Who, or what kinds of people, have advocated it?
Lots: political conservatives who want to get “social issues” out of the curriculum, taxpayers who want to reduce their tax bills by cutting “fluff,” employers who complain they can’t find high school graduates who can read or calculate, inner-city minorities who argue that their children have been ignored or shortchanged in instruction in basic skills. Of course, these groups don’t all conceive of back to basics in the same way.
Brodinsky noted that when a school system gets a new superintendent—especially one who is young, activist and black—a dramatic shift to the basics often follows, not because of outside pressure but because that’s what the new leader wants. Ruth Love took that course when she came to Oakland, Calif., in 1975 and, to some extent, when she came to Chicago in 1981.