Whatever they think of school vouchers or charter schools, teacher merit pay, or bilingual education, most educators and advocates take many other things for granted. The one-teacherûone-classroom model. The professional full-time teacher. Students grouped in age-defined grades. The nine-month calendar. Top-down local district control. All were innovative and excitingùin the nineteenth century. As Hess shows, the system hasn't changed since most Americans lived on farms and in villages, since school taught you to read, write, and do arithmetic, and since only an elite went to high school, let alone college. --