The early seventies were strikingly similar in some ways to the early forties. In both periods strong forces operated to reform education. These pressures arose in the main from a pervasive sense of crisis and threat to the culture. A major purpose of this study is to shed some light on the nature and impact of the forces of change that affect education. The method employed is to take an earlier corresponding period as the main point of reference. The forties thus serve as a "rear vision mirror" in the sense that an analysis of the reformist movement of those years helps create an understanding of the current landscape of education. As a result, it is easier to distinguish the familiar from the new factors at work. The analysis inevitably goes well beyond the field of education itself. Political, economic, and social factors bear heavily on education policy and price. The viability of proposed innovations is also linked with the cultural context. The advocates of structural change in the seventies enjoy a more favorable context for action than did their counterparts in the forties. The question has become not whether but how much change will take place. (Author/IRT)