a better world because education-- and learning in all its guises -- matters to us more than almost anything else. Call it our telos. It's a question of love and empathy, which always spurs the sharpest, most keenly fought debates. So, a good thing, as long as we realize that we have been here before and will not finally resolve matters this time either.

Daniel Rabuzzi is Executive Director at Mouse .