American schools have been credited with building American democracy. This is a myth which has been largely responsible for the resistance of today's schools to needed change. Exposing this myth are records of several major urban school systems which show the high rate of school failure among the urban poor since before 1900. These statistics have been ignored in the past in favor of maintaining the American dream, and they are particularly significant and relevant for today's largely black urban poor, who are held responsible for failing to make the same good use of the schools their predecessors did. While professing to ameliorate society's ills, the American school system has always been conservative and reflexive, serving only to maintain the status quo of American institutions under the guise of progressivism, liberalism and reformism. If the American school system is truly to help the poor and disadvantaged and act as a democratizing agent, and thus facilitate social change, it must first reexamine the historical analysis of American education with a radical rethinking of our contemporary social crisis. (SB)